Effect of enabling and coercive bureaucracies and of perceived organizational support during the pandemic on teachers’ intention to leave the profession

Abstract

This study examined the effects of enabling and coercive bureaucracies of the government education authority (GEA), and perceived organizational support during the pandemic on teachers’ intention to leave the profession in Israel. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 267 Israeli public school teachers (80% women). I used a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses to examine the differential effects of GEA and school-level factors on teachers’ intention to leave the profession, and explored a path model in which school-level factors mediated the effects of GEA. The results indicated that the enabling GEA bureaucratic structure and perceived organizational support during the pandemic negatively predicted teachers’ inclination to leave, whereas its coercive bureaucratic structure positively predicted teachers’ inclination to leave. In addition, the analyses showed that perceived organizational support during the pandemic had the greatest influence on intention to leave, and that the extent of this influence cancelled out and overcame the negative effect of the coercive bureaucratic structure of GEA. Furthermore, the path model indicated that perceived organizational support partially mediated the effects of GEA on teachers’ inclination to leave.