The Impact of the Perception of Organizational Virtue on the Perception of Organizational Happiness in Educational Organizations

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of organizational virtue perceived by of the employees of educational organizations on the perceived organizational happiness at schools which is their work places. Data collection was conducted through the ”Organizational Virute" (OVS) and "School Organizational Happiness" (SOHS) scales from a group of teachers (N = 242) working at elementary schools. The OVS, used to collect data at the study, has three sub-dimensions as "Optimism, Trust and grace, Integrity and forgiveness" while the SOHS has five sub-dimensions as "Management processes, Professional attitude, Workplace communication, Devotion and Economic conditions". Results of the correlation tests showed that there is positive associations that are mostly at medium and high levels between all sub dimensions of the OV scale and all sub-dimensions of the SOH scale. Results of the multiple regression analysis demonstrated that some of the sub-dimensions of the SOH scale estimate certain sub-dimensions of the OVS except for the "economic conditions" subdimension: The "Optimism" sub-dimension of the OVS estimates the "Trust and Grace" subdimension, "Professional attitude" estimates "Communication" whereas the "Honesty and forgiveness" sub-dimension estimates the "Management processes, Professional attitude and Devotion" subdimensions. The constant values calculated by the multiple regression analysis for all sub-dimensions are significant indicates that other factors than organizational virtue, that are not covered by this study, also have certain impacts on school organizational happiness.


Introduction
The definition of organization at the Business Dictionary is as follows: Organization "is a social unit structured and managed for achieving collective goals or for meeting needs." All organizations have "management structures that determine the relations between its activities and members". Organization management, "subdivides the roles, responsibilities and authorities to fulfill the tasks belonging to the organization and charges its to its employees.". (Business Dictionary). As a matter of fact, the English word organization which used as equivalent for the Turkish word örgüt etymologically grounds on the Greek word "organon" which means body "organ". Then, the employees of an organization are the organization's organs and they are in mutually vital relationships.
Organizations are institutions created by humans and they play a big role in the lives of people (Uysal, 2014). The sustainability of an organization can only be achieved as long as the employees act in line with their duties and responsibilities (Ertekin, 2017). In that case, in the organic link established between the organization and the employee, namely the human, happiness and virtue that pertain to humans should be discussed and brought forward at organizational level.

Organizational Virtue
Virtue is, "character excellence, moral goodness, unconditional social improvement" (Bright, Cameron & Caza, 2006). These are the features pertaining to the universal ethical dimension of human practice that support the collective welfare and are free from culture and time (Lambek, 2008). These features are considered a matter of principle and are welcomed. In other words, while value reflects what is acceptable in terms of culture and "our subjective interpretation that we attribute to phenomena", virtue refers to universal truth that are individual, yet, reason-made and are belong to humans (Holinger, 1994, Trans. 2005. In Organizational life, value generally refers to norms that belong to the organizational culture and accepted (or appreciated) by the organization (Schein, 1985). Although values are often considered "moral compass" for the organization, help for the identification of job outputs, job behaviors, workplace values, limits and rules as a part of organizational culture and are a part of organizational goals (Hoy ve Miskel, 1998, Trans. 2010 167), all that is considered a value for the organization may not necessarily be virtuous. Although the concepts of virtue and value are generally used as synonyms, there is a difference between the two: While virtues are experienced, put into practice and applied in every situation, values are generally the goals that are yearned and hoped to be achieved (Manz, Cameron, Manz & Marx, 2006). Thus, if value is the goal, virtue can be considered the legitimate way leading there.
Virtue provides a satisfactory and beautiful life, a meaningful life goal (Becker, 1992), reason for living (Eisenberg, 1990), emancipation from uncertainty and anxiety (Weiner, 1993, p.127); and all these bring about having a meaningful life and resilience in coping with sufferings while gaining happiness and health to the individual (Myers, 2000;Ryff & Singer, 1998). In terms of organizations, virtue is their desire to maximize what their employees can achieve. Organizational virtue, on the other hand, is the adoption of virtuousness by all members of an organization, and the members' behaving virtuously in their individual or common behaviors (Eşkin Bacaksız, 2016). Organizational virtue entails all members of the organization to be interested in all sorts of events in the organization, take responsibility and attend all concerted activities (Çınar, 2000;Cited by Kaynak, 2007). This makes a positive effect on the job performance of an individual , prevents the formation of any negativity in the organization (Erkmen & Esen, 2012). It provides profit, recognition and reputation to the organization (Fernando & Almeida, 2012). It has been observed that performance and organizational citizenship behaviors of the employees are enhanced in parallel with the virtuous behavior they are subject to (manager virtue) (Eşkin Bacaksız, 2016;Graham & Van Dyne, 2006).
Hence, it can be thought that organizational virtue contributes/will contribute to the formation of several positive qualities in organizations.
Virtue is related to what individuals and organizations desire to be when they become the best ). An organization with a higher level of virtue is more successful. It can better cope with the problems (Durmuş & Ünal, 2017). Organizational virtue is all about the qualities such as organizational wellness, social development, tolerance, honesty and moral well-being and it contributes to the improvement of organizational culture and communication (Çelik & Telman, 2013, pp.225-226). Caza, Barker and Cameron (2004) underline the fact that virtue, together with ethical behaviors, makes buffering and amplifying effects in organizations. Employees of an organization adopting virtuousness work in an honest, understanding and tolerant environment. This makes them feel more respectable (Tsachouridi & Nikandrou, 2016;Akbolat, Durmuş & Ünal, 2017).
Organization managers' virtuous behaviors against employees enhances their performance and stimulate them to generate new ideas, and contributes them to better use their skills to fulfill organizational goals (Bertland, 2009; cited by Akbolat, Durmuş & Ünal, 2017). Therefore, it can be argued that both virtuous behaviors of employees and their being subject to virtuous behaviors make positive contributions to the organizational environment as well as performance of the organization.

Organizational Happiness
All individuals within the community want to be happy and happiness is seen as a crucial goal in the community (Diener, 2000; cited by Arslan & Polat, 2017). People have tried to understand, define and acquire happiness since their existence. Indeed, philosophers, theologians, psychologists and even economists have long been working to define happiness. Positive psychology, a branch of psychology since the 1990s, is a science field that tries to render happiness both permanent and prevalent (Peterson & Seligman, 2004, p. 4). Beyond being a mere mood, happiness is a state of wellbeing, which incorporates a good life (i.e a sense of meaning and deep satisfaction) (Kangal, 2013). Diener (1984) explains happiness as experiencing more positive than negative mood and as having satisfaction (cited by Sapmaz & Doğan, 2012). In general, happiness is a biological and psychological state that varies from person to person and leads them to be pleased with their lives depending on the material and spiritual satisfaction that they ask for and strive for achieving throughout their lives (Aluş & Selçukkaya, 2015). Happiness is a product of a life indicating good life. The happiness that currently is the basis (core) of social science research, on the other hand, is the subjective indicator of well-being and wellness in all sorts of relationships established with others (spouse, business, citizenship...). Myers and Diener (1995) state that one's "relationships, work experience, culture and religiousness manifest hints" of his/her wellness. Hence, work place relations contain factors affecting one's happiness.
The hedonic take on happiness views it as a product/sum of pleasant emotions and positive judgements. Happiness is related to the presence of life satisfaction and positive mood. "it is the sum of past, present and future pleasures" (Türkeri, 2017, p.30). Eudaimonic approach, on the other hand, operationalizes happiness with virtue and views it as doing what is morally right and is meaningful and right for oneself (Ryan & Deci 2001;Ryff & Singer 2008). According to Maenapothi (2007), organizational happiness refers to positive situations at the work place where the employees are happy while working, their productivity is enhanced and both employees and the organization reach the planned targets (Cited by Güner & Çetinkaya Bozkurt, 2017). While the Hedonic view relates organizational happiness (workplace happiness) with the sense or judgement of being happy or unhappy with the job, according to the eudaimonic perspective, workplace happiness is associated with self-validation and self-actualization (Fisher, 2010). Since integrity, mutual respect, compassion and forgiveness culture come forward in organizations where organizational virtue is stimulated, employees of such organizations will more easily realize self-validation and self-actualization and reach their targets, and thus, their happiness will be ensured. As a matter of fact, a job is not all about earning money, but at the same time, doing a job brings about pride, satisfaction, success, being beneficial to the society through the job performed, namely opportunities to be happy (Türkay, 2015).
Workplace happiness and its extent is a subject matter that management science has been working on since the 1930s. The impact of organizational happiness, which is defined as the wellbeing of the employee from an organizational standpoint, on productivity, loyalty, job satisfaction, emotional commitment, job performance and employee welfare and has been studied since the 1930s and its positive effects have been found (Atkinson & Hall, 2011;Cameron, Bright & Caza, 2006;Chun, 2009;Işık, Çetinkaya & Işık, 2015;İşcan & Sayın, 2010;Sonmezer & Eryaman, 2008;Terzi, 2017;Zelenski, Murphy & Jenkins, 2008…). By the same token, organizational happiness have crucially positive impacts on other job-related indicators such as customer satisfaction, profitability, employee turnover and absenteeism (Güner & Bozkurt, 2017;Robertson & Cooper, 2011;Sisley, the functional activities that will take the employees to the goals of the organization and render them successful (Arslan & Polat, 2017;Bulut, 2015;İşcan & Sayın, 2010).
Given competition among organizations, it is inevitable for organizations to mobilize all elements that will enhance their employees' performance in order to establish superiority (Cankül, Kılıç & Doğantekin, 2018). If organizational happiness positively affects job performance and work place relations, and if one of the main sources of organizational happiness is the virtuous behaviors of its employees; it is thought that the impact of organizational virtue on organizational happiness should be studied in educational organizations, that are expected to exhibit ethical, in other words, virtuous behaviors to the greatest extent.

Method
In this study, quantitative research method was administered in order to verify the impact of organizational virtue on organizational happiness and a survey was conducted for this purpose. The survey method, which is used more in social sciences, is a broadly-participated type of research in which opinions or attitudes of people on a certain phenomenon or event are collected through a scale or questionnaire (Karakaya, 2014).

Study Group
The population of the study consists of teachers working at the basic education (preschool, primary school, elementary school) schools of Giresun province as of the 2017-2018 academic year (N = 3377). Since it was not possible to reach all teachers in the study, sampling was applied and stratified sampling method was adopted to represent the population. Cochran's (1962, cited by Balcı, 2004, p. 95) formula for calculating stratified sample size was used in the calculation of the size of sample representing the population and the tolerance level was taken as.05, the confidence level was taken as 1.96. In this context, it was calculated that the population selected within the scope of the study can be represented with 357 people. A total of 450 questionnaire forms were sent to the field to ensure a sufficient response rate. However, since 242 volunteers filled in the survey, the study was completed with the data collected from this study group of 242 people.

Data Collection Tools
In the study, a survey questionnaire that consists of three parts was prepared to identify the impact of teachers' perceived level of organizational virtue on their perceived organizational happiness. In the first part of the survey, a personal information form created by the authors including questions related to participants' gender, seniority, duration of service at the current institution, type of current school and tenure state was used to collect demographic information; in the second and third parts the Organizational Virtue Scale and Organizational Happiness Scale were used respectively. Details related to the scales both of which are of Likert-type are presented below.

Organizational Virtue Scale (OVS):
The scale, which was developed by  and was adapted to Turkish by Erkmen and Esen (2012), has 15 items. The original form of the scale involves five sub-dimensions as: optimism trust, compassion, integrity and forgiveness.
The Optimism dimension indicates the faith of the members of an organization in doing good things and being successful even if they encounter challenges; The Trust dimension indicates the respect, reliance held for and grace exhibited to the organization and its members; The Compassion dimension indicates individuals' taking care of and behaving merciful to one another; The Integrity dimension indicates dignity and truthfulness; The Forgiveness dimension, indicates the perception that mistakes can be forgiven and be viewed as opportunities . Optimism, trust, compassion, integrity and forgiveness are considered positive deviation situations in organizations (Çelik and Telman, 2013, p. 225). However, Erkmen and Esen (2012) who adapted the survey questionnaire to Turkish culture found that the survey demonstrates a three-dimensional structure in Turkish culture. These sub-dimensions are: Integrity and forgiveness, Trust and grace, and Optimism. Erkmen and Esen (2012) completed the adaptation of the OVS with a group of participants from education, banking and health sectors. These scholars found that the internal consistency value for the entire scale was .944; and when it comes to the sub-dimensions, the values were .927 for integrity and forgiveness; .869 for trust and grace and .819 for optimism. The internal consistency values for this study are .966, .887, .879 and .955 respectively. Reliability coefficients between .70 and.90 are considered "high reliability" for scales (Özdamar, 2013, p. 555). Bulut (2015). The "high", .69 and .40 are considered "medium" level for scales (Özdamar, 2013, p. 555).

Data Analyses
SPSS v23 and STATA statistical programs were used for the data analyses in the study. The normality assumption was checked for the data to investigate the impact of organizational virtue perceived by educational organization employees at schools which is their workplaces, on their level of perceived organizational happiness, however, the first round of analyses (the screening of closeness of the mean, median and mode values to each other, and of whether the division of the curtosis and skewness values by their standard errors falls within the range of ± 1.96) run on the dataset showed that the normality requirement was not met in this dataset. The dataset was re-screened and it was found that the responses of 11 participants involved outliers. These outliers were depicted from the dataset. Thus, the analyses were run with the responses of 231 participants.

Findings
When the demographic characteristics of the participants were examined, the teachers in the sample were mostly male (52.5%), teaching for 21 years and over (35.5%), at elementary schools (50.8%) working with 41 to 60 people ( 52.9%) and working at the same school for 2 to 5 years (33.1%).
The results of Pearson Correlation Coefficient analyses run between the sub-dimensions of the OVS and the SOHS are presented in Table 1. The sub-dimensions of the OVS exhibit the highest correlations between each other and the scale total. The "optimism" sub-dimension of organizational virtue has high correlations with the "Virtue Total" (r =.862, p<. 01) and "Integrity and Forgiveness", another sub dimension of organizational virtue, (r =. 771, p < .01); and medium level correlation with the "Trust and grace" subdimension (r = .695, p< .01), the "Optimism" sub-dimension has medium level correlations with the "Management" (r=.677, p<.01), "Professional Attitude" (r=.586, p<.01), "Communication" (r=.567, p<.01), "Devotion" (r=.410, p<.01) sub-dimensions of the SOHS while it has a weak correlation with the "Economic conditions" sub-dimension (r= .174, p< .01).
Whether the participants' opinions on organizational virtue significantly estimate their opinions on organizational happiness was also analyzed in the study. The following formulas were tested in a single analysis with multivariate regression. The result of the analysis is summarized in Table 2. Given the "F" statistics of the ANOVA and their p values in Table 2, the regression models established for the five sub-dimensions of the organizational happiness scale were found to be significant (p< .05). Therefore, it was concluded that the regression models were appropriate and the impacts of estimators could be analyzed.
It is seen that the constant term was significant for the "Management, Professional attitude, Communication and Devotion" sub-dimensions of the Organizational Happiness Scale; moreover, only the constant term is significant for the "Economical conditions" sub-dimension (p < .05). This situation can be interpreted as, other variables that are not included in the model have impacts on the "Management, Professional attitude, Communication and Devotion" sub-dimensions of the Organizational Happiness Scale.
The "Integrity and forgiveness" sub-dimension of Organizational Virtue is the significant estimator of the "Management and Devotion" sub-dimensions of Organizational Happiness; the "Optimism" and "Integrity and forgiveness" sub-dimensions are the significant estimators of the "Professional attitude" sub-dimension of Organizational Happiness; and the "Trust and grace" and "Integrity and forgiveness" sub-dimensions are the significant estimators of the "communication" subdimension of Organizational Happiness (p < .05).

Conclusion and Discussion
According to Atatürk, teachers are the architects of the new generation and they guide the society (Orakçı & Toraman, 2018). According to Claparede, "The most important virtue of the teacher is not to be very knowledgeable but to be enthusiastic." (cited by Akyüz, 1983, p.16). Avicenna stresses that teachers should be people who do not conform to the wishes of their egos, avoid excessive anger, greed and ambition and are fearless (Cited by Özkan, 2005). In the profession of teaching where virtue is accepted as an ethical principle, Sockett (1993) states that being "fair, honest, bold, wise and caring" are the core virtues of teaching practices. Teachers working at virtuous organizations, i.e, in an honest, tolerant and understanding environments, are expected to bear more positive feelings for their organizations. As a result of this, members of virtuous organizations were seen to be happier. Indeed, the results of this study show that there are positive associations between organizational virtue and organizational happiness in educational organizations. Given these associations, which are mostly medium or high level, while there is a medium level relationship between the economic conditions sub-dimension of organizational happiness and the aggregate organizational happiness variable, it has a weak association with the aggregate organizational virtue variable. Bulut (2015) found negative association between economic conditions and organizational happiness in the study exploring the factors related to organizational happiness among teachers in Turkey. Obviously, the "wage and fringe benefits" factor that takes place in the list of elements that provide job satisfaction prepared by Spector (1997; cited by Adıgüzel & Keklik, 2011) is merely weakly associated with organizational happiness of teachers in Turkey. In Turkey, teachers working at schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education are employed as either tenured civil servants or contracted employees, or hired temporarily on course fee; the teachers who are tenured civil servants earn a permanent salary and have certain employee personal rights (health insurance, social benefits, retirement etc...) Teacher salaries are determined and paid pursuant to the criteria proposed by the civil servants Act (1965) in the country. Income from teaching in Turkey, is lower than the income from work the same work in many other countries in the world (Malta Union of Teachers, 2008, Cited by Göker & Gündüz, 2017). Results of this study show that economic conditions which is a sub-dimension of organizational happiness has a weak association with perceived organizational virtue in educational organizations and that none of the sub-dimensions of organizational virtue is an estimator of economic conditions as a sub-dimension of organizational happiness.
According to the results of the study: the "optimism sub-dimension of organizational virtue which indicates the faith of the members of an organization in doing good things and being successful despite they confront with challenges, has a medium level association with all sub-dimensions of organizational happiness except for economic conditions. "Optimism" "is also an estimator of the "Professional attitude" sub-dimension of organizational happiness. Results of Sapmaz and Dogan's (2012) study also show that optimism is an estimator of happiness and life satisfaction among a group of university students. Chun (2009) found strong associations between the perceived empathy, warmness and conscientiousness and job commitment, perceived job security, satisfaction and emotional commitment among employees. The scholar especially recommends strengthening the virtues of empathy and warmness that are the key elements of emotional commitment to the organization.
The "Trust and grace" sub-dimension of organizational virtue that indicates the respect, trust and caring shown to the organization and its members, has medium-level associations with the "Management, Professional attitude, Communication and Devotion" sub-dimensions and a low-level association with the "economic conditions" sub-division; and it is an estimator of the "Communication" sub-division. This result of the study shows that the virtuous behaviors that are based on trust and grace enhance the communication in the organization and this, then, affects organizational happiness in educational organizations. Study results of Kırık and Sönmez (2017) show that the concepts of communication and happiness have a mutual relationship. Trust is positively associated with perceived justice and job satisfaction in an organization (İşcan & Sayın, 2010). In educational organizations, trust bolsters sensitivity, communication and openness to innovation amongst teachers (Memduhoğlu & Zengin, 2011).
The "Integrity and forgiveness" sub-dimension of organizational virtue that refers to dignity, righteousness, toleration of mistakes and the perception that mistakes can be utilized as opportunities is an estimator of the "Management processes, Professional attitude and Devotion" sub-dimensions of organizational happiness. Akbolat, Durmuş and Önal's (2017) study results analyzing the "impact of authentic leadership in the impact of organizational virtue on employee empowerment" show that organizational virtue makes positive contributions to employees in "employee empowerment, which refers to designating authority, power and responsibility to the employees and allowing them to freely express their opinions". These results are supported by the study results of Işık, Çetinkaya and Işık (2017) on a group of female employees who work in accommodation facilities. The results of Janssen's (2004) study on teachers, on the other hand, show that disputes between teachers and their managers spread to their relationships with other teachers and such an interaction affects the organizational commitment of the teacher.
Comeron (2003) states that in a continuum indicating the differences between social science phenomena, the negative deviations of health, effectiveness, helpfulness, and ethics manifest themselves as illness, ineffectiveness, harmfulness and unethical behaviors whereas the positive deviations of these phenomena are wellness, excellence, honoring and virtuousness respectively (p. 53, cited by Bright, Cameron & Caza, 2006). In sum, virtuous behaviors are positive deviations of ethical behaviors. Van Nuland (2009) categorizes the principles of professional ethics in terms of the teaching profession into two as regulatory, i.e,. deontological, and aspirational principles. While the regulatory principles involve situations the borders of which are determined by professional ethics and that entail penalty or professional exclusion unless abided by (Banks, 2003), the aspirational principles give inspiration to the employees so that they can fulfill their professional ideals (i.e., fairness, justice, righteousness) (Foster, 2012). In that case, virtue, in terms of educational organizations, is the source of inspiration for the realization of the ideals of the teaching profession. The results of this study show that management of the perceived integrity, forgiving, assuring, kind and optimistic attitudes in educational organizations affect professional attitudes, commitment to the profession and communication, and renders teachers happy at their work. The fact that the constant values calculated by the multiple regression analysis for all sub-dimensions are significant indicates that other factors than organizational virtue, that are not covered by this study, also have certain impact on school organizational happiness and that these should be explored as well.