Administrators’ Power Usage Styles and Their Impact on the Organizational Culture in Colleges of Education: A Case Study

Özet

The main purpose of this study is to determine how power usage styles of administrators of faculties of educationinfluence the organizational culture in their respective faculties in Turkey. Using the phenomenological method,a qualitative research method, researchers studied a group comprised of 20 academics from 7 differentcolleges of education employed during the 2011-2012 academic year. In order to select the appropriate studygroup, maximum variation technique was used since it is one of the purposive sampling methods. The datawere gathered using semi- structured interview questions developed by the researchers themselves and wereanalyzed using descriptive statistical techniques. In this study, it was found that while the administrators of thisgroup mostly used legal, coercive, and reward power styles, charismatic and expertise power styles did nothave a significant impact on members of their respective faculties. It was further found that administrators’usage of legal, coercive, and reward power styles bread both organizational cultures of power and bureaucracy.It was concluded that, due to the lack of charismatic and expertise power styles, cultures of success andsupport are unable to flourish in such faculties and that there are even difficulties in setting up a fully functionalbureaucratic culture. As a result of this study, the researchers have suggested that in order to develop anorganizational culture with all of its necessary components in faculties of education, administrators should beassigned through democratic selection methods, that they be trained in administrators training programs, andthat a peer mentoring system should be developed in faculties of education.