Investigating the Relationship between Organizational Dissent and Life Satisfaction

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between organizational dissent and life satisfaction perceptions of public primary school teachers. This research is a descriptive study in relational survey model. The sample consists of randomly chosen 200 primary school teachers who are working in Diyarbakır city center during the 2013-2014 academic year. “Organizational Dissent Scale” which is developed by Kassing (2000) and adapted from English to Turkish by Dağlı (2015) and “Life Satisfaction Scale” developed by Diener, Emmons, Larsen and Griffin (1985) and adapted from English to Turkish by Dağlı and Baysal (2016) were used for collecting data. As for the results of the research, it is found that according to the gender there is significant difference in the dimension of “upward dissent” and for the union membership, monthly income significant difference was found in “lateral dissent” dimension among the perceptions of teachers. Another finding of the study is that teachers are dissenting “highly” in “upward” and “lateral” dissent dimensions and there is a significant, low, negative relationship between teachers’ dissent and life satisfaction perceptions [r=-,181 (p=0,010)].


Introduction
Dissent is defined as "being against an attitude, idea or behavior" [1]. Dissent occurs when a triggering event is beyond an individual's endurance limits [2]. Although there are many definitions available in literature, the outstanding features can be grouped into five titles. These are; (i) the dissent arise as a result of dissatisfaction with current situation, (ii) when someone has opposite views with status quo and has to take a defending position, (iii) when overt protesting and opposition is needed, (iv) someone has hostile feelings, (v) mainly comprise of principle related issues [3]. Individuals can dissent to managers for their decisions and practices of management. Dissent has an important role for protecting the individual rights and freedom as long as it doesn't contain violence and destructive insult. It can occur when the ideal manager features are non-existent [4].
Redding [2] argues that the dissent can stem from many sources. The most important of these is the poorly given decisions of the organization's managers. Those decisions can be unethical or against the law as well as being unproductive, useless or in a manner which teases the members. Hegstrom [5] denotes that the duties, responsibilities of the members and discrimination for some individuals can cause dissent in organizations.
Organizational dissent is defined as voicing the opposite views and conflicts within organization [3]. Defined as the explaining the opposite views or disagreement with the organizations' practices or policies, organizational dissent starts with a triggering event [6,3].This triggering event forces the members to explain and share their counter views regarding the system and policies [7]. Before voicing the displeasure members of the organization need to perceive the problem and they need to treat it as worth intervening [6]. Organizational dissent is also very important with regard that it contributes to the development of democracy within organization besides discussing the problems which are likely to occur [8].
1. Upward/Upward Dissent: It occurs when the members of the organization explain their opposing views to the individuals which can affect the power relations in organization. Upward dissent includes expressing disagreement or contradictory opinions to the managers directly [9,8,10,11,12,13].
2. Lateral Dissent: It occurs when employees express disagreement or contradictory opinions to their co-workers who have no role in power relations in organization [9].
3. Displaced Dissent: This kind of dissent emerges when the members of the organization express disagreement with non-work friends, family and partners [3,9,14]. Life satisfaction is one of the main factors for people to be happy and makes sense of life. It attracted attention of researchers for many years. Life satisfaction defined as a case or conclusion which someone draws by comparing the expectations with the ones he/she has in life [15], a positive evaluation of his life according to the self-determined criteria and an important factor for a comprehensive happiness [16], a sum of all his faith and judgments about life or general attitude about his life [17]. Shin and Johnson (1978) define life satisfaction as an individual's self-evaluation of life based on his own standards. It can also be defined as the degree of positive development in life quality as a whole [18].
Being satisfied with life is not limited to a certain part of life but rather it is a comprehensive positive evaluation of life, so being happy with the job does not upward that the person is happy with the life. Job satisfaction can foster life satisfaction but cannot replace it. The object of life satisfaction is all area of life [19]. When the positive judgments of an individual regarding the life are higher than the negative ones it shows that the person's life quality is high [20]. Diener [21] denotes that life satisfaction has a dynamic structure which can vary according to the current life circumstances and personal standards.
Life satisfaction (Schmitter, 2003) can be affected by many factors. Happiness in daily life, meanings attributed to life, adaptation to reaching aims, positive personal identity, feeling good physically, finance, security and social relations are among them [22]. Social relations represent an important area which is strongly related with life satisfaction. The underlying reason is that relatives such as husband/wife, kids or friends provide social and financial support as well as sharing free time and being partners [23]. Besides being married or living with a partner, having a social environment also affects life satisfaction in a positive way [24].The relationships with close friends and family members are important too [25].When the existing literature is reviewed there is not any study which investigates the relationship between the teachers' perceptions regarding life satisfaction and organizational dissent. This piece of study aims to add to the existing literature via finding out the relationship between the teachers' perceptions regarding organizational dissent and life satisfaction.

Materials and Methods
This study is in survey and relational survey model. In survey model the person or the object of the study is tried to be determined in its own conditions as it is. In relational survey model, co-change existence and level of change between two or more variables together are investigated [26].

Participants
Study group of this study is composed of 200 primary school teachers (branch teachers excluded) who were chosen randomly among 25 public primary schools which are at the city center of Diyarbakır in 2013-2014 academic year. In determining the school size Jones' [27] classification of the schools is used. According to him; schools which has 28 or less teachers are "small school", 29-39 teachers are "middle schools", 40 and more teachers are "big schools".

Data Collection Scales
The scales used for data collection are presented in the following paragraphs.

Data Analysis
Data of the study are analysis using SPSS 20.0 statistics software. Upwards, standard deviations and levels are calculated to determine the perception levels of teachers regarding the dimension of the organizational dissent and life satisfaction scale. To test if there is a significant relationship between the groups t-test and one way ANOVA is used. To calculate the relationship between the variables Pearson Correlations (r) is used. In interpreting the upwards of the items in life satisfaction scale "Totally disagree" (1,00-1,79), "Slightly Agree (1,80-2,59), "Agree" (2,60-3,39), "Agree mostly" (3,19), Totally Agree (4,20-5,00). The significance level is set as 0,05.

Findings
In this section, (I) there are findings respectively whether the variables of gender, union membership, school size and total monthly income show a significant difference among the perceptions of teachers about organizational dissent? and (II) whether there is a significant correlation between teachers' perceptions of life satisfaction and organizational dissent.

The Evaluation of the Perceptions of the Teachers
Regarding Organizational Dissentin Respect to Some Variables

Perceptions of Teachers According to Gender
In order to determine whether there is a significant difference according to gender among the teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent, t-test was used, and the results are given in Table 1.
As seen in Table 1, according to the gender, there is a significant difference among the means of teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent in "upward dissent" dimension; however there is no significant difference in "lateral dissent" dimension. In "upward dissent" dimension, male teachers (M= 4.14) appears to have more dissent than female teachers (M= 3.93). In "lateral dissent" dimension there is no significant difference among perceptions of teachers, that upwards the perceptions of male (M= 3.68) and female (M= 3.45) teachers are close to each other and they have same level of dissent in this dimension.
According to the gender of the teacher, total mean of the perceptions related to "upward dissent" dimension is 4,03; for "lateral dissent" is 3,56. This shows that according to the gender, the teachers have dissent at "mostly" level in the dimensions of "upward dissent" and "lateral dissent".

Perceptions of Teachers According to Union Membership
In order to determine whether there is a significant difference according to union membership among the teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent, t-test was used, and the results are given in Table 2. As seen in Table 2, according to union membership, there is not a significant difference among the means of teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent in "upward dissent" dimension; however, the mean of the perceptions of the teachers who have union membership (M=4,08) is higher than the teachers' who have no union membership (M=3,89). In "upward dissent" dimension there is no significant difference among perceptions of teachers, that upwards the perceptions of teachers who have union membership and those who have not union membership are close to each other and they have same level of dissent in this dimension.
In "lateral dissent" dimension there found a significant difference among the perceptions of teachers. As seen in the table, the teachers who have union membership (M=3,69) have more dissent than those who have no union membership (M=3, 19). That can be result of the support the teachers get from their unions. According to union membership of the teacher, total mean of the perceptions related to "upward dissent" dimension is 3, 98; for "lateral dissent" is 3, 44. This shows that according to union membership, the teachers have dissent at "mostly" level in the dimensions of "upward dissent" and "lateral dissent".

Perceptions of Teachers According to School Size
In order to determine whether there is a significant difference according to school size among the teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent, one way ANOVA was used, and the results are given in Table 3.
As seen in Table 3, according to school size, there is no significant difference among the means of teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent in "upward dissent" and "lateral dissent" dimensions. However, in the dimension "upward dissent" the teachers in the small (M=4,04) and medium size schools (M=4,04) have more dissent than those in the big schools (M=4,02). That can be result of the fact that the teachers in small and medium sized schools face with their administrators more frequently and they are usually aware of the works of their administrators.
On the other hand, in the dimension "lateral dissent", the teachers in big schools (M=3,61) have more dissent than those in the small (M=3,58) and medium sized schools (M=3,42). According to the school size of the teachers, total mean of the perceptions related to "upward dissent" dimension is 4,03; for "lateral dissent" is 3,57. This shows that the teachers have dissent at "mostly" level in both dimensions.

Perceptions of Teachers According to Monthly Income
In order to determine whether there is a significant difference according to monthly income among the teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent, one way ANOVA was used, and the results are given in Table 4.  Investigating the Relationship between Organizational Dissent and Life Satisfaction As seen in Table 4, according to monthly income, there is no significant difference among the mean of teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent in "upward dissent" dimension, but there is a significant difference in "lateral dissent" dimension [p=0,025]. According to the Scheffé test results applied to determine the significant difference between groups, there is a significant difference between the teachers who have 2000-2999 TL (Turkish Liras) monthly income and those who have 6000 TL and more. It is seen from the arithmetic means that the mean of the perceptions of the teachers having 2000-2999 TL monthly income (M=3, 66) is higher than the mean of the teachers having 6000 TL and more (M=2, 94). That means the teachers having lower income (2000-2999 TL) have more dissent than those having more income (6000 TL and more) in "lateral dissent" dimension.

Related to the Significant Correlation between the Perceptions of Teachers' Organizational Dissent and Life Satisfaction
The correlation between the perceptions of teachers related to organizational dissent and their perceptions related to life satisfaction is given in Table 5. As seen in the Table 5, there is a low level, negative, significant correlation between the dimension of "upward dissent" and life satisfaction [r= -0,053 (p= 0,045)]. There is a low, negative, significant correlation between the dimension of "lateral dissent" and life satisfaction [r= -0,248 (p=0,000)]. In total, there is a low, negative, significant correlation between the perceptions of teachers related to organizational dissent and life satisfaction [r= -0,181 (p=0,010)]. Therefore, though a low correlation, it can be claimed that as organizational dissent increases life satisfaction decreases and vice versa.

Conclusion and Recommendations
In this part, the results of the research were examined and the studies in literature regarding to the research subjects were discussed in relation to the results in other studies. Then, some recommendations related to the results are presented for practitioners and researches.

Conclusions
The aim of this study is to examine the correlation between public primary school teachers' perceptions related to organizational dissent and life satisfaction. In the study, the results related to the teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent and life satisfaction were investigated in the literature and discussed in their context. According to gender, there is a significant difference among the means of the perceptions of teachers in "upward dissent" dimension; however, there is no significant difference in "lateral dissent" dimension. Male teachers (M=4,14) were found to have more dissent then female teachers (M=3,93) in "upward dissent" dimension. That means the male teachers speak to their administrators directly or indirectly about some organizational policies and applications in which they have different viewpoints. The reason of the male teachers' having more dissent in this dimension may stem from the fact that they have more work options than female teachers. "Those who have the opportunities of finding job easily (Farell and Rusbult, 1992; Rusbult and Lowery, 1985) feel themselves more free and as a result of this do not hesitate to speak out their oppositional views" [30]. Moreover, it was found that those who feel themselves powerless in the organization and want to be out of the conflicts hesitate showing dissent behaviors [14].
On the other hand, according to the gender of the teacher, total mean of the perceptions related to "upward dissent" dimension is 4,03; for "lateral dissent" is 3,56. This shows that according to the gender, the teachers have dissent at "mostly" level in the dimensions of "upward dissent" and "lateral dissent". As it is seen the teachers have more dissent in "upward dissent" dimension. "A factor that plays role in upward dissent behaviors is the fact that the members of organizations having a long-term employment (Cannings, 1992) security in the current workplace" [30]. Since the teachers in state schools know they will work in that job for a long time unless extreme occasions, they do not hesitate to discuss their dissent opinion with their administrators. Redding [2] " states that dissent may be caused by many reasons The most important of them is poor decisions taken by the organization administrator, and those decisions may be illegal and unethical or unproductive, useless and in a manner that angered members of the organization". Therefore, school administrators should be sensitive about adding teachers into decisions at the matters that concern them. According to union membership, there is not a significant difference among the mean of teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent in "upward dissent" dimension; however, the mean of the perceptions of the teachers who have union membership (M=4,08) is higher than the teachers' who have no union membership (M=3,89). In "upward dissent" dimension, there is no significant difference among perceptions of teachers, that means the perceptions of teachers who have union membership and those who have not union membership are close to each other and they have same level of dissent in this dimension.
On the other hand Ağalday, Özgan and Arslan [31] state that some teachers tend to transmit various attitudes and behaviors of their administrators to their union; the teachers especially dissent to their administrators through unions in which they are members, however, many teachers do not report out negative experiences lived in school because of the fear of having suffer, and according to the administrators some teachers prefer the strategy of displaced dissent. Displaced dissent strategy occurs when members of the organization choose to transfer the dissenting opinion to those outside the organization. Those outside the organization consist of friends outside the organization members, spouses, partners and family members [3,9,14].
There found a significant difference among the perceptions of the teachers in "lateral dissent" dimension. In that dimension, the teachers who have union membership (M=3,69) have more dissent than those who do not have membership (M=3, 19). Lateral dissent consists when members of the organization speak their dissenting views to those members who have no impact on organization balances Members of the organization using the lateral dissent strategy in a way feel themselves safe in their organizations. The members of the organization share their dissenting views as soon as they find someone to listen to them within the organization [9], and members of the organization showing the lateral dissent behaviors are intensely expressed dissent behaviors in cases where their benefits have been damaged [3]. Therefore, these differences in the dimension of "lateral dissent" may result from the fact that the teachers who have union membership trust on their unions and those who are also the members of their union in the same organization, and they come together with them to create power.
According to school size, there is no significant difference among the mean of teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent in "upward dissent" and "lateral dissent" dimensions. However, in the dimension "upward dissent" the teachers in the small (M=4, 04) and medium size schools (M=4,04) have more dissent than those in the big schools (M=4,02). That can be result of the fact that the teachers in small and medium sized schools face with their administrators more frequently and they are usually aware of the works of their administrators. On the other hand, in the dimension of "lateral dissent", the teachers in big schools (M=3,61) have more dissent than those in the small (M=3,58) and medium sized schools (M=3,42). In the similar studies conducted by Dağlı and Ağalday [32,33,34] there was not found a significant difference among the perceptions of teachers according to the school size. Related researches also support the findings of this research. According to monthly income, there is no significant difference among the mean of teachers' perceptions of organizational dissent in "upward dissent" dimension, but there is a significant difference in "lateral dissent" dimension [p=0,025]. According to the Scheffé test results applied to determine the significant difference between groups, there found a significant difference between the teachers who have 2000-2999 TL monthly income and those who have 6000 TL and more. It is seen from the arithmetic means that the mean of the perceptions of the teachers having 2000-2999 TL monthly income (M=3,66) is higher than the mean of the teachers having 6000 TL and more (M=2,94). That means the teachers having lower income (2000-2999 TL) have more dissent than those having higher income (6000 TL and higher) in "lateral dissent" dimension. Since the teachers having low income have little more economical problems than those having medium and more income, they may request additional courses for extra tuition fee from the school administration. They may have dissent because of the school's failure to meet these needs. "Lateral dissent consists when members of the organization speak their dissenting views to the members who have no impact on organization balances" [9]. As stated before, the organization members perform lateral dissent behaviors when their benefits have damaged [3]. In some cases, members of the organization do not express their views openly for fear of damaging their benefits though they dissent some applications and policies. That may cause the members of the organization to remain silent or to tell dissenting opinions to the other members of the organization [12]. In order to prevent the dissent among the teacher groups their salaries and wages should be improved and the administrators should do positive discrimination for the teachers with low income in financial issues.
There found a low level, negative, significant correlation between the dimension of "upward dissent" and life satisfaction [r=-,053 (p=0,045)]. There found a low, negative, significant correlation between the dimension of "lateral dissent" and life satisfaction [r=-,248 (p=0,000)]. In total, there is a low, negative, significant correlation between the perceptions of teachers related to organizational dissent and life satisfaction [r=-,181 (p=0,010)]. Therefore, though a low correlation, it can be claimed that as organizational dissent increases life satisfaction decreases and vice versa. Therefore, life satisfaction should be increased at the same time organizational dissent should be decreased. Gemma (2007) put forward many reasons that push teachers to dissent. Some of them of are listed as follows: inconvenient educational environments, inadequate resources allocated to education, overly bureaucratic and centralized organizational structure, and partisan attitudes applied in the appointment of teachers [30]. Kassing [9] also stated that organizational dissent may occur as a result of organizational conflicts and when the administrators do not include the members to the organizational decisions "Getting the ideas of members, sharing the reasons of the decisions can increase their confidence in organizational managers. Thus, the perception of justice in the organization will be positively affected" [35]. Therefore, managers should necessarily take teachers into decisions in matters that concern them. The teachers should be given the opportunity of questioning the decisions, decisions regarding teachers should be discussed with all the necessary grounds and teachers must be informed in time. On the other hand, Appleton and Song (2008) stated six different components of life satisfaction; (1) the person's income, (2) professional and social status, (3) opportunities and social mobility, (4) welfare conditions, (5) the current state policy and (6) the environment, family and social relationships [36]. Schmitt (2003) claimed that individual life satisfaction may be affected by a lot of conditions such as; happiness taken from daily life, the means attributed to life, consistency in reaching the goal, positive personal identity, individual feel of physically welfare, economic, security and the social relations [22]. It is stated that (Marques, et al, 2007) high life satisfaction for adults has positive outcomes for interpersonal relations, one's own inner world, business, physical and psychological health and educational status [37].

Recommendations
Based on the research findings, the following recommendations are asserted: (1) During the in-service teacher training courses organized by Ministry of National Education the issues related to life satisfaction and organizational dissent should be focused.
(2) Administrators absolutely should take the teachers in decisions concerning them. It should be given the opportunity to question the decisions if needed. Teachers must be informed about all the necessary decisions with their reasons in time.
(3) School administrators should give adequate importance to the development of democratic processes in the school (4) Administrator should not forget if they are unable to manage the dissent process effectively, they will face that dissent behaviors. Therefore, the Ministry of Education should organize in-service training courses to develop communication competencies of managers and in order to make them effective in dissent management. (5) The solutions regarding the incident which caused the dissent exhibited by teachers as an indicator of democracy in school must be taken into account by managers. (6) According to the monthly income of teachers there was found to be significant differences in the perception of the "lateral dissent" dimension. There is significant difference between the perceptions of teachers who have 2000-2999 monthly income and those who have 6000 and high. In order to prevent the dissent between these teacher groups their salaries and wages should be improved and the administrators should do positive discrimination for the teachers with low income in financial issues. (7) Factors affecting the future expectations of teachers negatively should be investigated more deeply and measures must be taken to enable them to be optimistic about the future. (8) Life satisfaction approach helps achieving both organizational and individual objectives. To improve life satisfaction in the schools, positive communication philosophy should be adopted and expanded. The basic approach of this philosophy must be designing the organizational communication structure in a way to meet the individual needs. (9) Giving detailed information to the teachers about the school, work and performance will improve their business performance as well as increase their life satisfaction. (10) The schools have adopted the approach of life satisfaction should create a democratic and supportive work environment. (11) Legal regulation should be done to employ psychologists in the schools to increase the life satisfaction of the employees of schools.
In this study, teachers' perceptions of life satisfaction and organizational dissent were investigated; similar research may be conducted on perceptions of non-teaching employees. Similar studies may be done in public and private secondary schools in both quantitative and qualitative methods. Also the relationship between organizational dissent and job satisfaction, organizational citizenship, engaging to the work, and burnout may be examined.