The relationship between participation in shared governance and organizational commitment reported by nonacademic staff in public research, doctoral, and master's colleges and universities

The participation of non-academic staff in shared governance is part of an ongoing debate that has been occurring among the stakeholders of public colleges and universities over the control of decision-making for most of the 20th Century. A constant tug of war exists on college campuses among administrators, faculty, governing boards, and students over shared governance. Research studies from the 1970's claimed that non-academic staff of colleges and universities had been virtually ignored and excluded from participation in decision-making even about matters directly related to their lives and work.; The purpose of this study was to determine if the level of participation in shared governance experienced by non-academic staff at public colleges and universities was related to the degree of commitment they felt to these institutions. A second purpose was to determine if the existence of formal non-academic staff governance bodies was related to staff perceptions of increased participation in decision-making and organizational commitment when compared to informal systems. The study also considered whether the enrollment sizes of institutions were related either to staff participation in decision-making or to organizational commitment. Finally, the study investigated the relationship of personal demographic characteristics of age, gender, educational level achieved, and tenure to commitment.; Participants responded to a survey designed to detect the existence of a formal non-academic staff governance body on campus, to measure the level of non-academic staff participation in shared governance from both formal and informal systems, to measure the degree of non-academic staff commitment, and to garner personal demographic data. Findings indicate that non-academic staff from institutions with more participatory governance systems tended to report significantly higher degrees of organizational commitment and that formal non-academic staff governance bodies exist at 77.7% of the institutions that participated in the study. Non-academic staff reported that participation resides primarily in three zones of a four zone continuum as follows: (1) administrative dominance 27.1%, (2) administrative primacy 43.7%, (3) shared authority 24.3%, and (4) staff primacy 4.9%. Findings indicate that the level of participation in shared governance reported by non-academic staff was, on average, only at the administrative primacy level. Results suggest that when administrative dominance and administrative primacy are considered together, university governance is, in effect, under the de facto control of career administrators at 70.8% of institutions in this study.; A significant relationship was found between non-academic staff participation at the shared authority level and higher degrees of organizational commitment. Participation at the administrative dominance and administrative primacy levels was not found to be significantly related to higher degrees of organizational commitment.