Exploration of Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction of Faculty Members in Private Higher Education

The principal objective of this research is to explore organizational commitment and its effect on job satisfaction styles in a sample of teaching staff working at Alturath University college within the Private Higher Education (PHE) at Baghdad, Iraq. The research sample included 37 faculty members working at different departments. The authors developed a questionnaire with (5-points) Likert scale, and used it as the main instrument to collect data from the sample studied. The questionnaire was subjected to a Cronbach alpha test to verify its internal validity. The statistical package SPSS v.10 was used to analyze and present the data obtained through the questionnaire. The data were also used to test the research hypothesis. According to the responses of the sample members, the statistical tests assisted the research hypothesis which states that there is a significant relationship and effect between organizational commitment and job satisfaction. In addition, the analysis revealed that there is a strong level of organizational commitment among the sample studied. The results obtained by this research can direct the administrations of the college in planning job loads, and in improving organizational commitment. Although this research is limited to one private colleges, but its results add a great value since it provide several lessons that private education can benefit from. This work could, also, be considered as an attempt to increase our knowledge about the educational system in general, and on the PHE in specific.