From Principals' Inspirational Vision Content and Potential Absorptive Capacity to Realized Absorptive Capacity: Predicting Teacher Absenteeism

Abstract

This paper builds upon the theoretical framework developed by Zahra and George (2002) to empirically explore, first,the moderator effect of principals' inspirational vision content as a social mechanism that reduces the gap betweenpotential absorptive capacity (PACAP; the ability to acquire and assimilate external knowledge) and realizedabsorptive capacity (RACAP; the ability to transform and exploit this external knowledge to school processes); andsecond, the relationship between RACAP and long-term school outcomes (teachers' absenteeism 1 year later). Basedon a sample of 600 teachers from 100 elementary schools in Israel, results showed that the relationship betweenPACAP and RACAP is not conditioned by principals' inspirational vision content. The latter and PACAP predictedRACAP separately. Further, RACAP was negatively correlated with teacher absenteeism. This study provides adeeper understanding of the ACAP model in the school context and opens new avenues to exploring the socialintegration mechanism between PACAP and RACAP. It also adds a new construct to predict teacher absenteeismover the long term.

Teacher's withdrawal behavior: examining the impact of principals' innovative behavior and climate of organizational learning

“…Miller, 2012). The damaging effect of teacher absenteeism on students, schools and, by extension, communities suggests a need to understand the causes of low teacher attendance and to identify systemic and policy-oriented solutions that will mitigate absenteeism (Da'as and Qadach, 2018b). Sagie (1998) distinguishes two basic types of absence: (1) voluntary absence, are under the direct control of the employee and are frequently utilized for personal aims such as testing the market for alternative employment prospects and (2) involuntary absence, which is usually beyond the employee's immediate control (e.g.…”