SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE AND THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF COLLEGE FACULTY

Abstract

The relationship between the spiritual experience and organizational commitment of faculty in Seventh-day Adventist tertiary educational institutions in north Philippines constituted the primary focus of this study. Instrumentation included the Spiritual Well-being Scale (SWBS), Thayer Longform Faith Maturity Scale (TFS), and Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). Results indicated high levels of spiritual experience and organizational commitment in this population. Each aspect of spiritual experience in the study was significantly and positively related to organizational commitment, with the highest correlation evidenced in the case of faith maturity. Further, the relationship between spiritual experience and organizational commitment was influenced by certain demographic variables. The correlation between existential well-being and organizational commitment was significantly higher in older faculty than in their middle-aged colleagues, in new faculty and long-serving faculty as compared to those who had served 2 to 9 years, and in faculty with doctoral degrees as compared with those lower academic degrees. Faculty who had served more than 10 years had a significantly higher correlation between faith maturity and organizational commitment than those who had served less than 10 years. Significant positive relationships were also found between organizational commitment and faculty age, years of service in the SDA educational system, and time lapse since baptism. The best model for predicting organizational commitment, accounting for 42% of the variance explained, was comprised of existential well-being, faith maturity, and time lapse since baptism