THE INFLUENCE OF ACADEMIC ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE ON NURSING FACULTIES COMMITMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA

Higher education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established to enhance the nation‘s growth and well-being of Saudis. The nurse faculty in Saudi university and college settings have mission. Typically this mission covers teaching, research, and community service. The interaction of these factors may influence the climate of the academic setting and has impact on the organizational commitment of faculty. The purpose of this study is to examine how dimensions of organizational commitment is influenced by organizational climate and nurse faculty work role in nursing academic settings in Saudi Arabia. Method: this study non-experimental descriptive crossactional correlational was conducted. Three oldest and largest universities under The Ministry of Higher Education responsibility were selected. Full-time nurse faculties employed in the selected universities were recruited to participate in the study. Instrument: The Meyer and Allen Organizational Commitment Instrument (1993) and the Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire- Higher Education (partial) (Borrevik, 1972) were used for data collection. In addition, the Nursing Academic Index Form, which was develop by the researcher to collect the faculty characteristics and to measure work role. Self-reported survey procedures were used to collect the study data. Descriptive procedures, Pearson‘s product-moment correlation coefficients were used in this study. Results: The mean age of nursing faculty is 36.86years and the majority is non Saudi. The results revealed that the high mean score of nursing faculty commitment was normative commitment followed by continuance commitment then affective commitment. In addition the results showed that the intimacy was reflect lowest mean score. Organizational climate of consideration, intimacy, and production emphasis were significantly related to all dimensions of organizational commitment affective, continuance, and normative organizational commitment. Discussion and recommendations: With caution to the assumption regarding commitment impact on performance, this result designated that the nursing faculty commitment is obligation base and they have to do so but their commitment is not desire based and they want to. These findings have implications for the recruitment and retention of nurse faculty. Efforts should be made by university deans to match institutional and individual goals, and open discussions should take place between administrators and faculty about role expectations, criteria for permanent status and promotion, and other institutional rewards