Abstract

This study examined the effects of enabling and coercive bureaucracies of the government education authority (GEA), and perceived organizational support during the pandemic on teachers’ intention to leave the profession in Israel. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 267 Israeli public school teachers (80% women). Participants were highly experienced: 56% had teaching experience of 4-14 years and 44% of over 15 years, and 75% had BA or MA degrees. We used a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses to examine the differential effects of GEA and school-level factors on teachers’ intention to leave the profession, and explored a path model in which school-level factors mediated the effects of GEA. The results indicated that the enabling GEA bureaucratic structure and perceived organizational support during the pandemic negatively predicted teachers’ inclination to leave, whereas its coercive bureaucratic structure positively predicted teachers’ inclination to leave. In addition, the analyses showed that perceived organizational support during the pandemic had the greatest influence on intention to leave, and that the extent of this influence canceled out and overcame the negative effect of the coercive bureaucratic structure of GEA. Furthermore, the path model indicated that perceived organizational support partially mediated the effects of GEA on teachers’ inclination to leave.