Technical University of Lisbon - Portugal Social Sciences PhD, Organizational Behavior area

1. Are Lifelong Learning centers “great places to work”?CONGRESSO INTERNACIONAL DE PSICOLOGIA DO TRABALHO E DAS ORGANIZAÇÕESUniversidade Católica Portuguesa Centro Regional de Braga | Faculdade de Filosofia 12 e 13 de julho de 2012 TechnicalUniversityofLisbon - Portugal Social Sciences PhD, Organizational Behavior area Seco, Victor Lopes, Miguel Pereira

2. Aims • The present paper aims to elucidate the importance of calling work orientation and very essence on the construction of special great places to work.

3. Keywords • Work orientation; • Authentizoticorganizational climates; • Great Places to Work; • Lifelong Learning; • New Opportunities Centers (NOC).

4. Work orientation

5. AuthentizoticOrganizations AUTHENTEEkos + zoteekos Authentic + vital to life

6. Authentizoticclimatefacets

7. Great Places to Work

8. A greatPlaceto Work

9. Innovation on a recent education paradigm • LifelongLearning. • Creating a special interaction between education and every community member. • TheAndragogy, “as theartandscience to helpothers to learn“[KathleenM. Brown (2006)] .

10. Special workplaces and careers Persons need to be engaged to do their job • working with adults and their problems is not easy • implies more than money to pay the job. More than a well paid job and a structured career • a special kind of dedication and • a humanitarian option towards people care.

11. NEW OPPORTUNITIES IT PAYS TO LEARN

12. New Opportunities Centers (NOC) Theportuguese NOCorganizationalstructure • includes cleared political and operational levels • misunderstandings or interferences between “work people” and managers are reduced.

13. New OpportunitiesCenters innovativeleadership formula

14. Are Lifelong Learning centers “great places to work”? • H1 Perceived facets of authentizotic climates are significantly related to work orientations. • H2 Occupations performed are significantly related to perceived facets of authentizotic climates. • H3 Occupations performed are significantly related to work orientations.

15. Are Lifelong Learning centers “great places to work”? • A sample of 168 employees from a northern Portuguese Lifelong Learning centers (New Opportunities Centers - NOC) was collected. • 75% were female, • mean age of 34,1 • with a years range(20–59)

16. Authentizoticclimatefacets • Spirit of camaraderie • Trust and credibility of the leaders • Open and frank communication with the leaders • Opportunities for learning and personal development • Fairness/justice • Work-family conciliation

17. Authentizotic dimensions • Studiesconductedby (Rego, 2004; Rego & Souto, 2004a, 2004b; Rego et al., 2005; Souto & Rego, 2003) in the Portuguese and Brazilian contexts.

18. Exploratory Factor Analysis

19. Confirmatory Factor Analysis [Hairet al. (2005) and Arbuckle (2008)] <2 Good! >0,9 <0,08

20. Powerfulresults (>=0,75)

21. Figure 1

22. Work orientation • A translated adaptation, into portuguese, of the “University of Pennsylvania WORK-LIFE questionnaire” used by Wrzesniewski et al. (1997). • Exploratory factorial analysis results – CronbachAlphas: Job (0,482), Career (-0,205) e Calling (0,534). • Eliminatingitems 2 and15 - Job (0,517) • Eliminatingitem 5 – Calling (0,609) • This instrument was psychometrically acceptable with constraints.

23. Pearson’s Correlations **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

24. Results

25. Discussion The results suggest that participants who value, in their occupation, the spirit of camaraderie are attached too with calling orientation. The closely-related term vocation has been defined as a call to something larger than oneself (Greenbalt & Greenbalt, 2001), an over-whelming desire to find meaning in our lives through work (Fine, 2003).

26. Discussion These findings are in agreement with those of: • Coetzee and Esterhuizen (2010) said that participants who value the conciliation, deserves to improve their employability characteristics and abilities, never forgetting the high and passionate contribution to the organization. • Meyer and Allen (1997), observed that having the possibility to influence the goals of the organization seems to increase participants’ sense of responsibility to continue their employment with the organization; • Meyer et al. (1993), who suggest that affective commitment develops when involvement in the occupation proved to be a satisfying experience .

27. Conclusions The study indicates that all core elements of authentizotic organizations may widely contribute to management theory and practice in educational institutions by clarifying what people potentially expect from their organizations: adequate material conditions plus a meaningful contribution.

28. Conclusions Despite its contributions this study contains several limitations: • The career dimension results were not in line with the studies that have stressed us at the beginning; • This research approach would require a larger sample, in order to find clusters of a significant size and more statistically comparable.

29. Conclusions With this paper, we offered some evidence of authentizotic climates in special organizations of LifeLong Learning. We also proved that occupations performed are significantly related to those climates. Finally, we have concluded that there are some NOC with authentizotic climates and they are non-toxic places to work.

30. Thank you for your attention! • For more information: • victor.seco@gmail.com • mplopes@iscsp.utl.pt PORTUGAL