Exploring the effects of “behaviors of kindness and accumulated virtues”, ‘considerate behaviors’, and ‘perceived sense of job value’ in relation to job performance

Abstract

Some studies in Taiwan have shown that attitudes of ‘sympathy and caring’ benefit teachers’ job performances; however, the Tzu Chi Merit Society’s leadership deeply values the effects of the creation of accumulated virtues of kindness, as displayed in a teacher’s performance. Therefore, this study explores which behaviors, namely, “accumulated virtues of kindness” or “sympathy and caring” has the greater influence on job performance. The researchers consider that the administrative leaders’ behaviors also affect performance; however, subjective perceptions of job value may provide greater benefits, and thus, are included in this analysis. As accumulated virtues of kindness are not the norm in Taiwanese schools, long-term planning was required to enlist the assistance of schools to join this study. However, 6 schools agree to participate, including 157 teachers, resulting in 143valid samples being collected. Upon conducting the above leadership behaviors over a 4 month duration, the results show that the “accumulated virtues of kindness”, as demonstrated by the school’s principles’ behaviors, had positive influences upon task performance and contextual performance; whereas, ‘sympathy and care’ had no remarkable effects. As ‘kindness and accumulative virtue’ is not yet explored in Taiwan, the researchers conducted almost 4 months of remarkable effects on job performance in order to obtain research values. However, upon analysis of ‘teachers’ perceived job value’ regarding the study topic, this paper discovered that the ‘accumulated virtues of kindness’ behaviors did not have positive influence on job performance, which is the main factor of job performance in this study.