Étude descriptive des perceptions de soutien, d’habilitation et de reconnaissance favorisant la mobilisation organisationnelle au Ministère de l’éducation nationale et de l’alphabétisation du Burkina Faso

This doctoral thesis is situated in the context of national authorities' and international organizations' concerns about the effectiveness of public organizations in developing countries, pursuant to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the Education For All program. The argument of lack of resources has been increasingly challenged by the observation that some organizations with fewer resources than other similar ones produce better results (Barney, 1991; Durand, 1996; Isckia, 2008). This implies that the quantity of resources is not the only determining factor. Other aspects must be considered, such as organizational mobilization, i.e., the movement generated by a critical mass of employees acting in ways that support the achievement of their organization's goals. Mobilization of this kind requires a positive climate that results from the presence of specific psychological states felt by employees, in particular, the perceptions of being supported and recognized by the organization, and a sense of psychological empowerment (Tremblay & Simard, 2005). These perceptions and feelings are the focus of the study we conducted at Burkina Faso's Ministère de l'Éducation nationale and de l'alphabétisation (MÉNA) [National Ministry of Education and Literacy]. The main objective of our research was to describe these three psychological states. We explored perceived organizational support (POS), psychological empowerment and perceived recognition by drawing on the work of Eisenberger et al. (1986), Spreitzer (1995) and Brun & Dugas (2005) respectively. We deliberately chose to work from the perspective of employees, rather than the observed or self-reported management practices of their superiors, and strove to discover theirs perceptions. Perceptions merit attention because no policy, measure, or practice aiming to instill a mobilizing organizational climate will be effective if it is not perceived as such by the employees. Using a mixed methodology, we gathered data from senior educational administrators and school principals on the three selected psychological states with a questionnaire containing 37 statements (65 respondents); individual interviews designed to enrich, supplement, clarify, or illustrate information generated by the questionnaire (18 participants); and two focus groups that reviewed the results of the preliminary analysis of the questionnaire data (7 participants). In all, data were gathered from 73 individuals, some of whom both answered the questionnaire and took part in an individual interview.   The data concerning each psychological state were processed using SPSS Statistics 20 software (for the questionnaires) and QDA Miner 4.0.11 (for the individual interviews). For each statement, each variable created, and each of the characteristics (function, gender, and work setting), we first obtained measures of central tendency; we then introduced a second level of processing by combining characteristics, for example, function (senior educational administrator or school principal) and gender (female or male). We then coded the interview transcripts with a view to extracting elements that would confirm, clarify, or nuance the findings of the analysis of questionnaire data for each psychological state. The analysis of the interview data aimed also to identify elements relating to the subject of mobilization within MÉNA. The analysis of questionnaire data generally revealed that organizational support is perceived in a negative way within MÉNA, with only the appreciation of job performance recording a slightly less negative perception. The respondents perceived themselves as psychologically empowered; of the four components of psychological empowerment, autonomy was perceived most negatively. With regard to recognition, we noted a positive perception of elements pertaining to communication and negative perceptions of the reward system. The results of our analysis of the questionnaire data were enriched by the material gathered from the interviews, which revealed that effective management practices (e.g., quick response to requests, application of punctuality and attendance standards, regular pay) are viewed as evidence of organizational support. The interviews also revealed a strong potential for personal and professional commitment on  the part of participants, who exhibited readiness to contributing more to the organization in exchange for greater recognition of their potential. We refined our analyses by considering function, gender, and work setting. We observed, for instance, that organizational support is perceived more positively in urban settings than in rural areas; senior educational administrators have a positive perception of the Ministry's recognition of their contribution, whereas school principals have a negative perception of this recognition. The feeling of being competent is more positive among senior administrators, while the sense of autonomy is perceived more positively by school principals. In urban areas, information transmission, meetings with superiors, and expressions of appreciation are more frequent than in rural areas. In this research, which was conducted in a sub-Saharan context, we adopted a "universalist" rather than a "culturalist" approach.  While recognizing that traditions and culture are part of the organizational environment, we believe they are not the main factors driving the behaviour of employees in an organization. The comments of some of the participants we met reinforced our conviction that management practices that are usually perceived positively by employees are perceived the same way in this context.

Keyphrases: Burkina Faso, Perceived organizational support, Psychological empowerment, Perceived recognition, Organizational mobilization, Sub-Saharan Africa, Culturalist approach, Universalist approach