School Organizational Democracy and School Development: A Chain-Mediated Model of Organizational Commitment and Work Engagement

School organizational democracy is increasingly recognized as a cornerstone for modern educational governance. However, empirical studies examining its impact on school development within the Chinese context remain limited. This study explores the relationship between school organizational democracy and school development, emphasizing the mediating roles of organizational commitment and work engagement. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 3,599 teachers across 74 schools in China. Using SPSS 26.0 and the PROCESS macro, descriptive statistics, multiple regression, and mediation analyses were performed. The results indicate that school organizational democracy and its key dimensions—freedom of expression, collective decision-making, supervision and accountability, openness and transparency, and equality and fairness—positively predict school development (B = 0.208–0.341, p < 0.001). Moreover, organizational commitment significantly mediates this relationship (effect sizes: 0.271–0.338). Additionally, work engagement and the sequential path “organizational commitment → work engagement” further mediate the impact of specific dimensions of organizational democracy on school development. These findings provide a theoretical and practical foundation for enhancing school participatory governance, particularly in emerging educational systems.