Study notes on organizational climate

Study notes on organizational climate

References with extracted contents

Patterson, M.G., M.A. West, V.J. Shackleton, J.E. Dawson, R. Lawthom, S. Maitlis, D.L. Robinson and A.M. Wallace. 2005. "Validating the organizational climate measure: links to managerial practices, productivity and innovation" Journal of Organizational Behavior 26, Wiley: 379-408.

"Central to most, if not all, models of organizational behavior are perceptions of the work environment, referred to generally as ‘organizational climate’ (Rousseau, 1988). Primarily understood as an intervening variable between the context of an organization and the behavior of its members, and attempting to understand how employees experience their organizations, the concept has inspired many descriptions and operationalizations. Despite the level of interest surrounding organizational climate, however, there are few well-validated measures of the construct".

"The dominant approach conceptualizes climate as employees’ shared perceptions of organizational events, practices, and procedures. These perceptions are assumed to be primarily descriptive rather than affective or evaluative (Schneider & Reichers, 1983). More recent work contradicts this view, suggesting strong evaluative or affective components (Patterson, Warr, & West, 2004). At the individual level of analysis, referred to as ‘psychological climate’ (James & Jones, 1974), these perceptions represent how work environments are cognitively appraised and represented in terms of their meaning to and significance for individual employees in organizations (James & Jones, 1974; James & Sells, 1981)".

"The rationale behind aggregating individual data to a unit level is the assumption that organizational collectives have their own climate and that these can be identified through the demonstration of significant differences in climate between units and significant agreement in perceptions within units (James, 1982). Perceptual agreement implies a shared assignment of psychological meaning allowing individual perceptions to be aggregated and treated as a higher-level construct. Most research is now focused on aggregate rather than on psychological climate (Schneider, Bowen, Ehrhart, & Holcombe, 2000)".

Rojas, D., C. Segpieri and S.  Nuti. 2014. "Organizational climate: Comparing private and public hospitals within professional roles" Suma Neg 5(11), Elsevier: 10-14.

"Organizational climate is defined as the shared perceptions of the work environment (Jones and James, 1979). This concept can be traced back to several studies, for example, Lewin et al., (1939) analyse the relationship between the leadership style and climate; Koffka (1935) focuses on “behaviour environment”; Lewin (1936) studies the “life space”; and Phillips (1996) investigated how women and men perceived the organizational climate. Some studies have shown the efforts made to better understand those factors which contribute to improve the work environment (or climate) and motivate all employees, regardless of their position, status and gender, to be committed and effective performers (Clark, 1997; Gershon, 2007; Nembhard, 2006)".

"The results of the present study support the hypothesis that there are differences in how the organizational climate is perceived by employees within professional roles and hospital status in the Tuscan healthcare organizations (General hospitals). The analysis showed that the Tuscan organizational climate questionnaire is a reliable instrument used as a measurement tool for evaluating working conditions and deter-mining the factors which satisfies and motivates employees in the healthcare sector".

Smith-Crowe, K., M.J. Burke and R.S. Landis. 2003. "Organizational climate as a moderator of safety knowledge-safety performance relationships" Journal of Organizational Behavior 24, Wiley: 861-876.

"For some time now, applied psychologists and management researchers have adopted a social interactionist perspective to study relations between individual difference variables (e.g., knowledge and job performance). A common social interactionist hypothesis is that the relationship between two individual difference variables is moderated by a third class of variables: organizational climate dimensions. Organizational climate dimensions are those characteristics of workplaces that facilitate or inhibit the exhibition of certain behaviors (cf. James, Demaree, Mulaik, & Ladd, 1992; Schneider, 1975; Schneider, Smith, & Sipe, 2000).....".

"James et al. (1992) and Russell and Gilliland (1995) have presented the argument that organizational climate influences relationships between individual difference variables specifically in terms of ‘restrictiveness-of-climate,’ which they defined as the degree to which characteristics of organizational environments restrict individual decision-making and individual differences in job performance".

"Another body of literature suggests that organizational climate moderates relationships between individual difference variables to the extent that organizations promote strategically focused climates (i.e., climates that are aligned with organizational goals). This research is based on the assumption that

human beings strive to cohere with their environments. To give an example, one would expect that if an organization has a supportive climate for safety, then individuals would seek to be productive organizational members by transferring the knowledge and skills that they learned during safety training to their jobs".

Cooil, B., L. Aksoy, T.L. Keiningham and K.M. Maryott. 2009. "The Relationship of Employee Perceptions of Organizational Climate to Business-Unit Outcomes: An MPLS Approach" Journal of Service Research 11(3), Sage: 277-294.

"The origins of climate research date back to Lewin and his colleagues (Lewin, Lippitt, and White 1939) who emphasized the role of leaders in the creation of climate. Today, organizational climate can be defined as perceptions attributed to the work environment (Rousseau 1988) and is used primarily as a framework to understand how employees experience their work environment and is distinct from employee satisfaction (Schneider and Snyder 1975)".

"The importance of measuring organizational climate is critical, as it has been shown to link to a variety of outcomes and successful organizational functioning. Researchers have sought to understand how the dimensions of organizational climate are related to a variety of business outcomes such as employee retention, turnover, intentions to quit (Dean 2004; Hemingway and Smith 1999; Mulki, Jaramillo, and Locander 2006; Ryan, Schmit, and Johnson 1996), customer satisfaction (Gelade and Young 2005; Heskett, Sasser, and Schlesinger 1997; Schneider, White, and Paul 1998; Schneider et al. 2005), and firm financial performance such as growth, sales, revenue, and profitability (Borucki and Burke 1999; Gelade and Young 2005; Schneider et al. 2005)".

"Research results on the dimensions of organizational climate, however, have been wide-ranging since the inception of the area. Initially, it was assumed that the social environment could be described by a limited number of dimensions, such as individual autonomy, structure, reward orientation and consideration, warmth, and support (Campbell et al.1970). Later, other dimensions were added, such as role stress and lack of harmony, job challenge, autonomy, leadership facilitation, work group cooperation, and friendliness (James and James 1989; James and McIntyre 1996)".

D'Alleo, G. and A. Santangelo. 2011. "Organizational climate and burnout in call-center operators" Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 30, Elsevier: 1608-1615.

"In recent years, attention to issues related to the promotion of a climate based on individual and organizational well-being in business success has increased. The “climate” variable can affect the behavior of the individual in adapting to the demands of the organization where they work (Schneider, 1983). In this strategy one may see the study of relationships between the dimensions of organizational climate and the phenomenon of burnout; such as psycho-social risk. This syndrome can occur in people working in contact with others (Cherniss, 1980) and as such it also affects call center operators".

"The organizational climate is a psychological construct that refers to the perceptions developed by people with regard to their working environment: it is a collective perception of the organization that originated in a small team and manifests itself relatively stably through socio-psychological dynamics that characterize the group. The climate is both the result and the determinant of the behavior of individuals and groups within the organizational structure (Morocco, Wells, 2003). The climate reflects the culture in society, its values and is composed of different sizes (Ostroff, 1993): participation, warmth, social rewards, cooperation, communication (affective factor), .....";

"Many studies in the literature (Zapf, Knorz, Kulla, 1996; Groenblinghoff, Becker, 1996; Maslach, Leiter, 2000) show a significant correlation between organizational climate and factors relating to actions or events related to stress, burnout and mobbing. The climate variable influences the behavior of the individual and then work performance (Schneider 1983)";

Akbaba, ö and E. Altɪndağ. 2016. "The Effects of Reengineering, Organizational Climate and Psychological Capital on the firm performance" Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 235, Elsevier: 320-331.

"The first study on climate concept is based on the motivation theory of Lewin et al. It can be likened to the climate or weather definitions of geographic regions formed by the combination of environmental forces. When analogies are customized to the organization, the morale level surrounding the organization can be expressed as the power of good will and sense of belonging among the members of the organization. The climate is based on the perceptions of employees for the organization (Terzi, 2002, 92). According to Şişman (2002, 156), it is the whole of factors which are perceived by the individuals who constitute the organization and affect their behaviors";

"The morale, motivation or sense of commitment to the organization of the organization members are considered to be among the factors contributing to the formation of organizational climate. While skiing can be enjoyable for someone who loves winter sports, swimming will also be as enjoyable as it for someone who loves summer. Organizational climate varies according to the employees...";