Organisation climate

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Organisational climate (sometimes known as corporate climate) is a concept that has academic meaning in the fields of organisational behaviour and I/O psychology as well as practical meaning in the business world [1] There is continued scholarly debate about the exact definition of organisational climate for the purposes of scientific study. The definition developed by Lawrence R. James (1943-2014) and his colleagues makes a distinction between psychological and organisational climate.

Contents

"Psychological climate is defined as the individual employee’s perception of the psychological impact of the work environment on his or her own well-being (James & James, 1989). When employees in a particular work unit agree on their perceptions of the impact of their work environment, their shared perceptions can be aggregated to describe their organisational climate (Jones & James, 1979; Joyce & Slocum, 1984)." [2]

Employees' collective appraisal of the organisational work environment takes into account many dimensions of the situation as well as the psychological impact of the environment. For instance, job-specific properties such as role clarity, workload and other aspects unique to a person's specific job have a psychological impact that can be agreed upon by members of the organisation. Work group or team cooperation and effectiveness as well as leadership and organisational support are other dimensions of shared experience that factor into organisational climate. Surveys are the most common way of quantifying organisational climate. Aspects of climate that influence performance of specific sets of behaviours and outcomes can be measured, such as the climate for safety and the climate for innovation. Many instruments have been developed to assess numerous aspects of climate. [3]

The shared perception approach emphasises the importance of shared perceptions as underpinning the notion of climate. [4] Organisational climate has also been defined as "the shared perception of the way things are around here". [5] There is great deal of overlap in the two approaches.

Cognitive schema approach

Cognitive representations of social objects are referred to as schemas. These schemas are a mental structure that represents some aspect of the world. They are organised in memory in an associative network. In these associative networks, similar schemas are clustered together. When a particular schema is activated related schemas may be activated as well. Schema activation may also increase the accessibility of related schemas in the associative network. When a schema is more accessible this means it can more quickly be activated and used in a particular situation. When related schemas are activated, inferences beyond the information given in a particular social situation may influence thinking and social behaviour, regardless of whether those inferences are accurate or not. Lastly, when a schema is activated a person may or may not be aware of it.

Two processes that increase the accessibility of schemas are salience and priming. Salience is the degree to which a particular social object stands out relative to other social objects in a situation. The higher the salience of an object the more likely that schemas for that object will be made accessible. For example, if there is one female in a group of seven males, female gender schemas may be more accessible and influence the group's thinking and behaviour toward the female group member. Priming refers to any experiences immediately prior to a situation that caused a schema to be more accessible.

Shared perception approach

Some researchers have pursued the shared perception model of organisational climate. Their model identifies the variables which moderate an organisation's ability to mobilise its workforce in order to achieve business goals and maximise performance. [6]

One of the major users of this model are departments of the Queensland State Government Australia. These departments use this model of climate to survey staff in order to identify and measure those aspects of a workplace which impact on: stress, morale, quality of worklife, wellbeing, employee engagement, absenteeism/presenteeism, turnover and performance.

While an organisation and its leaders cannot remove every stressor in the daily life of its employees, organisational climate studies have identified a number of behaviours of leaders which have a significant impact on stress and morale. For instance, one Queensland state government employer, Queensland Transport, has found that increasing managers' awareness of these behaviours has improved quality of work life employees and the ability of QT's to deliver its organisational goals.

Organisational climate versus organisational culture

Climate and culture are both important aspects of the overall context, environment or situation. Organisational culture tends to be shared by all or most members of some social group, is something that older members usually try to pass on to younger members, and shapes behaviour, structures, and perceptions of the world. Cultures are often studied and understood at a national level, such as the American or French culture.

Culture includes deeply held values, beliefs and assumptions, symbols, heroes, and rituals. Culture can be examined at an organisational level as well. The main distinction between organisational culture and national culture is that people can choose to join a place of work, but are usually born into a national culture. Organisational climate, on the other hand, is often defined as the recurring patterns of behaviour, attitudes and feelings that characterise life in the organisation, [7] while an organisation culture tends to be deep and stable. Although culture and climate are related, climate often proves easier to assess and change. At an individual level of analysis the concept is called individual psychological climate. These individual perceptions are often aggregated or collected for analysis and understanding at the team or group level, or the divisional, functional, or overall organisational level.

Climate surveys

Theories of cognitive and neuropsychology and emotional intelligence provide additional scientific rationale for why leaders should improve stress and morale in the workplace to achieve maximum performance. Climate surveys can provide concrete evidence of how this works in action.

Organisational climate surveying enables the impact of human resource (HR) strategies to be evaluated to create HR return on investment (HRROI) calculations. This data has been found to be highly effective in changing the perspective of people-based initiatives as being an "investment" rather than a "cost" and transforming HR into a "mission-critical strategic partner" from its perception of "personnel administration".

A number of studies by Dr Dennis Rose and colleagues between 2001 and 2004 have found a very strong link between organisational climate and employee reactions such as stress levels, absenteeism and commitment and participation. [8] [9] [10] [11]

A study has found that Hart, Griffin et al.'s (1996) organisational climate model accounts for at least 16% single-day sick leave and 10% separation rates in one organisation. [12] [13] Other studies support the links between organisational climate and many other factors such as employee retention, job satisfaction, well-being, and readiness for creativity, innovation and change. Hunter, Bedell and Mumford have reviewed numerous approaches to climate assessment for creativity. They found that those climate studies that were based on well-developed, standardised instruments produced far higher effect sizes than did studies that were based on locally developed measures. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

Industrial and organizational psychology "focuses the lens of psychological science on a key aspect of human life, namely, their work lives. In general, the goals of I-O psychology are to better understand and optimize the effectiveness, health, and well-being of both individuals and organizations." It is an applied discipline within psychology and is an international profession. I-O psychology is also known as occupational psychology in the United Kingdom, organisational psychology in Australia and New Zealand, and work and organizational (WO) psychology throughout Europe and Brazil. Industrial, work, and organizational (IWO) psychology is the broader, more global term for the science and profession.

Work design is an area of research and practice within industrial and organizational psychology, and is concerned with the "content and organization of one's work tasks, activities, relationships, and responsibilities" (p. 662). Research has demonstrated that work design has important implications for individual employees, teams, organisations, and society.

Social cognition is a topic within psychology that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations. It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in social interactions.

Staffing is the process of finding the right worker with appropriate qualifications or experience and recruiting them to fill a job position or role. Through this process, organizations acquire, deploy, and retain a workforce of sufficient quantity and quality to create positive impacts on the organization's effectiveness. In management, staffing is an operation of recruiting the employees by evaluating their skills and knowledge before offering them specific job roles accordingly.

Personality–job fit theory is a form of organizational psychology, that postulates that an individual's personality traits will reveal insight into their adaptability within an organization. The degree of confluence between a person and the organization is expressed as their Person-Organization (P-O) fit. This is also referred to as a person–environment fit. A common measure of the P-O fit is workplace efficacy - the rate at which workers are able to complete tasks. These tasks are affected by environmental factors within the workplace. For example, a worker who is more efficient working as an individual, rather than in a team, will have a higher P-O fit for a workplace that stresses individual tasks. By matching the right personality with the right job, company workers can achieve a better synergy and avoid pitfalls such as high turnover and low job satisfaction. Employees are more likely to stay committed to organizations if the fit is 'good'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Safety culture</span> Risk-averse attitudes

Safety culture is the element of organizational culture which is concerned with the maintenance of safety and compliance with safety standards. It is informed by the organization's leadership and the beliefs, perceptions and values that employees share in relation to risks within the organization, workplace or community. Safety culture has been described in a variety of ways: notably, the National Academies of Science and the Association of Land Grant and Public Universities have published summaries on this topic in 2014 and 2016.

Workplace bullying is a persistent pattern of mistreatment from others in the workplace that causes either physical or emotional harm. It includes verbal, nonverbal, psychological, and physical abuse, as well as humiliation. This type of workplace aggression is particularly difficult because, unlike typical school bullies, workplace bullies often operate within the established rules and policies of both their organization and society. In most cases, workplace bullying is reported as being carried out by someone who is in a position of authority over the victim. However, bullies can also be peers or subordinates. When subordinates participate in bullying, this is referred to as ‘upwards bullying.’ The least visible form of workplace bullying involves upwards bullying where bullying tactics are manipulated and applied against a superior, often for strategically motivated outcomes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Employee engagement</span> Relationship between an organization and its employees

Employee engagement is a fundamental concept in the effort to understand and describe, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature of the relationship between an organization and its employees. An "engaged employee" is defined as one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests. An engaged employee has a positive attitude towards the organization and its values. In contrast, a disengaged employee may range from someone doing the bare minimum at work, up to an employee who is actively damaging the company's work output and reputation.

Quality of working life (QWL) describes a person's broader employment-related experience. Various authors and researchers have proposed models of quality of working life – also referred to as quality of worklife – which include a wide range of factors, sometimes classified as "motivator factors" which if present can make the job experience a positive one, and "hygiene factors" which if lacking are more associated with dissatisfaction. A number of rating scales have been developed aiming to measure overall quality of working life or certain aspects thereof. Some publications have drawn attention to the importance of QWL for both employees and employers, and also for national economic performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Occupational stress</span> Tensions related to work

Occupational stress is psychological stress related to one's job. Occupational stress refers to a chronic condition. Occupational stress can be managed by understanding what the stressful conditions at work are and taking steps to remediate those conditions. Occupational stress can occur when workers do not feel supported by supervisors or coworkers, feel as if they have little control over the work they perform, or find that their efforts on the job are incommensurate with the job's rewards. Occupational stress is a concern for both employees and employers because stressful job conditions are related to employees' emotional well-being, physical health, and job performance. The World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization conducted a study. The results showed that exposure to long working hours, operates through increased psycho-social occupational stress. It is the occupational risk factor with the largest attributable burden of disease, according to these official estimates causing an estimated 745,000 workers to die from ischemic heart disease and stroke events in 2016.

Despite a large body of positive psychological research into the relationship between happiness and productivity, happiness at work has traditionally been seen as a potential by-product of positive outcomes at work, rather than a pathway to business success. Happiness in the workplace is usually dependent on the work environment. During the past two decades, maintaining a level of happiness at work has become more significant and relevant due to the intensification of work caused by economic uncertainty and increase in competition. Nowadays, happiness is viewed by a growing number of scholars and senior executives as one of the major sources of positive outcomes in the workplace. In fact, companies with higher than average employee happiness exhibit better financial performance and customer satisfaction. It is thus beneficial for companies to create and maintain positive work environments and leadership that will contribute to the happiness of their employees.

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is employee's behavior that goes against the legitimate interests of an organization. This behavior can harm the organization, other people within it, and other people and organizations outside it, including employers, other employees, suppliers, clients, patients and citizens. It has been proposed that a person-by-environment interaction (the relationship between a person's psychological and physical capacities and the demands placed on those capacities by the person's social and physical environment.) can be utilized to explain a variety of counterproductive behaviors. For instance, an employee who is high on trait anger is more likely to respond to a stressful incident at work with CWB.

Positive psychology is defined as a method of building on what is good and what is already working instead of attempting to stimulate improvement by focusing on the weak links in an individual, a group, or in this case, a company. Implementing positive psychology in the workplace means creating an environment that is more enjoyable, productive, and values individual employees. This also means creating a work schedule that does not lead to emotional and physical distress.

Work motivation is a person's internal disposition toward work. To further this, an incentive is the anticipated reward or aversive event available in the environment. While motivation can often be used as a tool to help predict behavior, it varies greatly among individuals and must often be combined with ability and environmental factors to actually influence behavior and performance. Results from a 2012 study, which examined age-related differences in work motivation, suggest a "shift in people's motives" rather than a general decline in motivation with age. That is, it seemed that older employees were less motivated by extrinsically related features of a job, but more by intrinsically rewarding job features. Work motivation is strongly influenced by certain cultural characteristics. Between countries with comparable levels of economic development, collectivist countries tend to have higher levels of work motivation than do countries that tend toward individualism. Similarly measured, higher levels of work motivation can be found in countries that exhibit a long versus a short-term orientation. Also, while national income is not itself a strong predictor of work motivation, indicators that describe a nation's economic strength and stability, such as life expectancy, are. Work motivation decreases as a nation's long-term economic strength increases. Currently work motivation research has explored motivation that may not be consciously driven. This method goal setting is referred to as goal priming.

Psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. In teams, it refers to team members believing that they can take risks without being shamed by other team members. In psychologically safe teams, team members feel accepted and respected contributing to a better "experience in the workplace". It is also the most studied enabling condition in group dynamics and team learning research.

Adaptive performance in the work environment refers to adjusting to and understanding change in the workplace. An employee who is versatile is valued and important in the success of an organization. Employers seek employees with high adaptability, due to the positive outcomes that follow, such as excellent work performance, work attitude, and ability to handle stress. Employees, who display high adaptive performance in an organization, tend to have more advantages in career opportunities unlike employees who are not adaptable to change. In previous literature, Pulakos and colleagues established eight dimensions of adaptive performance.

Abusive supervision is most commonly studied in the context of the workplace, although it can arise in other areas such as in the household and at school. Abusive supervision has been investigated as major cause of negative outcomes in managing employees. Studies have been conducted to investigate the link between abusive supervision and different workplace events.

Machiavellianism in the workplace is a concept studied by many organizational psychologists. Conceptualized originally by Richard Christie and Florence Geis, Machiavellianism in psychology refers to a personality trait construct based on a cold, callous and exploitative orientation. It has been adapted and applied to the context of the workplace and organizations by psychology academics. Oliver James wrote on the effects of Machiavellianism and other dark triad personality traits in the workplace, the others being narcissism and psychopathy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trait activation theory</span>

Trait activation theory is based on a specific model of job performance, and can be considered an elaborated or extended view of personality-job fit. Specifically, it is how an individual expresses their traits when exposed to situational cues related to those traits. These situational cues may stem from organization, social, and/or task cues. These cues can activate personality traits that are related to job tasks and organizational expectations that the organization values. These cues may also elicit trait-related behaviors that are not directly related to job performance.

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) is a term used in organisational psychology that refers to the shared belief held by workers that their psychological health and safety are protected and supported by senior management. PSC builds on other work stress theories and concerns the corporate climate for worker psychological health and safety. Studies have found that a favourable PSC is associated with low rates of absenteeism and high productivity, while a poor climate is linked to high levels of workplace stress and job dissatisfaction. PSC can be promoted by organisational practices, policies and procedures that prioritise the psychosocial safety and wellbeing of workers. The theory has implications for the design of workplaces for the best possible outcomes for both workers and management.

References

  1. ↑ Glisson, Charles; James, Lawrence R. (2002). "The cross-level effects of culture and climate in human service teams". Journal of Organizational Behavior. 23 (6): 767–794. doi: 10.1002/job.162 .
  2. ↑ Glisson, Charles; James, Lawrence R. (2002). "The cross-level effects of culture and climate in human service teams". Journal of Organizational Behavior. 23 (6): 767–794. doi: 10.1002/job.162 . ISSN   0894-3796.
  3. ↑ Thumin, F. J., & Thumin, L. J. (2011). The measurement and interpretation of organizational climate. The Journal of Psychology, 145(2), 93–109. doi : 10.1080/00223980.2010.538754
  4. ↑
    • Anderson, N.R., & West, M.A. (1996). "The team climate inventory: Development of the TCI and its applications in teambuilding for innovativeness." European Journal of Work and Organizational Behavior, 19, p. 235-258.
  5. ↑
    • Reichers, A.E. and Schneider, B. (1990). "Climate and culture: An evolution of constructs." In Schneider B. (Ed.) Organizational Climate and Culture, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. (p. 22)
  6. ↑
    • Hart, P. M., Griffin, M. A., Wearing, A. J., & Cooper, C. L. (1996). Manual for the QPASS Survey. Brisbane: Public Sector Management Commission.
  7. ↑ Isaksen, S. G., & Ekvall, G. (2007). Assessing the context for change: A technical manual for the Situational Outlook Questionnaire. Orchard Park, NY: The Creative Problem Solving Group.
  8. ↑
    • Rafferty A. E., & Rose, D. M. (2001). An examination of the relationship among extent of workplace change, employee participation, and workplace distress. In W. Noble (Ed.), Australian Journal of Psychology 2001 Supplement – combined Abstracts of 2001 Australian Psychology Conferences, vol. 53 (p. 85). Carlton South, Vic: The Australian Psychological Society Ltd.
  9. ↑
    • Rose, D. M. & Waterhouse, J. M. (2004). Experiencing new public management: employee reaction to flexible work practices and performance management. Industrial Relations European Conference, Utrecht, Netherlands
  10. ↑
    • Rose. D. M., Douglas, M., Griffin, M. A., & Linsley, C. (2002). Making HR work: Symposium - Managing the relationship: commitment and work effectiveness. Australian Human Resources Institute HR Practices Day 2002. Brisbane, Australia.
  11. ↑
    • Rose. D. M. & Griffin, M. (2002). High Performance Work Systems, HR practices and high involvement: A group level analysis. Academy of Management, Conference 2002, Denver, USA.
  12. ↑
    • Bushell, H.M. (2007) Quantifying the Key Leadership Behaviours for Creating a Successful Culture which Empowers Employees and Strengthens Organisational Performance. Health, Work & Wellness Conference 2007, Toronto, Canada
  13. ↑
    • Griffin, M. A., Hart, P. M., & Wilson-Evered, E. (2000). Using employee opinion surveys to improve organizational health. In L. R. Murphy & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), Health and productive work: An international perspective. London: Taylor & Francis.
  14. ↑
    • Hunter, S. T., Bedell, K. E., & Mumford, M. D. (2007). Climate for creativity: A quantitative review. Creativity Research Journal , 19(1), 69-90.

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