Organizational Climate
According to Bowditch & Buono
“Organizational culture is concerned with the
nature of beliefs & expectations about
organizational life, while climate is an
indicator of whether those beiefs &
expectations are being fulfilled”
• Organization climate reflects a person’s
perception of the organization to which he
belongs.
• It is a set of characteristics & factors that
are perceived by the employees about
their organizations that serve as a major
force in influencing their behaviour.
• These factors may include Job
Description, Organizational structure
format, Performance & Evaluation stds.,
Leadership styles, challenges &
innovations, etc..
Examples
• Bad climate:
Turnover, stress, sickness, poor performance,
error rate, wastage, accidents, etc…
• Good climate:
Job satisfaction, confidence in management,
commitment, performance, etc…
• We can compare organizational culture
and climate to personality and mood. The
former is enduring; the latter is temporary.
We acquire our basic personalities early in
life, but our moods can shift several times
in one day.
• Generally, climate is easier to change.
During an economic downturn, people are
worried about their jobs, then suddenly a
big order comes in and everyone breathes
a sigh of relief, so the climate improves
Methods to study organizational
climate
The Climate of an Organization is the State of its Health
How the employees feel about their jobs, their
supervisors, their peers, top management, and many
other factors affects their individual productivity, and
collectively the ability of the organization to achieve its
objectives.
The formal process generally involves using a climate
survey or questionnaire.
Dimensions
[Link] ‑ feelings about constraints and freedom to act and the
degree of formality or informality in the working atmosphere.
[Link] ‑ the feeling of being trusted to carry out important
work.
[Link] ‑ the sense of riskiness and challenge in the job and in the
organization; the relative emphasis on taking calculated risks or
playing it safe.
[Link] ‑ the existence of friendly and informal social groups.
[Link] ‑ the perceived helpfulness of managers and co‑workers; the
emphasis (or lack of emphasis) on mutual support.
[Link] ‑ the perceived importance of implicit and explicit goals
and performance standards; the emphasis on doing a good job; the
challenge represented in personal and team goals.
[Link] ‑ the feeling that managers and other workers want to hear
different opinions; the emphasis on getting problems out into the
open rather than smoothing them over or ignoring them.
[Link] ‑ the feeling that you belong to a company; that you are a
valuable member of a working team.
[Link] ‑ the perception of self-determination with respect to work
procedures, goals and priorities;
[Link] ‑ the perception of togetherness or sharing within the
organization setting, including the willingness of members to provide
material risk;
[Link] ‑ the perception of freedom to communicate openly with
members at higher organizational levels about sensitive or personal
issues, with the expectation that the integrity of such
communications will not be violated;
[Link] ‑ the perception of the degree to which superiors tolerate
members' behaviour, including willingness to let members learn from
their mistakes without fear of reprisal;
[Link] ‑ the perception that members' contributions to the
organization are acknowledged;
[Link] ‑ the perception that organizational policies are
non‑arbitrary .
[Link] ‑ the perception that change and creativity are
encouraged, including risk‑taking into new areas where the member
has little or no prior experience.
Considerable work has been done in this
area by Likert, who developed a profile of
organizational climate by isolating SIX
variables. They are:
• Decision making
• Leadership style
• Motivation
• Communication
• Goal setting
• Control
