Organizational Climate - Literature Review

Organizational Climate: Measures, Research and Contingencies
DON HELLRIEGEL, JOHN W. SLOCUM, JR.
The Pennsylvania State University
Academy of Management Journal, June 1974, Volume 17. Number 2. pp.255 - 280

Toward a Definition
The present definition of organizational climate represents an adaptation of conceptions set forth by Beer (1), Campbell et ai. (3, p. 329),Dachler 7), and Schneider (56). Organizational climate refers to a set of attributes which can be perceived about a particular organization and/or its subsystems, and that may be induced from the way that organization and/or its subsystems deal with their members and environment. Several themes are imphcit in this definition of organizational climate (7, 56, 64): (a) perceptual responses sought are primarily descriptive rather than evaluative; (b) the level of inciusiveness of the items, scales, and constructs are macro rather than micro; (c) the units of analysis tend to be attributes of the organization or specific subsystems rather than the individual; and (d) the perceptions have potential behavioral consequences.