Integrating Organizational Climate Theory: A Domain-Independent Explanation for Climate Formation and Function

• 成果类型: Review
• 署名作者: Beus, Jeremy M.; Smith, Jacob H.; Taylor, Erik C.
• 署名单位: Washington State University; Louisiana State University System; Louisiana State University; University of North Carolina; East Carolina University; Washington State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-9010
• DOI: 10.1037/apl0001117
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 2018-2039
• 关键词: organizational climate; uncertainty; SENSEMAKING; theory; ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

摘要

Organizational climate is arguably the most studied representation of the social context of organizations, having been examined as an antecedent, outcome, or boundary condition in virtually every domain of inquiry in the organizational sciences. Yet there is no commonly recognized, domain-independent theory that is used to explain why and how climates both form and affect behavior. Rather, there is a set of climate theories (and literatures) housed across a variety of divergent content domains. As a result, researchers who study climate in one domain are often unaware of climate advancements made in another. This lack of a theoretical lingua franca for climate limits our ability to understand what is known about climate and how climate research-whether domain-specific or domain-independent-can progress in a more cogent fashion. To resolve these fractures and unify climate scholarship, this article integrates existing theoretical perspectives of climate into a singular climate theory that summarizes and articulates domain-independent answers to the questions of why and how climates form and influence behavior in organizations. Using the individual drive to reduce uncertainty in meaningful social settings as the motivational mortar for this theoretical integration, we offer a needed reorientation to the field and illuminate a path forward for both future domain-specific and domain-independent climate advancements.