Text 6. Organizational Climate

The concept of organizational climate has been assessed by various authors, of which many of them published their own definition of organizational climate. For those interested in understanding organizational climate, it is important to make some distinctions between culture and climate. First, climate and culture are both important aspects of the overall context, environment or situation. 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; shapes behavior and structures 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 organizational level as well. Company culture is the shared values and practices of the company's employees. The main distinction between organizational and national culture is that people can choose to join a place of work, but are usually born into a national culture.

Organizational cultures are generally deep and stable. Climate, on the other hand, is often defined as the recurring patterns of behavior, attitudes and feelings that characterize life in the organization. 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 organizational level.

Organizational climate, however, proves to be hard to define. There are two especially intractable and related difficulties: how to define climate and how to measure it effectively on different levels of analysis. Furthermore there are several approaches to the concept of climate, of which two in particular have received substantial patronage: the cognitive schema approach and the shared perception approach.

The first approach regards the concept of climate as an individual perception and cognitive representation of the work environment. From this perspective climate assessments should be conducted at an individual level.

The second approach emphasizes the importance of shared perceptions as underpinning the notion of climate. Other authors define organizational climate as the shared perception of the way things are around here. It is important to realize that from these two approaches, there is no “best” approach and they actually have a great deal of overlap.

Organizational Climate (sometimes known as Corporate Climate) is the process of quantifying the “culture” of an organization.

While an organization and its leaders cannot remove every stressor in the daily life of its employees, Organizational Climate studies have identified a number of behaviors 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 behaviors has improved quality of work life employees and the ability of QT’s to deliver its organizational goals.

There was found a very strong link between Organisational Climate and employee reactions such as stress levels, absenteeism and commitment and participation. Other studies support the links between organizational climate and many other factors such as employee retention, job satisfaction, well-being, and readiness for creativity, innovation and change. There were reviewed numerous approaches to climate assessment for creativity. It was found that those climate studies that were based on well-developed, standardized instruments produced far higher effect sizes than did studies that were based on locally developed measures.

 

Exercise 42. Find English equivalents.

Передавати молодшим членам соціальної групи, окреслювати поведінку, впорядкувати сприйняття, цінності, що старанно зберігаються, спільні цінності, суттєва підтримка, когнітивний образ, наголошувати на важливості, мати значний вплив, поліпшена якість роботи, виконувати цілі організації, готовність до творчості.

 

Exercise 4 3 . Here are some characteristics of company cultures that others have used successfully. Decide which work for your company and implement them.

Mission clarity / Employee commitment / Fully empowered employees / High integrity workplace / Strong trust relationships / Highly effective leadership / Effective systems and processes / Performance-based compensation and reward programs / Customer-focused / Commitment to learning and skill development / Emphasis on recruiting and retaining outstanding employees / High degree of adaptability / High accountability standards / Demonstrated support for innovation

 

Exercise 4 4 . Discuss the following situation.

You’ve just started working for a new company. Do you: 

a) wear your best clothes or wear jeans and a T-shirt like all the other employees? Why?

b) stop work at 5 o’clock like everyone else or stay longer to finish your work? Why?

c) share your ideas and opinions at staff meetings immediately or say nothing like most of your colleagues? Why? 

 

Exercise 4 5 . Find proper definitions.

1. presenteeism	a) the ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society
2. absenteeism	b) the prevailing trend of public opinion or of another aspect of life
3. culture	c) the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function
4. climate	d) the practice of regularly staying away from work or school without good reason
5. performance	e) the practice of being present at one's place of work for more hours than is required, especially as a manifestation of insecurity about one's job

 

Exercise 4 6 . Translate the sentences paying attention to the verbals.

1. A culture is the values and practices shared by the members of the group. 2. As employees leave the company and replacements are hired the company culture will change. 3. To assess the company culture it is necessary to look for common behavior and visible symbols.     4. Companies with an adaptive culture that is aligned to their business goals routinely outperform their competitors. 5. A specific action plan can leverage the good things in the current culture and correct the unaligned areas.

 

Exercise 4 7 . Find the synonyms from the text to the following words: measure, idea, to be investigated, general, important, contribution, information.

 

Exercise 4 8 . Answer the questions on text.

1. What is culture in an organizational context? 2. What does an organizational climate differ from an organizational culture in? 3. What does the cognitive scheme approach to an organizational climate consist in? 4. What is the second approach to the concept of climate? 5. What aspects of a workplace can be measured thanks to the model of climate? 

Exercise 4 9 .  Learn the following words and word combinations.

turnover	– плинність робочої сили
multitiered	– багаторівневий
profit sharing	– участь у прибутках
outrageous	– дивний, помітний
newsletter	– інформаційний бюлетень
retain	– утримувати

Exercise 50 . Read, translate and give the gist of  text 7.

 

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