List out various dimensions and determinants of organisational climate and their relevance in organisational functioning.

List out various dimensions and determinants of organisational climate and their relevance in organisational functioning. Discuss organisational climate with reference to your organisation or an organisation you are familiar with and briefly describe the organisation you are referring to.


Various dimensions of climate are :-
1. Innovation and risk taking :-
The degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and take risks.
2. Attention to detail :-
The degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis, and attention to detail.
3. Outcome orientation :-
The degree to which management focuses on results or outcomes rather than on the techniques and processes used to achieve these outcomes.
4. People orientation :-
The degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the organisation.
5. Team orientation :-
The degree to which work activities are organised around teams rather than individuals.
6. Aggressiveness :-
The degree to which to people are aggressive and competitive rather than easygoing.
7. Stability :-
The degree to which organisational activities emphasize maintaining the status quo in contrast to growth.
• Climate is a descriptive term :-
Organisational climate is concerned with how employees perceive the characteristics of an organisation’s culture, not with whether or not they like them. That is, it is a descriptive term. This important because it differentiates this concept from that job satisfaction. Research on organisational climate has sought to measure how employees see their organisation. Does it encourage teamwork? Does it reward innovation? Does it stifle initiative?
In contrast, job satisfaction seeks to measure affective responses to the work environment. It is concerned with how employees feel about the organisation’s expectations, reward practices, and the like. Although the two terms undoubtedly have overlapping characteristics, keep in mind that the term organisational culture is descriptive while job satisfaction is evaluative.
• Strong Vs weak climates:-
It has become increasingly popular to differentiate between strong and weak climates. The argument here is that strong cultures have a greater impact on employee behaviour and are more directly related to reduced turnover. In a strong climate, the organisation’s values are both intensely held and widely shared. The more members who accept the core values is, the stronger the climate is. Consistent with this definition, a strong climate will have a great influence on the behaviour of its members because the high degree of sharedness and intensity creates an internal climate of high behavioural control.
• Climate Vs formalisation :-
A strong organisational climate increases behavioural consistency. In this sense, we should recognise that a strong climate can act as a substitute for formalisation. High formalisation in an organisation creates predictability, orderliness, and consistency. Our point is that a strong climate achieves the same end without the need for written documentation. Therefore, we should views formalisation and climate as two different roads to a common destination. The stronger an organisation’s climate, the less management need concerned with developing formal rules and regulations to guide employee behaviour. These guides will be internalised in employees when they accept the organisation’s climate.
• There are several basic determinants that differentiate climate :-
1. How people see themselves:-
In some countries of the world, people are viewed as basically honest and trustworthy. In others, people are regarded with suspicion and distrust. For example, reasons some people around the world regard the United States with suspicion and distrust mat result from the way these people view themselves. They assume others are like them, that id, prepared to cut corners if they can get away with it. On the other hand, many other people of these countries are just the opposite. They do not lock their doors; they are very trusting and assume that no one will break in. It is forbidden to take the property of another person, and the people adhere strictly to that cultural value.
2. People’s relationship to their world: -
In some societies people attempt to dominate their environment. In other societies they try to live in harmony with it or are subjugated by it. People from the United States and Canada, for example, attempt to dominate their environment. In agriculture they use fertilizers and insecticides to increase crop yields. Other societies, especially those in Asia, work in harmony with the environment by planting crops in the right places and at the right time. In still other societies, most notably developing countries, no action is taken regarding the subjugation of nature, so, for example, when the floods come, there are no dams or irrigation systems for dealing with the impending disaster.
3. Time :-
In some societies people are oriented toward the past. In others they tend to be more focused on the present still others are futuristic in their orientation. People from the United States and Canada most interested in the present and the near future. Business people in these countries are particularly interested in where their companies are today and where they will be in five to ten years. People who are hired and do not work out are often let go in short order. They seldom last more than one or two years. Most Europeans place more importance or the past than do North Americans.
4. Public and private space :-
Some climates promote the use of public space; others favour private space. For example, in Japan bosses often sit together with their employees in the same large room. The heads of some of the biggest Japanese firms may leave their chauffeur driven limousines at home and ride the crowded public subways to work in the morning so that they can be their workers. In the Middle East there are often many people present during important meetings. These cultures have a public orientation. In contrast, North Americans prefer private space. The more restricted or confined a manager is, the more important the individual is assumed to be. Anyone coming to see the person must first go past a secretary before being admitted to the manager’s presence.
• Climate’s functions :-
Climate performs a number of functions within an organisation.
. First, it has a boundary, defining role; that is, it creates distinctions between one organisation and others.
. Second, it conveys a sense of identity for organisation members.
. Third, facilitates the generation of commitment to something larger than one’s individual self interest.
. Fourth, it enhances social system stability, climate is the social glue that helps hold the organisation together by providing appropriate standards for what employees should say and do.
. Finally, climate serves as a sense-making and control mechanism that guides and shapes the attitudes and behaviour of employees. It is this last function that is of particular interest to us.
The role of climate is influencing employee behaviour appears to be increasingly important in the 1990s. As organisations have widened spans of control, flattered structures, introduced teams, reduced formalisation, and empowered employees, the shared meaning provided by strong culture ensures that everyone is pointed in the same direction.
• Climate as liability :-
We are treating climate in a non-judgemental manner. We haven’t said that it’s good or bad, only that exists. Many of its functions are valuable for both the organisation and the employee. Culture enhances organisational commitment and increases the consistency of employee behaviour. These are clearly benefits to an organisation. From an employee’s stand point, climate is valuable because it reduces ambiguity. It tells employees how things are done and what’s important.
• Climate is a liability when the shared values are not in agreement with those that will further the organisation’s effectiveness. This is most likely to occur when the organisation’s environment is dynamic. When the environment is undergoing rapid change, the organisation’s entrenched culture may no longer be appropriate. So consistency of behaviour is an asset to an organisation when it faces a stable environment. It may burden the organisation and make it difficult to respond to changes in the environment. This helps to explain the challenges the executives at companies like IBM, Eastman Kodak, and General Dynamics have had in recent years in adapting to upheavals in their environment.