Organisational Climate: A Conceptual Perspective

Despite the fact that there have been a number of research studies on organisational climate, there has yet been no unanimity on its definition as also on its dimensions. This diversity of opinions has made the organisational climate an interesting area of research. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to study the views of different experts, right from the period when the concept of organisational climate originated till date, with regard to the concept, definition and dimensions of organisational climate. While some authors have defined organisational climate as a function of a person and his interaction with the organisational environment, a few others have defined it as a dependent variable which may be influenced by individual or subjective perception. Yet a few others have referred it as an independent variable. Not only this, some experts have defined organisational climate as recurring patterns of behaviour depending on the values and atmosphere prevailing in an organisation from time to time, and so on. However, having studied the views of different authors on organisation climate, the authors of the present paper are of the view that the organisational climate refers to the general perception of the personnel (as a whole) of an organisation with regard to relevant dimensions of organisational climate prevailing during a particular period of time in their organisation. With regard to dimensions of organisational climate also, there has been a lot of controversy as many climate researchers have assessed the specific climate in which they were interested rather than attempting to develop a single and central view of dimensions which is, indeed, a challenge for researchers in the times to come. This is a challenge because organizations differ widely in terms of their size, complexity, structure, products, vision, mission, values, and so on. However, a few key dimensions which are common to almost all organizations need to be identified. Research studies carried out so far in the area of organisational climate have served a good purpose but more is yet to be done so as a to overcome or, at least, to minimize the difference in the opinions on relevant issues of organisational climate..