A Meta‐analytic Integration and Test of Psychological Climate Dimensionality

• Published date: 01 May 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21645
• Date: 01 May 2015
• Author: Justin Benzer,Margaret Horner

Human Resource Management, May–June 2015, Vol. 54, No. 3. Pp. 457–482

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI:10.1002/hrm.21645

Correspondence to: Justin Benzer, Department of Veteran Affairs, VA Boston Healthcare System,

Boston University, Department of Health Policy and Management, 150 S. Huntington Ave (152-M),

Boston, MA, 02860, Phone: 857-364-5691, Fax: 857-364-6140, E-mail:justin.benzer@va.gov.

climate (Campbell, Dunnette, Lawler, Weick,

1970; Johanneson, 1973; LaFollette & Sims, 1975;

Pritchard & Karasik, 1973). That is, researchers

struggled to establish a consensus for what con-

structs should be labeled as climate and whether/

how those constructs should be grouped into

higher-order dimensions. Psychological climate

studies tend to measure perceptions of jobs,

work groups, leaders, and/or organization char-

acteristics. However, theory suggests that there

is a core essence that unites perceptions of the

Introduction

Psychological climate can be defined as an

individual employee’s perception of the

work environment (Litwin & Stringer,

1968). This is a broad definition that may

potentially include multiple constructs

that are studied outside of the psychological

climate literature. Early psychological climate

researchers recognized this problem and sought

to establish the dimensionality of psychological

A META-ANALYTIC INTEGRATION

AND TEST OF PSYCHOLOGICAL

CLIMATE DIMENSIONALITY

JUSTIN BENZER AND MARGARET HORNER

There is no consensus as to what constructs should be considered to be

psychological climate. Further, there is no clear taxonomy of psychological

climate, although the climate literature suggests that psychological climate

perceptions should form higher-order (i.e., abstract, broad) dimensions. Two

meta-analyses have been conducted to evaluate higher-order frameworks, but

neither study tested the psychometric structure of their hypothesized models. The

current meta-analysis estimated the intercorrelations and criterion-related validity

of 23 psychological climate constructs in order to test the theoretical frameworks

proposed by prior meta-analyses. Confi rmatory factor analyses supplemented by

a method analogous to item-to-scale correlations indicated little empirical sup-

port for the a priori frameworks. Results suggest that that psychological climate

may be parsimoniously represented by two dimensions. Task climate was most

strongly indicated by supervisor goal setting, innovation, and organizational

responsiveness. Relational climate was most strongly indicated by work group

warmth and social rewards. A path analysis was estimated to test whether job

satisfaction partially mediated the association between psychological climate and

the outcomes of job performance, turnover intentions, and psychological well-

being. Results provide guidance to researchers and practitioners interested in

measuring perceptions of the work environment. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: culture and climate, HR measurement issues

458 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, MAY–JUNE 2015

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

The commonality

among narrowly

defined psychological

climate perceptions is

thought to represent

one or more abstract,

broad, higher-order

dimensions.

for first-order measurement frameworks by dem-

onstrating that items form scales. Higher-order

frameworks are less commonly investigated, but

would provide evidence that a set of scales share

a common factor. Similar to scale development

methodology, research proposing higher-order

frameworks should provide evidence that first-

order scales have stronger relationships with the

proposed higher-order factor than alternative

factors, but neither meta-analysis provided this evi-

dence. The validity evidence for the psychological

involvement and hierarchical models is based on

individual primary studies that did not test alter-

native models (e.g., James & James, 1989; Ostroff,

1993). If the assignments of first-order constructs

to second-order dimensions in these meta-analy-

ses are not valid, then the meta- analytic estimates

of the association between climate dimensions

and outcomes will be biased in unpredictable

directions because the proposed higher-order

dimensions are in fact multidimensional.

The psychological involvement model is

based on the proposition that climate perceptions

are derived from three higher order facets: affec-

tive, cognitive, and instrumental involvement in

the workplace (Ostroff, 1993). Affective climate

represents involvement with the interpersonal

dimension of work and includes constructs such as

participation, cooperation, and warmth. Cognitive

climate represents involvement with personal

development and is defined by constructs such as

autonomy and growth. Instrumental climate rep-

resents involvement in tasks and work processes

and is defined by task-focused constructs such as

rewards, goals, and organizational structure.

The hierarchical model is based on the prop-

osition that a global climate factor underlies cli-

mate perceptions and that this general factor

influences perceptions of job characteristics, work

group relationships, leadership, and the organiza-

tion (James & James, 1989). This global climate

factor is thought to represent overall positive or

negative evaluations of the organization. Parker

etal. (2003) found support for this model whereby

meta-analytic estimates of perceptions of jobs,

roles, leadership, work groups, and the organiza-

tion as a whole loaded on a global factor of psy-

chological climate.

There are two major differences between the

two models. The first difference is the hypothesized

role of affect. The hierarchical model proposes that

a single global psychological climate factor influ-

ences each of the second-order climate dimensions

(Parker et al., 2003). This global climate factor is

thought to represent overall positive or negative

affective evaluations of the organization (James &

James, 1989). A potential conflict between these

work environment regardless of the construct

being measured (Carr, Schmidt, Ford, & DeShon,

2003; James & James, 1989; Parker et al., 2003;

Schneider & Reichers, 1983). In other words, the

commonality among narrowly defined psycho-

logical climate perceptions is thought to represent

one or more abstract, broad, higher-order dimen-

sions. However, the question of dimensionality

has not been resolved and thus there is an unre-

solved need to integrate the psychological climate

literature by conducting a psychometric test of

the alternative models.

Schneider, Ehrhart, and Macey (2010) present

a detailed review of the development of the cli-

mate literature and describe the most well known

higher-order frameworks (e.g., James & James,

1989; Ostroff, 1993). This article focuses on the

two frameworks used in prior psychological cli-

mate meta-analyses, the Ostroff (1993) and James

& James (1989) frameworks, labeled here for con-

venient reference as the “psychological involve-

ment” and “hierarchical” models,

respectively. These two models were

chosen as the focus of the current

research because while many models

of psychological climate have been

proposed, these are the two models

that have fairly well defined taxono-

mies based on prior meta-analytic

work. Additionally, these two mod-

els have stood the test of time in

that there is a substantial amount

of research using each theoretical

framework. A major limitation of

both of the prior climate meta-

analyses is that neither tested alter-

native frameworks. Therefore the

current study will test competing climate taxono-

mies by comparing these two higher-order frame-

works using a meta-analytic correlation matrix.

The study will then test whether job satisfaction

fully or partially mediates the association between

the higher-order psychological climate dimensions

and the outcomes of job performance, turnover

intentions, and psychological well-being.

Higher-Order Dimensions

ofPsychologicalClimate

Two prior meta-analyses have summarized the

psychological climate literature using different

higher-order dimensions to organize the first-

order climate constructs (Carr et al., 2003; Parker

et al., 2003). However, a major limitation of both

previously conducted meta-analyses was the lack

of an empirical test for the psychometric struc-

ture of the proposed higher-order dimensions. For

example, most empirical studies provide evidence