Psychological climate (PC) is defined as a set of perceptions that reflect how work environments, including organizational attributes, are cognitively appraised and represented in terms of their meaning to and significance for individuals (cf. James & Jones, 1974; James & Sells, 1981; Joyce & Slocum, 1979). Factorial invariance studies indicate that PC has a parsimonious set of dimensions (Jones & James, 1979). These dimensions are (a) conflict and ambiguity; (b) job challenge, importance, and variety; (c) leader facilitation and support; (d) workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth; and (e) professional and organizational esprit. If individuals in an organization share perceptions on a PC dimension such as conflict and ambiguity, then it is possible to aggregate the PC scores because perceptual agreement implies a shared assignment of meaning (James, 1982). The aggregate scores are regarded as indicators of organizational climate (OC) because they indicate how individuals in general perceive their organization.

Response: Organizations Are Not Central Tendencies: Shadowboxing in the Dark, Round 2

There are to conflicting definitions of organizational climate. First, James (1982; James, Joyce, & Slocum, 1988) defines organizational climate as aggregated psychological climate whenever perceptual agreement has been demonstrated. Second, Glick (1985) defines organizational climate as "a broad class of organizational, rather than psychological, variables that describe the organizational contest for individuals' actions" (p. 613). These organizational variables include "interpersonal practices (the social climate) " (Schneider, 1985, p. 595) and the intersubjectively developed meanings that result from organizational sense-making processes (Glick, 1985). Similarly, organizational climate is sometimes used "as a shorthand for describing other sets of formal and informal policies and activities" (Schneider, 1985, p. 595) [emphasis added]. Primary examples include organizational climates for service (Schneider, Parkington, & Buxton, 1980), safety (Zohar, 1980), innovation (Abbey & Dickson, 1983), and retaliation against whistle blowing (Miceli & Near, 1985).