Organisational Climate and performance: a case study of Nigerian universities

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CHAPTER 1: ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE AND PERFORMANCE

Introduction

In an effort to determine to what extent Alabama educators perceive that “their school has positive teaching conditions where teachers are supported and empowered” (Take20 Alabama faqs, 2008, n. p.), all public-school-based licensed educators in the state were requested to respond to the Take20 Alabama Teaching and Learning Conditions Survey. This survey instrument was developed, administered, and analyzed by the New Teacher Center at the University of California - Santa Cruz and LEARN North Carolina. Versions of this survey had previously been completed by over a quarter million educators in eight states (T Young 1980 11). Nearly 30,000 (47.14%) Alabama educators responded during January and February, 2008 (Towns 2001 18). This research will focus on the torchbearer schools and study the factors which will affect the student performance (Peterson 2006 249).

Literature Review

The conceptual levels of climate

Based on literature review on culture and climate by Verbeke, Volgering, & Hessels (1998), climate is best understood as a psychological description of the work environment and employees' perceptions of the formal and informal policies, practices, and procedures in their organization (Anderson 1982 368). By definition, climate is divided into psychological climate and organizational climate. Psychological climate is the individual perception of the psychological impact of the work environment based on his or her sense of well-being (Rutter 1979 65, Sarason 1971 44, Schargel 2007 13, Smith 2003 135).

Organizational climate is formed when employees within an organization share common perceptions of the work place (Brookover 1979 85). This is an important distinction between psychological and organizational climate. Psychological climate is constituted as individuals' own perceptions of the work environment at the individual level of analysis, whereas organizational climate is proposed as an organizational construct.

Brown and Leigh (1996) further developed the concept of psychological climate, basing it on how employees perceive the organizational environment and interpret their perceptions in terms of well-being (i.e., is their work environment perceived as psychologically safe and meaningful). James and his colleagues (1990) note that employee's perceptions of the organization environment have meaning, motivational, and/or emotional significance for the individual. There of course exist variations in the individual perceptions which constitute psychological climate from the individual differences, from the differences in organizational situation, and from the differences in the interactions between individual and organizational environment context (Caldas 1997 269).

While psychological climate refers to an individual level of analysis, several empirical studies espouse an organizational level of analysis for studying climate when it is used as a concept of organizational behavior. Organizational climate is operationally “constructed” through aggregating individual data into subgroups such as work groups, departments or organizational levels. It is assumed that there are significant shared perceptions regarding climate within a unit and significant differences between the sub-group units. Organizational climate is understood as the employees' perceptions of organizational policies, practices, and procedures that lead to employees' behavior in an organization and as a mediator between organizational context and employee behavior that explains how ...