Organizational Climate: Structure, Context, & Hierarchy - Research Paper

Introduction

An organization's perceived climate has been found by various researchers such as Payne and Mansfield (1973) to have a relationship with the organization's structure, context and hierarchical position held by an individual within an organization. An organization context refers to the number of employees within an organization, the size of the organization, age of the organization, an organizations dependence on other organizations as well as the work integration within the organization while a hierarchical position refers to the ranks held by employees in the organization. For the study by Payne and Mansfield (1973), the organizational climate was determined by measuring 160 true or false statements grouped into 20 themes comprising of 7-8 questions each. Their study aimed at investigating the relationships between the organizational context, organizational structure, and climate while also considering the impact that an individual's position within the organization's hierarchy had on their perception of the current organizational climate. The study by Payne and Mansfield (1973) involved 387 respondents from 14 different organizations with 262 to 4580 employees which depicted significant variations on their perception of organizational climate.

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Hypothesis

An organization's size is considered a crucial variable in determining the organization's climate. It is thus hypothesized that with all factors kept constant, larger organizations happen to score higher on climate scales since they have more economic resources, more readiness to innovative, higher concern for their employees, psychologically distant leaders, more concerned with rules adherence, many altruistic activities such as fundraisings and community relations as well as bureaucratization which results into increased interpersonal aggression among employees. Therefore, it is expected that the bigger the organization, the higher the scales of climate variables.

Further, it is hypothesized that organizations with higher dependence happen to be more centralized due to the high levels of centralization and dependence brought about by restriction on authority. It is also hypothesized that dependence may be related to readiness to innovate and climate due to the increased resources among more prominent organizations and the tendency of management appearing more concerned of employees in such organizations. Moreover, it is hypothesized that these variables will be related to the climate scales dealing with work, but centralization of authority and formalization is expected to cause job challenges since the variables lead to decreased individual autonomy thus demotivating them to work. It is also hypothesized that more complex technologies might result in higher climate scales on the side of readiness to innovate as well as the scientific and technical orientation. Finally, it is hypothesized that that employees at different positions in the organization's hierarchy happen to view the organization's climate differently thus making the relationships between the structural and contextual variables with climate variable varying at different levels.

Connection to Anchor Articles

Just like Payne and Mansfield's (1973), consideration of organizational size as a crucial variable in determining its climate, most approaches to the study of organizational structure are based on bureaucratic ideas by Weber, Gulick, Urwick's and Fayol's ideas on corporate management. Donaldson (1999) supports the same by highlighting that the contingency theory in organization studies offers a coherent paradigm for the analysis of organizations structures. He further states that the paradigm has provided a framework to undertake future research that has immensely contributed to the normal scientific knowledge which shows that the existing set of relationships between members of an organization such as those related to authority to constitute the structure of the organization. Similarly, Pfeffer (1982) supports the argument by stating that there exists no single structural type that can fit all organizations, but the most appropriate structure is considered to be the one that addresses certain factors within an individual organization such as the organization size and the uncertainty of the organization's perceived climate.

In agreement of the findings by Payne and Mansfield's (1973) that organizational size is a crucial variable in determining its climate, and that most organizational structures are based on bureaucratic ideas on organizational management, Bidwell (1965) in the book Handbook of Organizations authored by James March investigates the organizational structure of a school as a formal organization. He considers the size of a school and the factors within the school as a formal organization that defines its organizational structure to prove that there exists no single structural type that can fit all organizations, but its nature defines an organization's structure.

Hence, all the authors support Payne and Mansfield to counter the belief that there is a specific way that a good organization should look like as provided by leaders on how the day to day activities of an organization ought to be carried out. Such myths and beliefs provided by such leaders on how an organization ought to operate include fair treatment for all individuals within an organization, leadership hierarchies, accountability as well as the articulation of a long term vision for an organization which may vary based on an organization under investigation. As a result of the variance in how the organization's structure and the context appears, different organizations possess different standard operating procedures (SOP) approved my managers of the firms to achieve efficiency, quality of output and uniformity of performance within the specific organization.

Assumptions in the Theory of the Organization Structure

The theory of organizational structure assumes that most approaches to the study of organizational structure are based on bureaucratic ideas by Weber, Gulick, Urwick's and Fayol's ideas on corporate management. As a result, most organizational structures are built on different scales for measuring the five dimensions in an organization namely specialization, standardization, formalization, centralization and configuration (Burke, 2008). Besides, the different types of organizational structures present in most organizations define the specific organization's workability and proficiency in undertaking key issues that are pertinent to the overall outlook of the organization. The functions of these structures ensure that the stability and workability of the organization meet the threshold of the whole system (Burke, 2008). Besides, the nature of an organization is determined by its original dimensions. For instance, specialization ensures that the operations which are taking place within the organization set up are distinguishable and can easily correlate with others in providing a stable structure. However, centralization is an aspect that gives value to specific issues that are essential in maintaining the organization's mission and vision.

Additionally, the above dimensions in an organization are dependent on scales such as functional specialization, formalization of role definition and lack of autonomy for continuous improvements and ensuring that the organization meets its goals and objectives (Burke, 2008). For instance, a basket of goods in the sense of the country's economy lists all the products produced every day such as clothing, furniture, food and a range of services that varies depending on the stability of the economy. Thus, data about such records are collected annually by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) based on the cost of all the items which are available in the basket and a comparison made on the prices in each basket for a reshape in the previous year.

Further, the basic organizational structures within the organizations such as line, staff, and line as well as the matrix organizational structures determine the differences between organizations accounts from fluctuation chances (Pugh & Pugh, 1971). For the study, the F ratio indicates 5% climate differences with no significant difference present in altruism and emotional scale measurements. On the other hand, the organizational structure of leadership which runs from the executive, the functional managers, staff, subordinate staff up to the self-care and coaches helps define the role of each member of the organization system.

However, there are instances where various bureaucratic elements of the organizational structure such as specialization, the hierarchy of offices, rules and regulations, technical competence, impersonality, and formal written communication are employed to facilitate the efficiency within the organization but when not well utilized may negatively affect the perceived climate within the organization (Johnston, 2016). Hence, the dispensation of the overall set gives the leadership structure of an organization a unified outlook and ensures that the system is not halted but instead remains intact throughout the process. Interestingly, it gives both the juniors and the seniors a chance to interact adequately through a proper channel helps contributing in a great way to the organizational climate perception. For an organization with a clear and direct structure of leadership, employees happen to feel less restricted to authority as they happen to have already adopted the existing structure (Burke, 2008). However, if employees feel that the leadership structure is oppressive, then this may bring about defiance and in turn bring about low levels of organization climate perception.

Furthermore, leadership plays a crucial role in defining an organization's structure and the level to which an organization's leadership affects its structure is defined by factors such as the experience, the problem-solving ability, personality as well as self-awareness of those individuals occupying the various leadership positions (Burke, 2008). This is because most effective leaders ensure the togetherness of leaders and give them a proper platform to exercise their operations for the realization of different common goals. Through establishing a communication strategy, and vision, leaders, ensure that all the problems and issues affecting the firm are collectively handled through specific approaches. However, experienced leaders ensure that the system is cohesive and concrete to absorb all the available challenges within the organization.

Therefore, to enhance the perceived climate within an organization based on the organization's structure and context various value propositions need to be employed. They include lack of autonomy to eradicate interpersonal aggressions within the organization, development of key technology to improve climates related to the scientific and technical matter of the organization. On the other hand, fostering of industry development ought to be done to increase the emotional control and open-mindedness as well as formation of a solution to the existing problems in an organization leading to unfavourable perceived organizational climates. Finally, creation of a success story regarding the organization as well as the parent organizations would in a significant way change the employee perception of the organization and thus improve the perceived climate levels of the respective organizations.

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