A theory of climate: Explaining the formation and function of organizational climates

Abstract

Organizational climates are ubiquitous phenomena that represent the collective outcomes of sensemaking in meaningful social settings. Although empirical climate research is expanding, connecting climates with a variety of workplace outcomes, theory has yet to explain why climates emerge and affect behavior. Additionally, there is no unified understanding of how climates form or function. These theoretical shortcomings stunt the ability to expand knowledge of this pervasive social construct or to integrate the dispersed body of empirical research on the subject. Consequently, drawing from social psychological theories of motivated social cognition, we articulate a theory of climate that establishes the need to reduce social uncertainty as the reason why climates form and affect behavior. With uncertainty reduction as the conceptual connecting point, we integrate complementary principles from Gestalt psychology, symbolic interactionism, and social learning theory to describe the socio-cognitive processes that explain how climates form and function. In short, we propose that people are driven by the anxiety of social uncertainty to cognitively make sense of their social environments, and that this sensemaking occurs via symbolic social interactions which endow phenomena with shared meaning called climate that informs behavior- guiding individual and group expectancies and ultimately alleviates the anxiety of social uncertainty.