When Organizational Climate Is Unambiguous, It Is Also Strong

Several recent studies have addressed the topic of climate strength-the degree to which there is agreement among an organization's members regarding the practices and policies as well as the shared values that characterize the organization. To further investigate antecedents of climate strength, the authors used data from the GLOBE Project, totaling 3,783 individuals from 123 organizations. The authors hypothesized that they would find greater climate strength in organizations with climates reflecting mechanistic as opposed to organic organizational forms. Although the authors did in fact find such a trend, they also unexpectedly uncovered significant and strong nonlinear effects, such that climates that are clearly mechanistic or clearly organic have strong climates, with weaker climates emerging for organizations with more ambiguous climates. These findings provide interesting new avenues to pursue in understanding the origins of climate strength.