Abstract:

Organizational climate is the subjective perception of employee on organizational environment. In this paper, the origin of researches regarding organizational climate were first reviewed, with the definitions of general and special climate summarized, on the basis of which a new definition of organizational climate has been given. Organizational climate had three levels of analysis: the individual level, team level and organizational level, with different methods of measurement adopted. Differences and connections between organizational climate and organizational culture were then stated. Finally, through using theories of social interaction, attraction selection attrition, emergence and sense-making, the formation of organizational climate and its possible influencing factors were clarified. Further studies were necessary to explore the conceptualization, measuring methods and antecedents of organizational climate. Future studies should pay more attention to the advancement of the cultural differences of organizational climate.

Key words: organizational climate, team climate, organizational culture, psychological climate, social interaction