What<i>is</i>the Difference Between Organizational Culture and Organizational Climate? A Native's Point of View on a Decade of Paradigm Wars

TLDR

Recent quantitative surveys of organizational culture have identified dimensions that conflict with original foundations and resemble earlier climate studies. The article investigates the implications of distinguishing culture from climate by comparing their differences and similarities. The comparison focuses on definitions, epistemology, methodology, and theoretical foundations of the two literatures. The paper discusses how differing foundations and assumptions shape implications and the consequences of keeping the two literatures separate. The final discussion and references are included in the article.

Abstract

Recently, organizational culture researchers have applied quantitative survey methods and identified comparative “dimensions” of culture in a way that appears to contradict some of the original foundations of culture research within organizational studies. This new quantitative culture research also bears a strong resemblance to earlier research on organizational climate. This article examines the implications of this development by first considering the differences between the literatures on organizational culture and organizational climate and then examining the many similarities between these two literatures. The literatures are compared by focusing on their definition of the phenomena, their epistemology and methodology, and their theoretical foundations. The implications of the differing theoretical foundations and their underlying assumptions about the phenomenon are discussed at some length, as are some of the consequences of the continued separation of these two literatures. The final discussion f...