The validity of affective work team climates.

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to study the validity of affective work team climates in a sample of 33 health care work teams using a two-wave panel data design. The results obtained showed: (1) a high level of within-team agreement regarding the studied affective variables (satisfaction and commitment) and a satisfactory degree of discrimination among work teams' scores, (2) that within-team agreement in one dimension of work team climate (goal orientation) measured at time 1 was related to within-team agreement in satisfaction and commitment at time 2, (3) that aggregated work team support predicted aggregated work team satisfaction and commitment over time, and that change in the four aggregated cognitive climate dimensions (support, innovation, goal orientation and rule orientation) predicted change in aggregated satisfaction. The results obtained supported the validity of the affective work team climate concept.