Measuring organizational climate via psychological networks analysis

Menezes, Igor; Menezes, Ana Cristina; Moraes, Elton; P. Pires, Pedro

Abstract

Purpose – This study introduces how psychological networks can be applied to the investigation of organizational climate under the Thriving at Work perspective and what variables and dimensions are the most central for its investigation. Moreover, it shows how organizational climate functions as a complex system and what relationships are the most important to characterize the construct.
Design/methodology/approach – By surveying 119,266 workers from 284 companies based in Brazil, we split the dataset randomly into two subsets and estimated a Gaussian Graphical Model with LASSO regularization for each group. The walktrap algorithm was applied for community detection and a strong model for measurement invariance was fit to test whether organizational climate is perceived similarly across groups.
Findings – Results show that the networks estimated for both groups are quite consistent, with similar number of communities and items detected. The same pattern was found for the Expected Influence of each item. Measurement invariance was confirmed, showing that organizational climate is perceived similarly in both groups. The most important community detected and whose items have higher levels of centrality was organizational commitment, followed by a community centered around macro-organizational aspects covering cultural integrity, organizational agility and responsible leadership.
Originality – To our knowledge, this is the first study that investigates organizational climate using psychological networks. Besides, it introduces how the principles of Thriving at Work relate to organizational climate to promote healthy working environments.

Citation

Menezes, I., Menezes, A. C., Moraes, E., & P. Pires, P. (2021). Measuring organizational climate via psychological networks analysis. International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-08-2020-0142

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 9, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Sep 27, 2021
• Publication Date: Sep 28, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 21, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 27, 2021
• Journal: International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior
• Print ISSN: 1093-4537
• Publisher: Emerald
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-08-2020-0142
• Keywords: Organizational climate; Psychological networks; Thriving at work; Organizational commitment; Remote working
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3841687