Measuring the emotional climate of an organization

Percept Mot Skills. 2010 Apr;110(2):501-16. doi: 10.2466/PMS.110.2.501-516.

Abstract

The importance of emotional climate in the organizational climate literature has gained interest. However, few studies have concentrated on adequately measuring the emotional climate of organizations. In this study, a reliable and valid scale was developed to measure the most important aspects of emotional climate in different organizations. This study presents evidence of reliability and validity for 28 items constructed to measure emotional climate in an organization in four separate studies. The data were obtained from working people from four different organizations by self-administered questionnaires. The findings indicate that three factors--Trust, Hope, and Security--were factors of the 28-item scale. Validation data also included correlations with duration of employment. The other method of assessing criterion validity was by comparing mean scores in organizations with differing productivity; results indicated that the organization with more productive members had a significantly higher mean score on emotional climate and its subscales. The generalizability of the results to private businesses also was assessed.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Data Collection
  • Efficiency
  • Emotions*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Job Satisfaction
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Motivation
  • Organizational Culture*
  • Psychometrics / statistics & numerical data
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Surveys and Questionnaires*
  • Trust
  • Young Adult