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International Journal of Psychological Studies

Vol. 2, No. 2; December 2010

Organizational Climate and its Effects on Organizational Variables: An Empirical Study
Jianwei Zhang (Corresponding author) School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China E-mail: jianweizhang@263.net Yuxin Liu Business School, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China

Abstract
This study investigated the characteristics of organizational climate and its effects on organizational variables. Investigation of 419 participants including both managers and employees indicated as follows: educational level, position and length of time working for the current organization had significant main effects on organizational climate; specialty, enterprise character and enterprise size also had significant main effects on organizational climate; organizational climate had significant main effects on human resources management effectiveness such as turnover intention, job satisfaction and work efficacy; organizational climate also had significant main effects on organization effectiveness like staff members’ organization commitment and collective identity.

Keywords: Organizational climate, Human resources management effectiveness, Organization effectiveness 1. Introduction
Research on organizational climate can be traced back to the 1930s. With the human relations movement pioneered by Hawthorne, researchers turned their attention from the “hard” physical environment to the “soft” psychological environment; thus the concept of organizational climate was born. The first researcher to initiate studies in this area was Kurt Lewin, the founder of group dynamics (1939). In his famous "leadership style" study, Lewin applied three different leadership styles, democracy, autocracy and laissez-faire, to