Socialization and perceptual agreement: Testing a bottom -up emergence model of organizational climate formation

A process composition model was used to empirically test various components of the symbolic interactionist framework of organizational climate formation (i.e., the link between socialization and perceptual agreement about the work environment). Specifically, survey responses from employees in three separate organizations were used to examine the impact of the degree of employee socialization (extent of boundary transition, understanding of socialization content dimensions, and subjective socialization), the type of socialization experienced (tactics), and cognitive processes (schemas) on climate formation. In addition, the impact of perceptual agreement at the individual level of analysis (psychological climate congruence) and organizational level of analysis (organizational climate strength) on employee and organization outcomes were examined. Results showed support for the socialization-organizational climate formation model. Employees with effective personal and working relationships with coworkers (people content dimension), who reported themselves as effectively socialized (subjective socialization), or experienced more rigorous institutionalized socialization tactics had a greater level of agreement concerning their perceptions of the work environment. Moreover, greater psychological climate congruence positively impacted employee job satisfaction and intent to stay, and organizational climate strength positively affected financial profit and customer (guest) satisfaction. Implications for these findings are discussed.