more specific, "a healthy school climate is one in which the technical, managerial, and ..... Administration Center of the University of Chicago. Hoy, W. K. ...
JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSULTATION, 1(2), 149-168
Copyright © 1990, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Organizational Climate and Culture: A Conceptual Analysis of the School Workplace Wayne K. Hoy Rutgers University
The concepts of organizational climate and culture have become part of the standard rhetoric in contemporary discussions of school effectiveness. Unfortunately, both terms are complex and neither is clearly defined. This article examines the intellectual traditions and conceptual underpinnings of climate and culture and then provides working definitions for each. Examples of frameworks to study school climate and school culture are presented and contrasted. The tension between research on climate using multivariate statistical analyses and studies of culture using the tools of the phenomenologist and ethnographer provides a healthy competition, one that should enhance our understanding of the school workplace if both perspectives are given an opportunity to flourish.
The nature of the school workplace has long been of interest to scholars of educational organizations, but it is only recently that other educational researchers and school reformers have become fascinated with the topic as well. Although the indigenous "feel" of the workplace has been studied under a variety of labels, including organizational character, milieu, atmosphere, and ideology, the related concepts of climate and culture have provided the impetus and general framework for contemporary discussions of the school workplace. Both concepts have an appealing ring to them; they suggest a natural, spontaneous, and human side to organization. People resonate with the terms because they make intuitive sense and seem to capture organizational life in a holistic fashion. Teachers, administrators, and parents use the terms Requests for reprints should be sent to Wayne K. Hoy, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903.
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with ease, yet there is no consensus about a definition for either concept. Why the allure of these abstract and ambiguous concepts? In part, they have become components of the school effectiveness and reform movement in education. For example, school climate is often identified with the Edmonds' (1979) effective schools model in which he argued that strong administrative leadership, high performance expectations, a safe and orderly environment, an emphasis on basic skills, and a system of monitoring student progress constitute a school climate that promotes academic achievement. Thus, in spite of limited empirical evidence (Purkey & Smith, 1983; Ralph & Fennessy, 1983; Rowan, Bossert, & Dwyer, 1983), positive school climate gets translated into effective school rhetoric and is advocated by educational practitioners and reformers as a specific means for improving student achievement. The notion of organizational culture also has received widespread public notoriety (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Ouchi, 1981; Pascale & Athos, 1981; Peters & Waterman, 1982) as well as serious attention among organizational theorists and researchers (Frost, Moore, Louis, Lundbeg, & Martin, 1985; Kilmann, Saxton, Serpa, & Associates, 1985; Ouchi & Wilkins, 1985; Pettigrew, 1979; Schein, 1985). With the publication two ''best sellers," Ouchi's (1981) Theory Z and Peters and Waterman's (1982) analysis of America's most successful business corporations, the concept of organizational culture was propelled into contemporary thought as model for examining effective organizations. Not surprisingly, organizational culture has become part of the language of not only the business world but also of educators and researchers. Because the use of culture and climate has become commonplace in the discussion and study of schools, the concepts are defined, compared, and critically analyzed in this article. 1 Examples of typical conceptualizations of each are presented and the analysis concludes with suggestions for research in schools.
ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE
The concept of organizational climate was developed during the late 1950s when school scientists were trying to conceptualize variations in work environments. Although researchers interested in educational organizations (Halpin & Croft, 1963; Pace & Stern, 1958) made the early efforts to specify and measure aspects of organizational climate, the utility of IThe basic framework for contrasting climate and culture is taken from Hoy and Miskel (1987).
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the concept was soon recognized by scholars of business organizations (Taguiri, 1968). Climate was initially conceived as a general concept to express the enduring quality of organizational life. Taguiri (1968, p. 23) noted that "a particular configuration of enduring characteristics of the ecology, milieu, social system and culture would constitute a climate, as much as a particular configuration of personal characteristics constitute a personality." Gilmer (1966, p. 57) defined organizational climate as "those characteristics that distinguish the organization from other organizations and that influence the behavior of people in the organization." Litwin and Stringer (1968, p. 1) introduced perception into their definition of climate -"a set of measurable properties of the work environment, based on the collective perceptions of the people who live and work in the environment and demonstrated to influence their behavior." According to Gilmer (1966), the notion of psychological climates was introduced in the industrial psychology literature by Gellerman (1960), and other writers (Forehand & Gilmer, 1964; Halpin & Croft, 1963; Taguiri, 1968) have noted that definitions of climate are quite similar to early descriptions of personality types. Indeed the climate of an organization may roughly be conceived as the "personality" of the organization (i.e., climate is to organization as personality is to individual).
ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE OF SCHOOLS
Following the lead of industrial and social psychologists, school climate is a broad term that refers to teachers' perceptions of their general work environment; it is influenced by the formal organization, informal organization, personalities of participants, and the leadership of the school. Taguiri's (1968) formulation of climate as a molar concept comprised of the more descriptive dimensions of ecology, milieu, social system, and culture has been used to summarize the literature on school climate (Anderson, 1982; Miskel & Ogawa, 1988). Ecology refers to the physical and material aspects of schools; milieu consists of the social aspects of particular individuals and groups in schools; social system deals with the patterns of relationships that exist between individuals and groups in organizations; and culture refers to belief systems, values, and cognitive structure. Most studies of school climate focus on the social system and cultural dimensions (Anderson, 1982). This analysis is on organizational climate as a social systems concept and on organizational culture as a cultural dimension of the school environment, not as an aspect of climate. Climate and culture are viewed as separate and competing concepts at the same level. Anderson (1982) noted that
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contributions to the literature on the school climate are anchored in two different traditions: the study of organizational climate and the examination of school effects. The current emphasis is on organizational climate. Put simply, the organizational climate of a school is the set of internal characteristics that distinguishes one school from another and influences the behavior of its members. In more specific terms: School climate is the relatively enduring quality of the school environment that is experienced by participants, affects their behavior, and is based on their collective perceptions of behavior in schools. The focus of my analysis is on collective perception of teachers and its effect on school life. Undoubtedly the most well-known conceptualization and measurement of organizational climate in schools is the pioneering study of elementary schools by Halpin and Croft (1963). Their approach was to develop a descriptive questionnaire to identify critical aspects of teacher-teacher and teacher-principal interactions, the Organizational Oimate Description Questionnaire (OCDQ). The OCDQ is administered to the professional staff of each school, and respondents are asked to describe the extent to which each statement characterizes his or her school. Examples of items include, Administrative paper work is burdensome in this school," liThe principal goes out of his way to help teachers," liThe teachers accomplish their work with great vim, vigor, and pleasure," and "In faculty meetings, there is a feeling of 'let's get things done.' " Using factor analytic techniques, eight dimensions of school climate were mapped: Hindrance, Intimacy, Disengagement, Esprit, Production Emphasis, Aloofness, Consideration, and Thrust. These eight dimensions define six basic climate types that are arrayed along a rough continuum from open to closed: open, autonomous, controlled, familiar, paternal, and closed. An open climate is one in which both the principal and faculty are genuine in their behavior. The principal leads by example (thrust), providing the proper blend of structure and direction as well as support and consideration-the mix dependent on the situation. Teachers work well together and are committed to the task at hand (engaged). Given the reality-centered leadership of the principal, there is no need for burdensome paperwork (hindrance), close monitoring (production emphasis), or impersonality and a plethora of rules (aloofness). Acts of leadership emerge easily and appropriately as they are needed. The open school is not preoccupied with either task achievement or social needs satisfaction, but both emerge freely (morale). In brief, behavior in the open climate is authentic. At the other extreme, the closed climate is the antithesis of the open climate. II
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Although the OCDQ provided the basic conceptual framework and measurement for the study of school climate for nearly 25 years, time and change have taken their toll on the instrument. The framework and instrument have been criticized for conceptual and psychometric shortcomings as well as for neglecting students and focusing on only elementary schools (Hoy & dover, 1986; Hoy & Miskel, 1987; Kottkamp, Mulhern, & Hoy, 1987). The original OCDQ has been superceded by variety of contemporary conceptualizations and measures of the organizational climate of schools that address many of the earlier shortcomings (Hoy & dover, 1986; Hoy & Feldman, 1987; Kottkamp et al., 1987). Our analysis turns to one of these contemporary frameworks (for others, see Hoy & Miskell, 1987) that shows not only strong potential for mapping the domain of organizational climate of schools but also for linking the climate of a school to student outcomes.
ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE AS HEALTH: A FRAMEWORK FOR RESEARCH The descriptive metaphor of organizational health has been used to conceptualize the school climate (Hoy & Feldman, 1987). The idea of organizational health is not new and underscores conditions that facilitate or impede growth, development, and constructive organizational dynamics. Miles (1969, p. 375) noted that a healthy organization is one that "not only survives in its environment, but continues to cope adequately over the long haul, and continuously develops and extends its surviving and coping abilities." Implicit in this definition is the idea that healthy organizations deal successfully with disruptive outside forces while effectively directing their energies toward the major goals and objectives of the organization. Operations on a specific day may be effective or ineffective, but the long-term outlook is good in healthy organizations. The work on organizational health draws its conceptual foundations from Parsonsian social systems theory (Parsons, 1967; Parsons, Bales, & Shils, 1953). All social systems, if they are to survive and prosper, must satisfy the basic needs of adaptation, goal achievement, integration, and latency (Parsons et al., 1953). In other words, organizations must solve the problems of (a) acquiring sufficient resources and accommodating to their environments, (b) setting and implementing goals, (c) maintaining solidarity within the system, and (d) creating and preserving the unique values of the system. Thus, the organization must meet its instrumental needs of adaptation and goal achievement as well as its expressive needs
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of social and normative integration; in fact, it is postulated that healthy systems effectively meet both set of needs. Parsons (1967) also noted that social systems such as schools exhibit three distinct levels of responsibility and control over these needs-the technical, managerial, and institutional levels. The technical level is concerned with the basic function of school-the teaching-learning process. Teachers should have the last word on what and how to teach. The managerial system mediates and controls the internal operation of the school, an administrative process that is qualitatively different from teaching. Principals must find ways to develop loyalty and trust, motivate teachers, and coordinate the work. The institutional level links the school with the community. It is important to have the backing of the community. Administrators and teachers need support to make their respective contributions in a harmonious fashion without undue influence from individuals and groups outside the school. The preceding Parsonian formulation provides the scheme for conceptualizing and measuring school climate in terms of health. To be more specific, "a healthy school climate is one in which the technical, managerial, and institutional levels are in harmony. The school is meeting both its instrumental and expressive needs; and is successfully coping with disruptive outside forces as it directs its energy toward its mission. (Hoy & Feldman, 1987, p. 32). The organizational health of schools is operationally defined by seven specific interaction patterns among students, teachers, and administrators. These critical elements of behavior meet both the instrumental and expressive needs of the social system as well as represent the three levels of responsibility and control within the school. Morale and academic emphasis are the key elements of the technical level. Morale is a collective sense of satisfaction, enthusiasm, pride, and friendliness that teachers feel about their job and school. Academic emphasis, on the other hand, is the school's press for achievementsetting high, but achievable goals and providing an orderly and serious learning environment. Four key aspects of the managerial level are also examined-principal influence, consideration, initiating structure, and resource support. Influence is the ability of the principal to affect the decisions of superiors, to effectively "go to bat" for teachers. Consideration is principal behavior that is friendly, open, supportive, and collegial. Initiating structure is both task- and achievement-oriented principal behavior. Finally, resource support is the extent to which the principal obtains the materials and supplies that are needed and requested by teachers. The institutional level is studied in terms the school's integrity, that is, the school's ability to cope with the community in a way that maintains
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the educational integrity of its programs. When institutional integrity is high, teachers are protected from unreasonable community and parental demands. The Organizational Health Inventory (OHI) has been developed to measure these seven defining elements of the school health. The instrument is a series of short descriptive statements of interaction patterns among teachers, administrators, and students that is administered to the professional staff of a school. Factor analysis has confirmed the seven dimensions as well as a single, second-order factor labeled health (Hoy & Feldman, 1987). 2 A school with a 1;l.ealthy climate is protected from unreasonable community and parental pressures. The school successfully resists all narrow efforts of vested interest groups to influence policy. The principal of a healthy school provides dynamic leadership, leadership that is both task-oriented and achievement-oriented. Such behavior is supportive of teachers and yet provides direction and maintains high standards of performance. Moreover, the principal has influence with his or her superiors as well as the ability to exercise independent thought and action. Teachers are committed to teaching and learning. They set high but achievable goals for students and maintain high standards of performance in an orderly and serious learning environment. Consequently, students work hard on academic matters, are highly motivated, and respect other students who achieve academically. Classroom supplies and instructional material are accessible. Finally, in a healthy climate teachers like each other, are enthusiastic about the work, and are proud of their school. School health is positively related to teachers' trust in the principal and in each other (Tarter & Hoy, 1988) as well as to the organizational commitment of teachers to the school (Tarter, Hoy, & Kottkamp, 1989) and to teacher efficacy (Hoy & Woolfolk, 1989). Not only do the dimensions of health have the expected relationships with teacher variables, but initial results indicate a strong relationship between aspects of organizational health and student achievement as measured by standardized achievement tests. Moreover, the health-achievement relationship exists after controlling for socioeconomic status of the districts (Hoy, Tarter, & Bliss, in press). Our attention now shifts from organizational climate to organizational culture. Although some writers (Anderson, 1982; Miskel & Ogawa, 1988), have discussed culture as a· dimension of climate, there is a second school of thought that treats organizational culture as a competing construct. 2For a complete copy of the OHI and its subtests, see Hoy and Forsyth (1986).
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ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
The notion of organizational culture has resurfaced as a vehicle for understanding the basic meaning and character of institutional life. Concern for the culture of the workplace is not new. In the 1930s and 1940s, both Mayo (1945) and Barnard (1938) were stressing the significance of norms, sentiments, values, and emergent interactions in the workplace as they described the nature and functions of the informal organization. Similarly, Selznick (1957) emphasized the importance of viewing organizations as institutions rather than merely rational structures. Institutions, according to Selznick (1957, p. 17), are "infused with value beyond the technical requirements at hand." The infusion of value produces a distinctive identity of the organization that colors all aspects of organizational life and provides a social integration that goes well beyond formal coordination and command. This distinctive character ties the individual to the organization and generates in its members a sense of commitment to the organization. The notion of organizational culture is also clearly an attempt to capture the feel, sense, character, or ideology of the organization, but it brings with it conceptual complexity and confusion. No intact definition of culture from anthropology or sociology readily lends itself for use as an organizational construct. It should not be surprising, therefore, that there are a variety of definitions. For example, Ouchi (1981, p. 41) defined organizational culture as "systems, ceremonies, and myths that communicate the underlying values and beliefs of the organization to its employees." Lorsch (1985, p. 84), on the other hand, used culture to mean "the beliefs top managers in a company share about how they should manage themselves and other employees." To Mintzberg (1983, p. 152) culture is simply "a system of beliefs about the organization, shared by its members, that distinguishes it from other organizations." Wilkins and Patterson (1985, p. 265) argued that "an organization's culture consists largely of what people believe about what works and what does not," whereas Martin (1985, p. 95) maintained that "culture is an expression of people's deepest needs, a means of endowing their experiences with meaning." Schwartz and Davis (1981, p. 33) regarded culture as "a pattern of beliefs and expectations shared by the organization's members, that produces norms that powerfully shape the behavior of individuals or groups in organizations." In contrast, Schein (1985, p. 6) argued that culture should be reserved for "the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously, and that define in a basic 'taken-for-granted' fashion an organization's view of itself and its environment."
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Although differences exist in conceptions, there is common ground for defining culture. Organizational culture is a system of shared orientations that hold the unit together and give it a distinctive identity. There is, however, some disagreement about what is shared-norms, values, philosophies, beliefs, expectations, myths, ceremonies, or artifacts. One way to begin to untangle this problem of definition is to examine culture at different levels. 3
LEVELS OF ABSTRACTION
Culture is manifest in norms, shared values, and basic assumptions, each occurring at a different level of abstraction (Hoy & Miskel, 1987; Kilman et al., 1985; Schein, 1985). At its most abstract level, culture is the collective manifestation of tacit assumptions, basic premises about the nature of relationships, human nature, truth, reality, and the environment (Dyer, 1985). For example, a tacit assumption about the nature of truth deals with the question of whether truth is revealed by external authority figures or is determined by a process of personal investigation and testing. When members of an organization share a view of the world around them and their place in that world, a culture exists. That is, a pattern of basic assumptions has been invented, discovered, or developed by the organization that is useful in defining itself. Such assumptions are difficult to identify because they are abstract, unconscious, and hard to confront. Schein (1985), however, suggested an elaborate set of procedures to decipher the tacit assumptions of members based on a combination of anthropological and clinical techniques, which involves a series of encounters and joint explorations between the investigator and motivated informants who live in the organization and embody its culture. The joint effort usually involves extensive data-gathering activities that explore the history of the organization, critical events, organizational structure, myths, legends, artifacts, stories, and ceremonies. Questionnaires are eschewed as devices to identify tacit assumptions; at best, it is argued that such instruments produce only some of the espoused values of group members. At a middle range of abstraction, culture is defined as shared values. Values are shared conceptions of what is desirable. They are reflections of the more basic assumptions of culture that define what members should do in the organization to be successful. When individuals are asked to explain why they behave the way they do, their answers may reflect the basic values of the organization. Core values define the 3For an alternate view of culture, see Erickson (1987).
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character of the organization and give it a sense of identity and mission. Action becomes infused with such values as openness, trust, cooperation, intimacy, or teamwork; and stories, myths, ceremonies, and rituals reinforce the basic core values of the organization. Much of the contemporary work on organizational culture is at this middle level of abstraction. For example, Ouchi's (1981) Theory Z describes a corporate culture where commitment, cooperation, teamwork, trust, loyalty, and egalitarianism are basic, and Peters and Waterman (1982) suggested that succesful business organizations have cultures that value action, service, innovation, people, and quality. In contrast to the abstract conception of culture as a set of tacit assumptions, or even as shared values, a more concrete perspective on culture emerges when behavioral norms are used as the basic shared orientations of culture. Norms are usually unwritten and informal expectations that influence behavior. They are more overt than either tacit assumptions or values; consequently, they provide a more tangible means for helping people understand the cultural aspects of the organization. Further, as norms are the building blocks of culture, change may be most directly attacked at the normative leve1. Allen and Kraft (1982) noted that norms are universal phenomena; they are essential and tenacious, but also quite malleable. Kilmann (1985, p. 361), moreover, suggested that with a little prodding and a few illustrations to get a group started, members quickly begin to enumerate many norms; in fact, they revel in being able to articulate what before hand was not formally stated and rarely discussed. Prevailing norms map the "way things are" around the organization. For example, "Around here, it is all right to admit mistakes, as long as you don't make them again," or "we don't wash our dirty linen in public." Each of the three views of culture has advantages as well as disadvantages. The more abstract formulations offer opportunities for rich and penetrating analyses of the workplace and seem to be preferred by theorists interested in understanding culture rather than managing it. Organizational participants, however, have difficulty openly identifying their tacit premises and discussing their basic assumptions of organizational life; in fact, they define such activities as merely academic (Kilmann et a1., 1985). On the other hand, those definitions of culture that focus on behavioral norms are more useful to people who are interested in assessing and managing organizational cultures, albeit in a limited, and some would argue, superficial way. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN SCHOOLS
The concept of culture in the study of schools is not new. Waller (1932) emphasized the importance of culture, rituals, rites of passage, ceremo-
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rues, and values in his seminal analysis of the school as a social system. Sarason (1971) described how school culture is an important vehicle for resisting and redefining educational innovations, and B. Oark (1972) studied the organizational sagas of three colleges, each with a distinctive culture that inspired pride and encouraged identification among its members. The current popularity of organizational culture as a construct to analyze schools, however, derives in large part from the literature on corporate cultures. Although culture has become fashionable in education, much of the recent discussion of school culture remains analytical, philosophical, and rhetorical rather than empirical. For example, in a special issue of the Educational Administrative Quarterly devoted to organizational culture and schools (Cusick, 1987); only one of the six pieces was an empirical investigation of school culture. It is not difficult to use the research findings from corporate cultures (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Ouchi, 1981; Peters & Waterman, 1982) and the effective schools literature (Brookover, Beady, Flood, Schweitzer, & Wisenbaker, 1979; D. L. Clark, Lotto, & Astuto, 1984; Rutter, Maugham, Ousten, & Smith, 1979) to develop an ideal profile for an effective school culture. Deal (1985) proposed that effective schools have strong cultures with the following elements: (a) shared values and consensus on how things get done, (b) the principal as hero or heroine who embodies core values, (c) distinctive rituals that embody widely shared beliefs, (d) employees as situational heros or heroines, (e) rituals of acculturation and cultural renewal, (f) potent rituals to celebrate and transform core values, (g) balance between innovations and tradition and autonomy and control, and (h) widespread participation in cultural rituals. What are the common beliefs that bind a school together? These include: "schools are for students," "experiment with your teaching," "teaching and learning should be cooperative processes," "stay close to your students," "strive for academic excellence," "demand high but realistic performance," "be open in your behavior," "trust your colleagues," "be a professional," "commit yourself to teaching," and "respect autonomy and innovation." Are these core values or empty slogans? If the beliefs are strongly and widely shared and clearly enacted, these slogan-like themes can define a strong school culture. Unfortunately, little research directly addresses the institutional cultures of effective schools. It is likely that the study of school culture will be anthropological and sociological in nature. The thick description of qualitative studies is necessary to map the cultures of schools, especially if the goal is to identify basic assumptions and common values. Educational researchers need to consider the school as a whole and examine how its practices, beliefs, and other cultural elements relate to its social structure as well as
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function to give meaning to social life. To study culture one must understand the complex clustering of symbols people use to give meaning to their world (Geertz, 1973), a problem that is probably best addressed through an ethnographic approach.
A FRAMEWORK FOR STUDYING SCHOOL CULTURE
Although there has been limited empirical investigation of school culture, Firestone and Wilson (1985) provided a useful framework for beginning to study the organizational cultures of schools. They suggested that three symbol systems communicate the basic contents of an organization's culture: stories, icons, and rituals. Stories are narratives that are based on true events, but they frequently combine fact and fiction. Some stories are myths; they communicate an unquestioned belief that can not be demonstrated by the facts. Other stories become legends that are retold and elaborated with fictional details. For example, the principal, who stood by her teachers despite overwhelming pressure from parents and superiors, becomes a symbol of the cohesiveness and loyalty in a school's culture. It is a story retold many times to new teachers, one that takes on special meaning as it is interpreted and embellished. Stories are often about organizational heroes who epitomize the distinctive character of the school and provide insight into the culture. Icons and rituals are also important. Icons are physical artifacts that are used to communicate culture (logos, mottoes, and trophies) and rituals are the basic ceremonies that provide tangible examples of what is important in the organization. Rituals can be studied in terms of rites; for example, the typology of rites and their expressive consequences developed by Trice and Beyer (1985) includes rites of passage, enhancement, renewal, and integration. Much of the culture of a school can be constructed from artifacts, rites, rituals, and ceremonies related to assemblies, faculty meetings, athletic contests, community activities, cafeterias, report cards, awards, lesson plans, and the general decorum of the school. The examination of the informal communication system is also important in the cultural analysis of the school. The communication system is a cultural network itself. As Deal and Kennedy (1982) observed, storytellers, spies, priests, cabals, and whisperers form a hidden hierarchy of power within the school that communicates the basic values of the organization. "Mythmakers" are storytellers who are so effective in informal communication that they become the creators of important organizational myths. The identification of not only the
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myths but the process of their creation is important to a full understanding of culture. Although other similar frameworks for mapping the school culture in terms of values, beliefs, and ideologies are available (see Deal, 1985; Trice & Beyer, 1985), the determination of culture at this level of analysis is not easy. The core values of a school may be easier to determine than its tacit assumptions, but the analysis remains difficult and time consuming, a factor that probably explains why there is more rhetoric than empirical analysis of school culture.
A COMPARISON OF ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE AND CULTURE
Although the definitions of climate and culture are often blurred, one useful difference is that culture consists of shared assumptions and ideologies, whereas climate is defined by shared perceptions of behavior (Ashforth, 1985). To be sure the conceptual leap from shared assumptions (culture) to shared perceptions (climate) is not large, but the difference is real and seems meaningful. Scholars of climate tend to use quantitative techniques and multivariate analyses to identify patterns of perceived behavior in organizations. They typically assume that organizations are rational instruments to accomplish purpose; thus, they search for rational patterns. Their background and training are more likely to be in multivariate statistics and psychology or social psychology rather than in ethnography and anthropology or sociology. Moreover, these researchers tend to be interested in climate as an independent variable, that is, how the climate influences organizational outcomes. The goal of studying climate is often to determine effective strategies of change. In some contrast, scholars of organizational culture tend to use the qualitative and ethnographic techniques of anthropology and sociology to study the character or atmosphere of organizations. This work on culture derives from two basic intellectual traditions: holistic studies in the tradition of Radcliffe-Brown (1952) and Malinowski (1961), which focus on the organization as a whole and how its cultural elements function to maintain a social structure; and semiotic studies in the tradition of Geertz (1973) and Goodenough (1971), which focus on language and symbolism. Many of those who study culture take a natural-systems view of organizations and conclude that the culture of an organization is a natural outgrowth of a particular time and place. As such, it is not responsive to attempts at manipulation and change (Ouchi & Wilkins, 1985).
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In brief, studies of climate usually deal with perceptions of behavior, use survey research techniques, employ multivariate statistics, have their intellectual roots in industrial and social psychology, assume a rational-systems perspective, examine climate as an independent variable, and are interested in using the knowledge to improve organizations. In contrast, studies of culture typically focus on assumptions, values, and norms; use ethnographic techniques; eschew quantitative analysis; have their intellectual roots in anthropology and sociology; assume a natural-systems perspective; and study culture as a dependent variable. There are, of course, exceptions to these patterns, but they do seem to be the dominant ones in the general literature on organizations as well as in specific work on educational organizations (Anderson, 1982; Miskel & Ogawa, 1988; Ouchi & Wilkins, 1985). Basic differences between organizational climate and culture are presented in Figure 1.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
For the most part, the concept of climate remains a confusing term. It is used in the educational literature to refer to virtually any school
Discipline:
ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Psychology and Socia I Psyc ho logy
Anthropology and Sociology
Methodo logy: Survey Research Multivariate Statistics
Ethnographic Techniques Linguistic Analysis
Systems Ass umptio ns: Rational System
Natural System
Level of Abstraction:
Concrete
Abstract
Content:
Perceptions of Behavior
Shared Assumptions and Values
FIGURE 1 Contrasting characteristics of organizational climate and organizational culture.
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property. It is an umbrella term under which the notions of climate, culture, and characteristics of effective schools are freely mixed. Researchers and reformers need a handy term to describe all the features of school organizations that have been related to achievement in one study or another. Climate has been chosen, but increasingly it has a rival in culture. As we have seen, both organizational climate and culture have long, rich intellectual histories, but this heritage is forgotten or ignored as the terms are pressed into service by those promoting effective schools. At least for the present, it seems useful to distinguish between the terms. Although climate and culture both refer to the general atmosphere or feel of the school, they evolve from different perspectives, use different research strategies, and concentrate on different organizational aspects - perceptions of behavior (climate) or shared values and ideologies (culture). The distinction is useful. Indeed, there is much refinement and work needed within each perspective. It is premature to combine the climate and culture frameworks. The research rooted in the school-effects literature is confusing and lacks any kind of theoretical consistency. Confusion becomes chaos when school-effects research masquerades as studies of climate or culture. The distinction between culture and climate also encourages a competition among research techniques and strategies. On the one hand, it has been said by those who are statistically inclined that organizational culture has become the refuge of untrained and incompetent researchers (Ouchi & Wilkins, 1985). On the other hand, many students of culture argue that any attempt to describe character or atmosphere of an organization using quantitative techniques is superficial, simpleminded, and misleading. Ouchi and Wilkins (1985, p. 479) described the conflict as a, "confrontation between those who feel that the statisticians continue to be too powerful and those who feel that the phenomenologists have sapped the scientific rigor of the field." It is a confrontation that is probably conducive to better research on the school workplace; both qualitative and quantitative perspectives can make contributions to our understandings. Research on school climate is becoming revitalized as old frameworks are refined and new measures are developed (Hoy & Clover, 1986; Hoy & Feldman, 1987; Kottkamp et al., 1987). The organizational health formulation discussed earlier is based on a Parsonian perspective that provides a theoretical formulation for a model of organizational effectiveness (see Hoy & Miskel, 1987). Climate, conceived and measured as health, seems especially useful for linking properties of schools with positive student effects, cognitive as well as affective outcomes. The relationships between dimensions of healthy schools and a variety of
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student and teacher outcomes, however, need further specification. Moreover, organizational climate provides a framework for the study of such other important organizational processes as leadership, motivation, decision making, and communication. Although organizational climate is typically studied as an independent variable, it also can be conceived as an important end in itself. The health of a school can and likely does change. Little is known about the antecedents of such change. This is an area that lends itself to a thoughtful combination of quantitative and qualitative research techniques as longitudinal studies are designed to examine the conditions that lead to both the improvement and deterioration of school health. Indeed, it can be argued that organizational health should be the prime target in change efforts in schools because only when the system's dynamics are open and healthy will more specific change strategies be effective. For example, Miles (1969, p. 388) argued: "Economy of effort would suggest that we should look at the state of an organization's health as such, and try to improve it - in preference to struggling with a series of more or less short-run change efforts as ends in themselves." Contemporary research on school culture is limited. True, there have been numerous analyses of corporate cultures and interpolations of the those findings to public schools, but few researchers have tested those findings directly in schools. There are a number of important theoretical and practical issues that must be addressed in the study of school cultural. I have suggested that the conceptual frameworks developed by Firestone and Wilson (1985) and Deal (1985) are useful in the analysis of school cultures. Bates (1987), however, argued that such formulations treat organizational culture as synonymous with managerial culture and are much too narrow to capture the essence of culture. This observation leads to a more general issue of whether most organizations have a culture or a variety of subcultures. To expect schools to bear unique and unitary cultures may be more hope than fact, but it is an empirical question. The issue of whether culture can or should be intentionally managed is one that will be fervently debated. Much of the recent literature on school cultures is directed toward change and school improvement and assumes that understanding culture is a prerequisite to making schools more effective (Deal, 1985; Metz, 1986; Rossman, Corbett, & Firestone, 1988). The success of cultural change and its influence on effectiveness are worthy topics for inquiry. One argument suggests that the process of changing culture is influenced by the level and number of cultures in the organization. A change of norms, for example, is more likely than changes in shared values or tacit assumptions. Others contend that any change in culture is difficult and fraught with ethical dilemmas. For
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example, Schein (1985) strongly argued that a large part of an organization's culture represents the ways its members have learned to cope with anxiety; therefore, attempts to change culture can be tantamount to asking people to surrender their social defenses. To Schein, the issue of cultural change becomes an ethical question. In a somewhat similar vein, Bates (1987) maintained that advocates of strong organizational cultures are conducting cultural analyses on behalf of managers. What is good for management is not necessarily good for the workers. The school workplace has been discussed in terms of organizational climate and culture. The two concepts are used as competing ways to examine school life. I have argued that it is useful to keep the two perspectives distinct and to avoid the indiscriminate use of culture and climate in rhetoric on reform and school effectiveness. Organizational climate and culture have different intellectual traditions. Climate studies typically have their roots in industrial psychology and social psychology and employ survey research techniques and multivariate statistical analyses to describe shared perceptions of patterns of behavior. Studies of culture, in contrast, have their bases in anthropology and sociology and use qualitative and ethnographic techniques to identify a system of shared beliefs and values. Although both climate and culture are attempts to describe the basic atmosphere of schools, each delivers a distinct view of school life. The contrasting perspectives bring with them a natural tension, one that can breath vitality and creativity into the study of schools.
ACKNOWLDGMENT
I thank my colleagues, Professors William Firestone of Rutgers University and C. John Tarter of St. John's University, who read an earlier draft of this article and made a number of useful suggestions.
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