Reorienting to Organizational Climate in Engineering Doctoral Education: An Integrative Framework and Meta-Synthesis

Organizational climate is a macro-level factor that shapes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) participation, particularly among students from diverse historically excluded groups. To revise understanding of the engineering doctoral education literature, we developed an integrative climate framework that applies an intersectional approach to organizational science and then conducted a meta-synthesis of research on climate in engineering doctoral education. We analyzed sources’ full text for engagement with intersectionality and the seven climates in our framework—diversity, authenticity, sexual harassment, psychological safety, psychosocial safety, mastery, and performance climates. Across 29 studies, diversity, mastery, performance, and psychological safety climates were most frequent; authenticity and psychosocial safety received little attention. Most sources took an additive approach to social categories, although one third analyzed multiple social categories and attended to power and inequality. Findings affirm the need to combine intersectionality and organizational science to guide both research and leadership efforts to support and broaden STEM participation among diverse groups students.