An Organizational Syndrome

In this study, the concept of organizational climate was operationally defined as a series of relationships between need satisfactions and organization variables. The needs in this investigation were pay, respect from superiors, and use skills and abilities, while the organization variables were job complexity and seniority. The major findings were: (1) Satisfaction with respect from superiors decreased as job complexity increased and as seniority increased. (2) Satisfaction with use of skills and abilities increased as job complexity increased. (3) A job enlargement project which had been carried out in the company showed both these effects. Compared with employees holding analogous but narrowly delimited jobs, the employees holding enlarged jobs showed less satisfaction with respect from superiors and more satisfaction with opportunities to use their skills and abilities. Two explanations were offered for the decay in superior-to-subordinate relationships. First, the more complex jobs required more interpersonal competence of both superior and subordinate and, in the particular company studied, this job demand was not being adequately met. Second, rapid company growth and technological change provided continuing source of career anxiety and thus put additional strains on superior-to-subordinate relationships. It was suggested that this climate was neither unique to the particular organization, nor general, but it reflected some of the consequences of rapid change, and as such, contained implications for planning both organizational and technological innovations.'