Aggregating individual-level evaluations of the organizational social climate: A multilevel investigation of the work environment at the Federal Bureau of Prisons

The social climate of the work site is typically regarded as highly influential for individual and organizational productivity. This research examines intrafirm variability in the social climate by studying how an organization, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, uses information it gathers about the social climate. Intrafirm variability in social climate is not usually examined, although it has clear implications for theory, methods, and policy. Multilevel models are used to investigate the empirical properties of three scales of the social climate: institutional operations, commitment to the organization, and satisfaction with supervision. The analysis points out the necessity of moving beyond traditional concerns about scale properties at the individual level when aggregating individual-level measures into organizational measures, especially when the theoretical and practical concerns pertain to intrafirm variability in the social climate.