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Climate-Context Congruence: Examining Context as a Boundary Condition for Climate-Performance Relationships
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Climate-Context Congruence: Examining Context as a Boundary Condition for Climate-Performance Relationships

Jeremy M. Beus, Erik C. Taylor and Shelby J. Solomon
Journal of applied psychology, Vol.106(9), pp.1332-1356
2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000826
PMID: 32940482
Web of Science ID: WOS:000704234600005

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16 Times Cited - Web of Science

Abstract

Organizational climates are instrumental in guiding patterns of worker behavior across varied domains; yet it is noteworthy that climates do not exist in vacuums. Rather, climates are embedded within broader contexts with which they are not always congruent or harmonious. Incongruence between a climate and its context can occur when a climate emerges from strategic values that are divergent from meaningful features of the group or organization's environment. We propose, based on congruence theory, that when climates are incongruent with their context, they are less able to affect group performance. We tested a general hypothesis of climate-context congruence (CCC) by considering both the nature of the work performed by group members (CCC-work) and the predominant societal culture values (CCC-culture) as contextual boundary conditions for climate-performance associations. Using the competing values framework to conceptually distinguish climates based on their underlying values, we examined the extent to which CCC-work and CCC-culture explain variance in climate-performance relationships using meta-analytic regression. Our meta-analyses support the congruence hypothesis in several instances for both CCC-work and CCC-culture but also support a divergent compensatory perspective in others, where climate-context incongruence appears to provide offsetting performance benefits in some cases. We elaborate on the implications of these findings.

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