Industrial/organizational psychology is concerned with empirically testing relationships between concepts that are purported to reflect behaviour in the workplace. This study tested the relationship between measures on three personnel management practices (as independent variables) and a measure of organizational climate (as the dependent variable). The Litwin and Stringer Organizational Climate Questionnaire was administered to 2,111 subjects employed in a sample of 40 organizations. Structured interviews with senior personnel executives were conducted in these organizations to establish measures of participation, proaction, and management style. Factor analysis was used to derive a general measure of climate. The results of this measure were analyzed at the organizational level. The results of this study raise two important implications for industrial/organizational psychology. The first is that much of the theory associated with personnel management practice is not reflected in the workplace. The second is that current conceptualizations from which such measures are derived, are ambiguous and lack clarity. It is suggested that industrial/organizational psychology needs to reduce the semantic ambiguity of its concepts, and consequently improve the construct validity of measures of these constructs.
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