Development of a Molar Command Climate Survey

Studies examining our Military Forces' leadership state command climates form the foundation for the Army's culture. A climate should be measured and the results tied to outcomes. This study responds to Carr et al., (2003) and call for assessments that are more comprehensive and molar than measures currently used. As a test of the molar concept, this paper developed a new climate assessment and extends previous research by proposing a hybrid model linking antecedents of climate to three facets (or states) as moderators which have differential impacts upon a number of molar outcomes. INTRODUCTION General Edward C. Meyer, former Army Chief of Staff, (FM 22-100, 1999) wanted to ensure that the Army was prepared to go to war and to create a personally fulfilling climate. He added "Only by attaining the second could we assure ourselves of the first." A positive command climate is a prerequisite for leader and unit development A great leader builds organizational climates and obtains results. The flexible and adaptable leader, shaped by their climate, uses contingent leadership, and obtains results. Which is better? To answer this, we need to measure climate and tie the results to outcomes Background James and Jones (1974, 1979) developed a climate model. It described relationships to organizational outcomes like satisfaction. Bandwidth Climate is described both as a molar concept about broad outcomes like goals The climate model by Hypothesis 1: This modified climate model would reflect the relationships of climate to outcomes as illustrated in figure 2 and could thus, be used as a guide to developing a research tool and empirical test of this model. FIGURE 2 MODIFIED MODEL HYPOTHESIZING MODERATING RELATIONSHIPS AMONG CLIMATE DIMENSIONS, CLIMATE FACETS/STATES, AND OUTCOMES Climate Dimensions Climate Facets/States Outcomes METHOD The first official Army definition of command climate was published in December 1983 as Reference Book (RB) 22-5 (Lempke, 1988). This paper uses FM 22-100 (1999) command climate definition: "A state or condition existing from shared feelings, perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs among Soldiers about the formal and informal organizational policies, practices, and procedures regarding the day-to-day functioning of their unit." Murray, Survey Construction Most of the climate measures were too specific and measured particular climate types. To investigate the specificity and bandwidth of molar constructs, the LCCS was developed in an attempt to create a more concise and molar climate assessment tool and measure how climate relates to outcomes. Normal test development procedures were used. Items for each of the dimensions were written, focusing upon the FM 22-100 actions, behaviors, and values. The items were screened, reviewed, modified by focus groups at several military installations, and evaluated as climate indicators Thirty Captains who completed the survey were instructed to modify the items to either agree or disagree more strongly with the item's content. The final 150 items were administered to 380 enlisted active-duty Army Soldiers at five military installations. Eliminating records with random and irrelevant responses, resulted in 372 records. 57.7% classified themselves as White, 26.1% as Black, 11.4% as Hispanic, and 4.7% as Asian. 11.6% were female and 88.4% were male. Their ages ranged from 20 to 55 years. Their ranks ranged from PFC (Private First Class) to LTC (Lieutenant Colonel). The dimensions were classified into three facets; affective, cognitive, or instrumental as suggested by Journal of Organizational Psychology vol. 11(1) 2011 91 Hypothesis 2: The facet and states of the same name (cognitive facet and cognitive state, affective facet and affective state, and instrumental facet and instrumental state) will have similar beta-weights in their predictions. SPSS 12.0 was used to conduct a series of stepwise and hierarchical multiple regressions. Using the results from the stepwise procedure, 45 hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. This was a test of which dimensions predicted the facets, states, outcomes and to identify the important differential predictions. The detailed results of the 45 hierarchical regression analyses are not presented. RESULTS A PCA produced 39 components with eigenvalues greater than one and accounted for 69% of the variance (See table 2). These 39 components were used to derive dimension scales with adequate reliability (See A PCA was conducted on the 16 climate dimensions to see if it could approximate Ostroff's (1993) taxonomy. The results are presented in table 5. This PCA found three clusters of 4 to 6 scales with eigenvalues greater than one that accounted for about 78% of the variance. Facet scores were computed for each of the three climate facets by summing up the items identified by the PCA for each subscale. State scale scores were computed by summing up individual items that two raters agreed would relate to each of the specific states. The facet/state scale means, standard deviations, and alpha coefficients are reported in table 6. The coefficient alphas ranged from .91 to .98 for the facets and from .89 to .97 for the states