Abstract

Organizational climate can be characterized as a set of perceptions, shared by workers, of different aspects that make up the organizational environment, being one of the most investigated constructs in the field of Organizational Behavior. This paper aims to organize part of the knowledge produced concerning organizational climate along years, establishing a historical order of research in three stages: from 1930 to 1960, studies of construct taxonomy, context and structure; from 1970 to 1980, distinction between the concepts of organizational climate and culture; and from 1990 on, empirical studies to assess the discriminant validity of organizational climate in relation to other constructs, and development of new analysis methods. The paper emphasizes the urgency of designing new theoretical models to integrate the set of descriptors of existing ones, as well as a wider use of psychometric techniques for the empirical validation of those models.