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MANAGING FOR PERFORMANCE

and can be credited for spawning much of the current interest in organizational culture. Their emphasis on norms and values in the workplace (i.e., culture) as the key predictors of organiza- tional success attracted the attention of num- erous writers and fueled the organizational development efforts of several Fortune 500 busi- nesses. In Search of Excellence was published at a time when it was generally believed that American businesses were competing unsuccessfully in the increasingly globalized market. By giving case examples of some of America's most successful businesses, Peters and Waterman offered the promise of improving American competitiveness in the global marketplace and inspired a nation- wide infatuation with culture as the key to success.

A decade later, Osborne and Gaebler's (1992) Reinventing Government extended the work of Peters and Waterman to the public sector by describing the importance of culture to the per- formance of government agencies. After visiting and assessing a number of government agencies and programs, Osborne and Gaebler identified several culture-based principles that are charac- teristic of successful public organizations. They emphasized the importance of workplace cul- tures that focus on results rather than process, emphasize mission over bureaucratic rules, and promote worker autonomy and discretion rather than control. During the Clinton administration, Vice PresidentAl Gore led the implemenration of these principles in a number of federal agencies (Gore, 1993).

Schorr's (1997) Common purp.ose built directly on Osborne and Gaebler's work by explaining the roles that organizational culture can play in revitalizing the nation's public child and family service systems. Her focus on trans- forming the bureaucracies that manage these'ser- vices so that social workers and other service providers are freed to focus on results and are less hampered by red tape and other bureaucratic barriers directly links organizational culture to social service outcomes. Her book and the previ- ous two provide many real world examples of how culture and climate (although the latter term is rarely used in these three texts) contribute

to organizational performance. Recent findings support the observations made in case studies reported in these books and adds the evidence that culture and climate are to organizational performance in a vari manufacturing and service areas (Broome, Knight, & Simpson, 2007; Brown & Leigh, I Chen, Kirkman, Kanfer, Allen, & Rosen, Denison & Mishra, 1995; Gordon & D 1992; Greener, ]oe, Simpson, Rowan-Szaf Lehman, 2007; Liao & Chang, 2007; Beadles, Lowery, Chapman, & Connell, 1 Simpson, |oe, Rowan-Szal, 2007; Zamanou Glaser, 1994).

The challenge for both researchers and pra tioners, however, is to understand the intuitir appealing constructs of culture and climate i way that clearly defines them, distinguishes from other organizational characteristics, establishes convincing links to performance outcome criteria. The constructs, al extremely popular, continue to be used i tently by researchers as well as practi They are applied in ways that confuse them related organizational characteristics such structure, technology, and leadership and individual worker characteristics such as i satisfaction, motivation, and commi (Verbeke, Volgering, & Hessels, 1998).

Definitions of Climate

Today, organizational climate is widely in terms of employees' perceptions of their environment (Schneider, 1990). The disti between p sychological and organizational developed by Larry |ames and colleagues &i much of the current theoretical and emri work concerning climate (Iames & |ames, |ames, fames, & Ashe, 1990; fames & Joneg |ames & Sells, 1981). Psychological climate employee's perception of the impact of the work environment on his personal well-being. Brown and Leigh (19961 Edmondson (1999) operationalize a positive chological climate in terms of psychological