Sense and nonsense about culture and climate

Writing some comments for a handbook of this scope is a formidable task. But then, the climate/culture arena poses formidable challenges to us both intellectually and empirically. Having struggled with both issues since the early 1980's I want to make some general comments and try to clarify several issues. Why is it Important to differentiate Culture from Climate? On the practical level, culture and climate as organizational descriptors are on the rise. More and more managers in organizations are talking about changing their culture, creating a new culture, figuring out the impact of their culture, or preserving their culture. When one examines what they are actually talking about, much of it has to do with what we would and should call climate. Culture in popular managerial parlance usually refers to how people feel about the organization, the authority system, and the degree of employee involvement and commitment, the "soft " stuff, all of which refers more to climate than culture. Managers need to learn that where culture may matter most is in its impact on the so-called "hard " stuff like strategy and structure. Most managers are quite