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Abstract

This paper presents and demonstrates the advantages of an alternative scoring procedure for Rudolf Moos' Work Environment Scale (WES: Insel & Moos, 1987). The WES measures ten aspects of the organizational and psychosocial work environment. As such, the WES provides a significant macroergonomic tool for quantitative exploration of the effects of organizational design and implementation efforts. These measures have shown to be significantly related to organizational behaviors, effects of organizational change interventions, and occupational stress and health response. However, the current scoring procedure presents interpretation difficulties because of statistical complications in the scoring. The new scoring procedure emphasizes individual item decomposition and a new data transformation, which provide increased and more coordinated information about an organization. More specific comparisons between organizations, or between groups within organizations, are possible. Examples are presented from research on park rangers and communications workers. Item analysis of the WES provides increases in quantification of organizational climate variables, allows for additional knowledge to be learned from previously collected WES data in a wide variety of occupational settings, and provides a new direction for quantitative discussions in organizational climate research and development.

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A New View of Quantifying Organizational Climate through the Work Environment Scale

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