Psychological and organizational climate research: Contrasting perspectives and research traditions

At the 2005 annual conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in Los Angeles, Fred Zijlstra and Mike Burke co-chaired a symposium entitled ‘‘Climate Research in the USA and Europe: Traditional Approaches and Research Synthesis’’. The goal of the symposium was to bring together research traditions from Europe and America, with the purpose of illustrating how cultural context impacts the conceptualization of climate and methodology for its study. The symposium, organized by Alessia D’Amato, featured papers and presentations by Alessia D’Amato, Mike Burke, Jeremy Dawson, Dan Denison, Lina Fortes, Nuria Gomero, Vincente González-Romá, William Neale, Michael West, and Fred Zijlstra. To say that the symposium generated good interest would be an understatement, as the room was filled to capacity with attendees standing at the back and along the sides of the room. Subsequent to the symposium, Fred Zijlstra, then Editor of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, formulated the idea of continuing this exchange in the form of a special issue on climate research from different cultural perspectives. As a result, a call for papers went out at the end of 2005. For the special issue, we solicited original research on work climate from different national/cultural perspectives and research traditions. We were very pleased to receive a variety of submissions reflecting climate research within different countries and cultures that was both unique and complementary. Seven papers were selected for the special issue that not only fulfil the aim of the issue, but also reflect climate research at both the