ABSTRACT
There is an institutionalized distinction in the organizational sciences segregating those who focus on individual or micro-level phenomena, such as motivation and job attitudes, and those who study organizational or macro-level phenomena, such as strategy, structure, and culture (Staw, 1991). These two perspectives comprise nearly parallel literatures, with one side studying people who work and the other side studying the organizations in which people work. Although some recent research recognizes the need to cross these levels of analysis and identify both individual and organizational contributions to effectiveness (Klein, Dansereau, & Hall, 1994), there has been a failure to integrate these tangential literatures.
Consequently, little progress has been made in the exploration of this “meso” level (House, Rousseau, & Thomas-Hunt, 1995). With few exceptions (e.g., the work of Chatman and her colleagues; Chatman, 1989, 1991; O’Reilly, Chatman, & Caldwell, 1991), research proceeds either at the micro-level, studying individual variables, or at the macro-level studying organizational attributes (Schneider, 1996).
