ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapter, James proposed an alternative technique for determining the level of interrater agreement among observed psychological climate scores. To evaluate the contribution such a technique makes to climate research, one must first consider the historical and theoretical context that has made the questions of interrater agreement important. James and Jones (1974) suggested that a primary reason for the substantial amount of confusion and debate that permeates the climate literature is the fact that the same term is used to describe different concepts at different levels of analysis. They suggested that terms such as organizational climate should be used to describe situationally based consistencies in the organization’s treatment of individuals whereas the term psychological climate was more appropriate when referring to the individual’s perceptually based representation of the work environment. Consistent with these theoretical distinctions, they and other authors argued that one must show similar scores for individual observers before perceptual data could be used as a legitimate index of the situation (see Guion, 1973). Such concerns seemingly provided the impetus for a focus on perceptual measures and the development of increasingly refined techniques for measuring interrater agreement.
