Organizational climates are typically studied pertaining to a specific organizational goal (e.g., safety, customer service). Yet the fact that organizations have multiple goals, reflecting varied strategic values, suggests that this approach is deficient. The likelihood that organizations maintain multiple climates derived from base strategic values implies that organizations are multi-climate systems. Consequently, using the competing values framework (CVF) as a conceptual foundation, we articulate theoretically pertinent climate configurations, or profiles, reflecting complementary versus competitive values combinations and use organizational identity and social information processing (SIP) theories to propose identity clarity and collective commitment as dual mechanisms by which these profiles may relate to organizational effectiveness. Using latent profile analysis to identify climate profiles in a large sample of organizations, we detected five distinctive climate profiles with most profiles characterized by competitive values pairings. Results fail to support the organizational identity perspective, but do support the SIP perspective, revealing that organizations with competitive climate profiles with multiple highly prioritized CVF climates yield stronger connections to effectiveness indicators either directly or indirectly via collective commitment than organizations with other profiles. This study outlines both conceptual and empirical approaches for studying climate profiles and underscores the value of studying organizations as multi-climate systems.
