Equal Opportunity Climate Strength: Antecedents and Influence on Work Unit Effectiveness

Researchers noted that the 1990s hosted a “sexual harassment explosion” (Wiener & Hurt, 2000, p. 75) that brought “gender politics center stage” (Hirsh, 2009, p. 268). About twenty years later, these comments are, unfortunately, perhaps truer than in their original context. And sexual harassment is just one example among many types of discrimination and harassment. As the spotlight brightens on organizations responding to these public and emotional topics, research suggests the most effective strategy is to address not only individual incidents, but also the underlying climate that bred them. Researchers evaluate climate on two main dimensions – quality (i.e., climate level) and consistency (i.e., climate strength). Prior studies have made the distinction between the level and strength of a few types of climate (e.g., justice climate, safety climate), but this study extends it to equal opportunity (EO) climate, which specifically focuses on perceptions of discrimination and harassment. Results offered limited support concerning the usefulness of studying EO climate strength: although EO climate level positively predicted team effectiveness, climate strength did not influence this relationship. In other words, teams with better EO climates were also more effective, regardless of whether the team’s climate was weak or strong. Findings also suggest that team characteristics (i.e., diversity, size, member deployment) helped determine the level and strength of some measures of EO climate. Although climate level clearly remains the more important dimension of organizational climate, this study does make a few potentially meaningful distinctions between EO climate level and strength, and it provides insights for organizations wishing to promote climates that value and prioritize equal opportunities.