Psychological Climate for Caring and Work Outcomes: A Virtuous Cycle

Abstract

The current literature’s focus on unidirectional effects of psychological and organizational climates at work on work outcomes fails to capture the full relationship between these factors. This article examines whether a psychological climate for caring contributes to specific work outcomes and investigates whether work outcomes support the climate for caring, creating a feedback loop. Results confirm a bi-directional, temporal association between perceived climate for caring and two of the four explored work outcomes: self-reported productivity and self-reported work quality. The effect of a perceived caring climate on these work outcomes was stronger than the effect in the opposite direction. The perception that the work climate was caring was also found to affect work engagement, but the reverse relationship was not identified. We did not find any evidence for a link between job satisfaction and a climate for caring at work in either direction.