The Impact of Climate Strength on Relationships between Command Climate and Outcomes

The current research focused on command climate at the Army company level by analyzing the interactions of climate strength and mean climate level to explore under what circumstances climate strength exerts moderating influences. It was hypothesized that climate strength would be more likely to moderate outcomes (i.e., cohesion, affective commitment, and stress) for climate dimensions that are experienced at the individual level and focus on the treatment of individuals (e.g., fairness, bullying, and inclusion) than for dimensions experienced at the group level (e.g., flow of information, autonomy, performance orientation, and professionalism). The hypotheses were partially supported, finding climate strength had a significant moderating effect in six of the nine individual experience models. For the group experience dimensions, climate strength proved to be a significant moderator in only one of 12 models. The results show that the moderating effects of command climate strength depend on the focus of the climate dimensions. Specifically, command climate dimensions that revolve around the treatment of individual Soldiers are more likely to be moderated by the climate strength of the unit than dimensions experienced by the unit as a whole. The findings of this study suggest that the practice of focusing on mean levels of climate and excluding climate strength when reporting command climate survey results may exclude important information.