Organizational Climate and Employee Health Outcomes: An Empirical Examination of Mechanisms and Boundaries

Abstract

Organizational health and safety climate has been shown to be associated with fewer accidents and injuries, better mental and physical health, and improved overall well-being. However, little is known about the ”How?” and ”When?” the individual employees’ perception of an organization’s health climate influences employees’ individual physical and psychological health. In three studies, this dissertation aims to empirically test mechanisms, namely concrete individual health behaviors and spillover effects into the non-work domain as well as boundaries, namely organizational identification that lead from employees’ perceptions of an organizational health and safety climate to the individual health outcomes of employees. In Study 1, I developed and validated a novel measure of organizational climate for infectious diseases (OCID) during the COVID-19 pandemic, examining its effects on workplace and non-work behavior and in Study 2, I investigated its interaction with organizational identification. In Study 3, I used the well-established Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) to investigate whether both on-job and off-job crafting would be behavioral mechanisms that could explain the effects of PSC and mental health, with organizational identification as a potential moderator. My results indicate that workplace health climates can positively influence health-promoting behaviors at the workplace. Crafting, both on the job and off the job, was shown to mediate the relationship between PSC and psychological health. However, organizational identification emerged as a key moderator for the transfer of health climate effects into the non-work domain. Employees with higher levels of identification were more likely to internalize organizational priorities, aligning their behaviors with health-promoting norms and carrying these behaviors into non-work contexts. Examining my assumptions in two distinct climate domains underscores the independence of my proposed mechanisms and boundaries from specific domains. For practitioners, this research suggests that the promotion of a positive health climate and strong organizational identification are powerful strategies to promote employee health, both within and beyond the workplace.