MEASURING CLIMATE FOR WORK GROUP INNOVATION - DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF THE TEAM CLIMATE INVENTORY

This paper reports the development and psychometric validation of a mu lti-dimensional measure of facet-specific climate for innovation withi n groups at work: the Team Climate Inventory (TCI). Brief reviews of t he organizational climate and work group innovation literatures are pr esented initially, and the need for measures of facet-specific climate at the level of the proximal work group asserted. The four-factor the ory of facet-specific climate for innovation, which was derived from t hese reviews, is described, and the procedures used to operationalize this model into the original version measure described. Data attesting to underlying factor structure, internal homogeneity, predictive vali dity and factor replicability across groups of the summarized measure are presented. An initial sample of 155 individuals from 27 hospital m anagement teams provided data for the exploratory factor analysis of t his measure. Responses from 121 further groups in four occupations (35 primary health care teams, 42 social services teams, 20 psychiatric t eams and 24 oil company teams; total N = 971) were used to apply confi rmatory factor analysis techniques. This five-factor, 38-item summariz ed version demonstrates robust psychometric properties, with acceptabl e levels of reliability and validity. potential applications of this m easure are described and the implication of these findings for the mea surement of proximal work group climate are discussed. (C) 1998 John W iley & Sons, Ltd.