Organizational Climate in Its Semiotic Aspect: A Postmodern Community College Undergoes Renewal

Article: The postmodern community college is a site of expanding missions, chaotic environmental turbulence, and increasing heterogeneity both within the publics served and among organizational members (Bergquist, 1998). These and other postmodern challenges call for transformational leadership that facilitates productive responses to change so that increased institutional effectiveness ensues. In the past, when faced with demands for improved organizational performance, leaders of community colleges and other higher education institutions often turned to quantitative assessments of organizational climate. This line of institutional research has provided executive leaders with critical guidance on institutional challenges that require leadership attention. In this way, climate assessments have guided higher education leaders in setting priorities for change (Baker & Hoover, 1997). While this practice is useful in developing an understanding of the overall climate of an institution, it may fail to render an appropriate snapshot of how assorted individuals make sense of their work environments, particularly within a context of organizational fragmentation and mounting heterogeneity. In other words, the postmodern community college retains a diversity of faculty and staff — all of whom may perceive the organizational climate quite differently — and climate surveys may neglect the voices of those with contrasting experiences within the organization. In sum, postmodern theory necessitates an extension of our knowledge of organizational climate in higher education institutions.