Mark A. Griffin and John E. Mathieuconducted a research and published an article in journal of
organizational behavior, VOL. 18, 731±744 (1997) , on perceptions of organizational climate,
leadership, and group processes within hierarchically nested work groups. Relationships across
hierarchical boundaries were examined for two samples at different hierarchical levels in a
military organization. There was information in the background of article about the Franklin
influence processwhich states it traveled down the organizational hierarchy. But he did not
distinguish among different hierarchical levels. Four hypothesis were discussed in this research
paper explaining the three constructs and their handles in upper and lower level.
The participant involved were 1413 Navy Officers on six Navy ships at four supervisory levels
that are Department Head (n 21), Division Head (n 92), Work Supervisors (n 161) and Centre
Supervisors (n 1139). Different scales such as communication flow, motivation flow, human
resources planning and utilization etc were used to measure organizational climate. Leader
support, team coordination and work team emphasis were used to measure supervisory
leadership and group process was measured by coordination and readiness scale.LISREL VII
was used to analyze the sample covariance matrix in each phase of the analysis. Three indicators
that are Goodness of Fit Index, Non-normed Fit Index (NNFI) and Comparative Fit Index (CFI)
were recorded for each of the appropriate models.
The findings were that perceptions of climate were positively related across levels in both
samples. There was evidence that the pattern of relationship among the other constructs was
different in the two samples. The results have implications for the process which organizational
interventions can be expected to flow through hierarchical levels of an organization. The results
did not support a simple cascading process for leadership perceptions but a more complex
mediating pathway involving organizational climate and group processes across hierarchical
levels.
In conclusion, the current study provided initial evidence that organizational subsystems interact
differently at different levels of the organization. The results raise questions for interventions that
aim to produce changes at one organizational level and to have these changes reproduced at other
levels. On a positive note, the importance of group processes suggested a fruitful avenue for
further investigation of specific mechanisms that transmit influence across hierarchical
levels.The results withdrawn were very beneficial.