Organizational Climate ( OC ) as Employees ’ Satisfier : Empirical Evidence from Pharmaceutical Sector

The satisfaction of employees with organizational climate is predictor of better performance. Organizational climate is having direct bearing on employees’ satisfaction. The satisfaction of employees with organizational climate enhances positive organizational outcomes: efficiency, productivity, organizational commitment and cohesiveness of coworkers while it reduces negative outcomes: turnover, deviant behavior at work, absenteeism and stealing of company property. This study is conducted to measure the satisfaction of middle managers with organizational climate in pharmaceutical sector of Pakistan. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect the response. 66 organizations were selected through cluster sampling technique, from four major cities of Pakistan, out of the total 66 companies (51 local and 15 multinational organizations). Out of these organizations 246 middle level managers were surveyed (170 from local companies and 70 from multinationals). The majority of them were male, having university degrees, with age less than or equal to 35 years. The results reveal that in majority of the managers were satisfied with organizational climate in both local and multinational organizations. Respondents from multinational organizations were found to be more satisfied then the respondents from local companies. Detailed results are discussed in findings section.


Introduction
With changing business trends through out the world, there are drastic changes in the business practices of companies.Since world has globalized, firms are not looking at local markets rather introducing themselves all over the world.As a result firms are not only competing locally but internationally as well.This changed competitive market/s has changed the ways firms operate.These changing trends have brought importance of some of the ignored or dormant business concerns.Human resource is one of those issues.Now firms consider their human resource as most valuable asset and the sole determinant of competitive advantage directly or indirectly.Now companies assign special budgets to hire, train and retain their work force.Organizations spend huge amount on the human resource budgets.Managing human resource is not enough, but managing human resource with minimal cost is desire of the time.One way is to retain the work force as it will reduce the hiring cost, save the production disturbances and many more returns.But retention of work force is function of their satisfaction.Greater the level of satisfaction of employees more employees are willing to retain themselves at the present job.So satisfaction of employees is an important consideration for organizations.
The purpose of this study is to measure the level satisfaction of the middle managers with organizational climate, working in the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan.The satisfaction with organizational climate is important because of its effect on productivity and success of the company.The positive climate of the organization has positive relationship with job satisfaction while negative relationship with turnover and absenteeism.The organizations create positive organizational climate to retain employees by enhancing their morale and job satisfaction (Murray 1999).The organizational climate of an organization is like an individual's personality, that everyone has unique personality traits (Emery, 1999).It distinguishes one organization from other on the basis of perceptions of the employees about the policies and practices, cohesiveness of coworkers, recognition of task performed, supportiveness of management and regard for personal concerns, innovative style of performance and fairness in rewards, norms and attitudes that influence the behavior of employees at work (Aarons & Sawitzky, 2006;Ashkanasy et al. 2000;Moran &Volkwein, 1992 andSchneider, 1987).
Highly technical people like pharmacists, chemists, plant engineers, accountants working as middle level managers are always responsible for better organizational performance.The pharmaceutical industry is one of the important industries of the country involved in production of drugs and medicines for the treatment of human ailments.The local and multinational pharmaceutical organizations are working side by side in Pakistan, meeting 80% of the total needs of medicines produced at home by sharing it with the ratio of 56.2%: 43.8% for multinational and local respectively, the remaining 20% requirement is being met with import of drugs and medicines from industrially advanced countries from world over (Pakistan health & pharmaceuticals sector, n.d.).
It was found by Deal & Kennedy, (1992) that a significant relationship exists between organizational climate and job satisfaction.The supportiveness of organizational climate has positive relationship with job satisfaction, commitment with the organization and performance at work (Burrus, 1996;Al-shamiri, 1994;and Al-rahimi, 1990).The satisfaction of managers with organizational climate in the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan is measured on the basis of seven factors: Internal Communication, Organizational Structure, Political Climate, Professional Development Opportunities, Evaluation, Promotion and Regard for Personal Concerns.The satisfaction of middle managers with these factors is considered satisfaction with the organizational climate at workplace.In the following section literature about these factors is reviewed.

Internal communication
Internal communication can be defined as "The interaction of people with each other formally or informally at workplace".The internal communication may be open or closed.In the open internal communication employees feel free to express their opinions, voice complaints, offer suggestions to their superiors, argue their point of view, and comment freely about policy decisions in connection with production, personnel, and marketing concerns.While in closed communication new ideas have a little space or cannot be expressed, people feel threat of criticism or punishment in sharing information of critical nature.Open internal communication enhances supportiveness, participation, and trustfulness while reduces effects of stress on employees (Ray, 1987cited in Miller, Considine & Garner 2007).It was found by Pettitt & Ayers (2002) that freedom and openness in information sharing among organizational members builds mutual trust that helps to create positive and effective organizational climate.The open communication facilitates the participation of employees in decision making process, organizational actions can best be explained, and clarity of expectations of management from the employees on the basis of set standards, and they (employees) could contribute for fairness at workplace (Kandel, 2000).

Organizational Structure
Organizational structure is "the way an organization arranges people and jobs to meet organizational goals and to make achievement of targets feasible".A framework devised for division and coordination of activities distinguish one organization from other organizations on the basis of environmental circumstances (Stoner et al. 1995).The organizational structure characterized with participation in decision making and role clarity has positive relationship with job satisfaction (Campbell et al. 2004).The organizations may be highly structured or loosely structured.The highly structured organizational activities are negatively related with the job satisfaction (Finlay et al. 1995).In loosely structured organizations workers exhibit low anxiety and in highly structured (traditional and bureaucratic) organizations they tend to reveal higher degrees of organizational anxiety (George & Bishop, 1971).

Political Climate
Political climate is "The degree to which employees consider their work environment politically dominated and political activists are using their influence for vested interests".The involvement of politics in organizational functioning results in job dissatisfaction (Levy, 1989).A significant negative relationship of high political climate was found with job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job performance while positive relationship with high turnover and job anxiety (Kacmar et al. 1999).

Professional Development Opportunities
Organizations are said to be development oriented when employees have chances to enhance their professional capabilities.Acker (2004) found that higher professional development opportunities have positive relationship with job satisfaction.Both on the job and off the job learning create professional development opportunities that ultimately enhance job satisfaction (Koonce, 1998).Jobs with adequate professional development opportunities enhance employees' job satisfaction levels even with the lower salaries (Leavitt, 1996).In the words of Chen et al. (2004), employees at workplace make the organizational climate; more motivated employees will positively affect the climate, devote more time and effort to enhance their skills for future professional development.

Evaluation
The evaluation is "reconciliation of actual performance of employees with the expectation conveyed to them at the time of assigning job i.e. the standards set".The purpose of evaluation is to enhance hierarchal level, pay, responsibility, and to recognize, encourage, and to maintain morale at higher levels.Once the desired standards of performance are communicated to the employees, then organizational managers should appreciate employees for a better job, it works to motivate employees and it reinforces the positive behavior at work (Nelson, 2002).The fairness in the implementation of evaluation process enhances job satisfaction of the employees, even if, they were receiving less than their expectations (Bretz et al. 1992).

Promotion
The promotion is advancement to positions of increased responsibility (Dessler, 2008).Pergamit & Veum (1999) found a significant positive relationship between promotions and satisfaction.Promotions have positive effect on the organizational climate and job satisfaction of the employees (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 1991).

Regard for Personal Concerns
It is the sensitivity of organizational management for well being of employees and supportiveness in their personal affairs; it has positive effect on the job satisfaction of the employees (Vroom, 1964;and Moorman et al. 1993).The organization should be supportive in resolving the problems related to work-family imbalance.It will enhance job satisfaction of the employees leading to better attitude and positive behavior at workplace that will result in positive organizational climate, that is, conducive for better organizational performance (Gallos, 2006).Caring climate for personal concerns has positive effect on overall job satisfaction when it is compared to task oriented climate (Deshpande, 1996).

Theoretical Framework
On the basis of above given literature we can formulate following research model and hypothesis:

Hypothesis of the study
H 1 There is significant relationship between Organizational Climate and employees' satisfaction H2 There is significant relation between Internal Communication employees' satisfaction H3 There is significant relation between Organizational Structure employees' satisfaction H4 There is significant relation between Political Climate and employees' satisfaction H5 There is significant relation between professional development opportunities and employees' satisfaction H6 There is significant relation between fair evaluation and employees' satisfaction H7 There is significant relation between promotion opportunities and employees' satisfaction H8 There is significant relation between regard for personal concern and employees' satisfaction

Sample
The population of this study was pharmacists, plant engineers, chemists, accounts, marketing and personnel managers working as middle-level managers in the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan.In Pakistan there are 441 (411 local and 30 multinational) pharmaceutical industrial units employing about 1500 middle-level managers (Pakistan health & pharmaceuticals sector, n.d.).

Sampling technique:
The cluster sampling technique was considered appropriate for the selection of sample, as the cluster sampling is more appropriate where the target population is scattered geographically (Gay et al. 2005).Four cities of Pakistan were selected for collection of data: Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar.Only 66 (51 local and 15 multinational) industrial units were finalized for sample selection with the ratio 1:8 (13%) local and 1:2 (50%) of the multinational companies.The reason to select higher percentage of multinational organizations is small number (30) of them working in Pakistan.
City wise distribution of population and sample for local & multinational industrial units is given in Table 1.

Collection of Data
The middle-level managers of the selected industrial units who were present at the time of visit to the specific unit, the questionnaires were administered personally.A total of 322 questionnaires were distributed among the middle-level managers, out of which 265 filled-in questionnaires were received back with 82% response rate.

Instrument
A five point Likert-type rating scale (a good technique to measure the attitude, Dawes, 2008), with scale points: strongly agree (SA), agree (A), undecided (UD), disagree (DA), and strongly disagree (SD), was developed, validated and used with scores 5 to1 respectively.The pilot testing of instrument is made and cronbach alpha was found 0.866 which is acceptable statistically.The 16 statements were finalized for the questionnaire to measure the satisfaction of middle-level managers with seven variables of organizational climate: satisfaction with internal communication (2-statements), satisfaction with organizational structure (1-statement), satisfaction with political climate (3-statements), satisfaction with professional development opportunities (2-statements), satisfaction with evaluation (3-statements), satisfaction with promotion (2-statements) and satisfaction with regard for personal concerns (3-statement).
The detail of distributed and received questionnaires is given in Table 2.

Data Entry:
The perceptions of the middle-level managers regarding organizational climate were scored assigning score 1 to strongly disagree, score 2 to disagree, score 3 to undecided, score 4 to agree and score 5 to strongly agree.The negative items were scored reverse.The entered data were edited for the sample of 246 (170 from local and 76 from multinational organizations) respondents while 19 questionnaires were discarded due to more than 25% blank responses.

Results
These middle-level managers are predominantly male and consist of 204 (83%) males and 42 (17%) females.Out of 246 middle-level managers 170 (69%) in local and 76 (31%) are working in multinational organizations.The cross tabs of gender and type of the organization whether local or multinational is given in Table 3.
A majority (n=190, 77%) of middle-level managers are 35 years of age or lower, and 43(18%) are between 36 and 45 years while only 12 (5%) are older than 45 years.One respondent has not mentioned his/her age.High majority of them (n=194, 79%) had experience 10 year or less and 42(17%) middle managers had experience up to 20 years and only 9 (4%) were having experience more than twenty years.
The education background of the middle-level managers in this study is quite diverse, in terms of disciples.Table 4 provides the data about the education of 246 middle-level managers included in sample working in pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan.The middle managers working in pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan were university graduates.A handsome number of them was directly related to production of medicines (n=113, 46%) that is, graduates in pharmacy and chemistry.Business graduates were 54 (22%) of middle managers and (n=79, 32%) were with degree other than mentioned above working in the support services in this industry.
The unit of analysis is organization, 66 organizations are selected for this study, of which 51 (77%) local and 15 (23%) are multinational organizations.The middle managers of pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan are satisfied with organizational climate in their organizations on the basis of seven factors of organizational climate.Their satisfaction with these variables is collectively considered as the satisfaction of middle-level managers with organizational climate.The satisfaction of middle-level managers with organizational climate factors is given in the Table 5.It shows the measurement of satisfaction of middle-level managers with the organizational climate on the basis of seven identified factors of organizational climate: internal communication, organizational structure, political climate, professional development opportunities, evaluation, promotion, and regard for personal concerns.
Employees were more satisfied in multinationals with respect to organizational structure, political climate, professional development opportunities, evaluation and promotion, as mean score of all these factors was high then the mean score of local companies; employees of local companies were more satisfied with internal communication then employees of multinational companies.Similarly, there was not much difference of satisfaction of personal concern of employees in both local and multinational companies.
Internal communication was significantly related with employees' satisfaction (p 0.003).Other organizational climate elements are not significantly related with overall satisfaction of the employees.It means that there might be some other factors that contribute towards satisfaction of employees (p>0.005).

Discussion
The middle managers in majority of pharmaceutical organizations are satisfied with organizational climate.The satisfaction with factors of organizational climate indicates different results when compared with each other.In highest numbers of pharmaceutical organizations middle-level managers are satisfied with internal promotion.
The second highest is the satisfaction with internal communication.The next highest was satisfaction of middle-level managers with evaluation.No relation was found between organizational structure and political climate, same results were found with regard for personal concern.But the satisfaction of middle-level managers with lowest number of organizations with professional development opportunities is found.
The overall satisfaction of managers with organizational climate is in line with the studies of Bailey (2002); Gratto (2001) and Kindt (2008) but the factor-wise satisfaction differs a lot.The satisfaction with regard for personal concerns and professional development opportunities was highest in the above mentioned studies but in this study the satisfaction with these two factors is lowest.The satisfaction with internal promotion, internal communication, and evaluation is highest in this study and the findings are consistent with results of Gratto (2001) and Kindt (2008).The middle managers satisfaction with evaluation is third highest in this study and its findings are consistent with the results obtained by Bailey (2002).
The comparison is made on the basis of local and multinational organizations to find whether there any significant difference exists between the satisfaction of middle managers in local organizations and satisfaction of middle managers in multinational organizations on the basis of above mentioned seven factors.The table 5 revealed that the difference in satisfaction is not significant in case of four factors: political climate, professional development opportunities, evaluation and promotion while difference in the satisfaction of middle managers is significant in respect of three factors of organizational climate i.e. internal communication, organizational structure, political climate and regard for personal concerns.The satisfaction of middle managers is higher in local organizations in three factors of organizational climate i.e. internal communication, evaluation and regard for personal concerns while satisfaction with other four factors of organizational climate i.e. organizational structure, political climate, professional development opportunities and promotion is higher in multinational organizations as perceived by middle managers in pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan.
The satisfaction with organizational structure as a factor of organizational climate is found moderate while it was found high in the study conducted by Kindt (2008).In a reasonable number of organizations middle managers were satisfied with political climate but these findings of the study are not consistent with results obtained by Bailey (2002).The findings about overall satisfaction of middle managers in this study are in line with findings of previous studies mentioned above.

Conclusion
The managers of pharmaceutical organizations working in Pakistan are satisfied with more factors of the organizational climate in multinational as compared to local organizations.The opportunity exists for local pharmaceutical organizations for improvement by enhancing satisfaction of middle managers with organizational climate in respect of organizational structure, political climate, professional development opportunities and promotion.On the basis of the findings of this study, the local organizations have to minimize the politicization, organizational structure should be redesigned to increase participation in decision making process, professional development opportunities should be encouraged and promotion from within the organizations be increased for more satisfaction of middle managers at workplace.While multinational organizations have to be more sensitive in regard for personal concerns, open internal communication and evaluation process should be made fair enough to be used for improvement and should not be used for discipline purposes.
The human resource policy makers, who want to enhance the satisfaction of middle managers with organizational climate, have to create positive organizational climate that enhances job satisfaction, organizational performance, and organizational citizenship behavior; while curbs job dissatisfaction, turnover, absenteeism and deviant behavior at workplace, can use these findings in designing their policies in future.The comparison of local and multinational organizations also highlights the factors that can be helpful for local and multinational organizations for the enhancement of satisfaction of middle managers, it can be beneficial for Pakistani organizations in particular; and international organizations in general.

Table 2 .
City-wise Distribution of Questionnaires and Response Rate

Table 3 .
Distribution of Gender of respondents and type of organization

Table 4 .
Academic qualifications of the respondents

Table 5 .
Satisfaction of Middle-Level Managers with Organizational Climate