The relationship of two socio-demographic variables and several perceived climate dimensions to performance: An investigation among real-states agents

Disregard of sociodemographic variables (e.g., level of education and length of experience at work) which might additively combine with perceived climate dimensions to affect work performance is a major factor in the inconsistency of climate-performance relationships. The current study examines this contention and addresses two additional related research questions. The investigation was done on 628 real estate agents employed in 29 agencies in the Montreal area; of these, 58 were used as subjects for only the pretest stage. All of them were administered an organizational climate questionnaire. Data on such sociodemographic variables as years of real estate experience and level of education were collected at the same time. Two relatively objective indices of agents' work performance were used: total number of transactions (listing and sales) accomplished, and real-estate earnings (the actual dollar value of commissions earned). The results suggest that, when combined additively, climate dimensions and the two sociodemographic variables relate to substantially higher levels of work performance than either of them alone. Hence, these data support the additive combination model of climate dimensions and sociodemographic variables in relation to performance. Furthermore, the amount of variance accounted for by either climate dimensions or sociodemographic variables changes with the type of performance measure used. Also discussed are implications of the findings referring to organizational peculiarities.