From Shared Climate to Micro-Environments: An Alternative View

Much of organizational behavior and conflict management research looks at how social context influences individuals’ experiences and behaviors. An alternative view, that we develop in this paper, is that individuals can to some degree create their own contexts, and do so in a way which follows them across dyads, groups, and organizations. Because context is shaped by individuals, there may be multiple, different contexts within the same group, team, or organization. We call these person-specific “micro-environments.” In this paper we introduce the concept of micro-environments, examine individual-level factors that make them more likely, and look at methodological and managerial implications.