Organizational climate (sometimes known as corporate climate) is a concept that has academic meaning in the fields of organizational behavior and I/O psychology as well as practical meaning in the business world There is continued scholarly debate about the exact definition of organizational climate for the purposes of scientific study. The definition developed by Lawrence R. James (1943-2014) and his colleagues makes a distinction between psychological and organizational climate.

"Psychological climate is defined as the individual employee’s perception of the psychological impact of the work environment on his or her own well-being (James & James, 1989). When employees in a particular work unit agree on their perceptions of the impact of their work environment, their shared perceptions can be aggregated to describe their organizational climate (Jones & James, 1979; Joyce & Slocum, 1984)."

Employees' collective appraisal of the organizational work environment takes into account many dimensions of the situation as well as the psychological impact of the environment. For instance, job-specific properties such as role clarity, workload and other aspects unique to a person's specific job have a psychological impact that can be agreed upon by members of the organization. Work group or team cooperation and effectiveness as well as leadership and organizational support are other dimensions of shared experience that factor into organizational climate. Surveys are the most common way of quantifying organizational climate. Aspects of climate that influence performance of specific sets of behaviors and outcomes can be measured, such as the climate for safety and the climate for innovation. Many instruments have been developed to assess numerous aspects of climate.

The shared perception approach emphasizes the importance of shared perceptions as underpinning the notion of climate. Organisational climate has also been defined as "the shared perception of the way things are around here". There is great deal of overlap in the two approaches.