Organizational Psychology

The article dwells upon the attempt to apply an activity approach to the phenomena of the collective mind that constitute organizational culture. The author analyzes methods prevailing in contemporary organizational and psychological research and recognized them as continuation of the introspectionism tradition. The author substantiates the necessity to recover the significant role ofobject determination upon study of the collective mind in teamwork. The results of the macroergonomic study of power plant are presented. The differences in team organizational climates at boiler-andturbine and electric workshops of power plant were reviewed. It was established that a significant factor determining spontaneously occurring work attitudes, motivations, norms are the actual performers’ interdependencies, which, in turn, are determined by their labor subjects and their actual physical properties. Motivations of solidarity are induced by the common labor object; democracy is determined by equal opportunities to influence teamwork results, etc. The article presents the analysis of data ofthe survey conducted at the Russian and US power plants. It has been found that despite substantial differences between national mindsets of Russian and US employees, the both of them have similar work relations and share similar labor norms. The survey revealed that labor object determination dominates over culture determination. The conflicts are negatively evaluated at the both power plants despite the high difference in national masculinity indices according to G. Hofstede. Mutual aid is highly appreciated at the both stations while there are strong differences in the G. Hofstede’s individualism indices. Also the conclusion was made that a significant parameter of organizational culture is the measure of correspondence between labor norms maintained and actual labor characteristics. Different types of discrepancy between these phenomena cause organizational neurosis, undermine team performance and threaten the work safety. In the end the relationships between the concepts oforganizational culture and organizational climate were considered and defined as the relationships of General and Singular.