ORGANISATIONAL CLIMATE IN AUTONOMOUS COLLEGES: EXPLORING GENDERED AND CONTEXTUAL DIFFERENCES IN TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS

Organisational climate plays a crucial role in shaping institutional effectiveness, professional satisfaction, and academic functioning in higher education institutions. Autonomous colleges, granted academic and administrative flexibility, require a conducive organisational climate to realise their intended objectives. The present study examines teachers’ perceptions of organisational climate in autonomous colleges with specific reference to gender and locale (rural–urban). Employing a descriptive survey design, data were collected from 160 teachers working in 12 government and non-government autonomous colleges of Odisha, India. A five-point perception scale was used to measure organisational climate. Mean scores, standard deviations, and independent samples t-tests were employed to analyse differences in perceptions across gender and locale. The findings reveal statistically significant gender-based differences, with male teachers reporting more favourable perceptions of organisational climate than female teachers across both rural and urban contexts. While several cross-locale comparisons yielded significant differences, no significant difference was observed between rural and urban male teachers, indicating perceptual consistency among male teachers irrespective of location. The study concludes that gender exerts a stronger influence than locale in shaping teachers’ perceptions of organisational climate in autonomous colleges. The findings have important implications for institutional leadership, equity-oriented governance, and quality assurance in autonomous higher education institutions.