Abstract

Objective. To analyze the installation of the concepts of organizational climate and organizational culture within the eld ofmanagement theory, in the context of the dominance of the functionalist managerialist paradigm, addressing the articulationsand modulations these concepts establish with said paradigm and examining their effects. Method. Documentary review basedon the genealogy of the present proposed by Nikolas Rose, tracing the foundational texts of George H. Litwin and Robert A.Stringer, as well as Edgar H. Schein, and identifying their subsequent uses through citation analysis. Results. e success of theirinstallation relied on quantication devices —psychometric scales and attitudinal inventories— that promised to render legible thesocial and subjective processes previously overlooked by organizational theory, thereby converting them into administrable eldsincorporated into managerial control. Discussion. e installation of these concepts reveals how critique can be assembled into thefunctionalist managerialist logic without transforming the practices it contests. A transformative critique requires challenging theontological and epistemological core of the theories under scrutiny, as well as their practical translations and effects —particularlyin Latin American contexts, where inequality and labor precarity demand more complex and situated approaches to the study oforganizational life.