A Multilevel Model of the Effects of Equal Opportunity Climate on Job Satisfaction in the Military Benjamin M. Walsh University of Connecticut Russell A. Matthews Louisiana State University Michael D. Tuller University of Connecticut Kizzy M. Parks K. Parks Consulting, Inc., Melbourne, FL Daniel P. McDonald Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, Patrick Air Force Base, FL To date, minimal work has explored associations between equal opportunity (EO) climate and employee work attitudes, and no known research has investigated the effects of EO climate beyond the individual level. We address these gaps in the literature by testing a multilevel structural equation model in which effects of EO climate are considered at both the individual and unit levels. At the individual level, we predicted that psychological EO climate would be directly associated with job stress and job satisfaction, as well as indirectly related to job satisfaction via stress. In addition, cross-level associations between unit EO climate and job stress and job satisfaction were hypothesized to be mediated by cohesion. Findings supported the proposed model; hypothesized relations were supported at both levels of analysis. We conclude with a discussion of the findings, study limitations, and directions for future EO climate research. Keywords: equal opportunity climate, cohesion, job satisfaction, job stress, multilevel structural equation modeling With women and racial/ethnic minorities accounting for a large portion of the United States military popu- lation, the military has committed itself to continuing to provide equal opportunity (EO) for all personnel to create a force that is representative of the people it serves (Edwards, 2001). Over the past two decades, the assessment of perceptions of discriminatory employ- ment practices in the military has become a frequent practice (e.g., Dansby & Landis, 1991; Newell, Rosen- feld, & Culbertson, 1995; McIntyre, Bartle, Landis, & Dansby, 2002; Rosenfeld, Newell, & Le, 1998) with researchers focusing primarily on perceptions of equal opportunity climate (EO climate; Dansby & Landis, 1991). However, little empirical research has investi- gated the process through which EO climate affects employees’ work attitudes, and to our knowledge no research has studied EO climate as a unit level construct reflecting the shared climate perceptions of unit mem- bers. In the present study, we address these gaps in the literature by examining EO climate at both the individ- ual and unit levels of analysis. At the individual level, we study EO climate as a predictor of job stress and job satisfaction. At the unit level, EO climate is modeled as a direct predictor of unit cohesion, a variable which has beneficial effects on individual satisfaction, perfor- mance, and mission effectiveness (Oliver, Harman, Hoover, Hayes, & Pandhi, 1999). Unit EO climate is also hypothesized to have significant cross-level indi- rect effects on individuals’ job stress and job satisfac- tion. In the following sections, we describe in greater detail the construct of EO climate, ground EO climate within the general climate literature, and briefly sum- Benjamin M. Walsh and Michael D. Tuller, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut; Russell A. Mat- thews, Department of Psychology, Louisiana State Univer- sity; Kizzy M. Parks, K. Parks Consulting, Inc., Melbourne, FL; and Daniel P. McDonald, Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, Patrick Air Force Base, FL. The work of Benjamin M. Walsh and Michael D. Tuller was supported in part by Grant No. 5 T01 OH008610-04 from CDC-NIOSH. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of NIOSH, the United States Department of Defense, the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, or any other federal agencies. An earlier version of this research was presented at the 24th annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organiza- tional Psychology in New Orleans, LA. Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- dressed to Benjamin M. Walsh, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Unit 1020, Storrs, CT 06269. E-mail: benjamin.walsh@uconn.edu Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 2010, Vol. 15, No. 2, 191–207 © 2010 American Psychological Association 1076-8998/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0018756 191 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.