Attitudes Towards Organizational Change: What Is The Role of Employees' Stress and Commitment?
Attitudes Towards Organizational Change: What Is The Role of Employees' Stress and Commitment?
Attitudes Towards Organizational Change: What Is The Role of Employees' Stress and Commitment?
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27,2 Attitudes towards organizational
change
What is the role of employees’ stress and
160 commitment?
Maria Vakola and Ioannis Nikolaou
Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece
Abstract
Purpose – Occupational stress and organizational change are now widely accepted as two major
issues in organizational life. The current study explores the linkage between employees’ attitudes
towards organizational change and two of the most significant constructs in organizational behaviour;
occupational stress and organizational commitment.
Design/methodology/approach – A total of 292 participants completed ASSET, a new
“Organizational Screening Tool”, which, among other things, measures workplace stress and
organizational commitment and a measure assessing attitudes towards organizational change.
Findings – The results were in the expected direction showing negative correlations between
occupational stressors and attitudes to change, indicating that highly stressed individuals
demonstrate decreased commitment and increased reluctance to accept organizational change
interventions. The most significant impact on attitudes to change was coming from bad work
relationships emphasizing the importance of that occupational stressor on employees’ attitudes
towards change. The results did not support the role of organizational commitment as a moderator in
the relationship between occupational stress and attitudes to change.
Research limitations/implications – A limitation of the research design could be that all
measures originated from the same source resulting in possible contamination from common method
variance. Further, the cross-sectional research design adopted in the present study, as opposed to a
longitudinal or experimental methodology, does not allow affirmative causal explanations.
Originality/value – The present study showed that good and effective work relationships are very
important in organizational change. Handling conflicts, building supportive work relationships and
communicating effectively all contribute to the formulation of positive attitudes to change and,
therefore, to the success of a change programme. In addition, organizations need to examine the extra
workload which organizational change may create. Increase in workload is not only easily attributable
to the change but it also makes change unattractive and problematic leading to non-supportive
attitudes.
Keywords Organizational change, Management of change, Stress, Business policy, Greece
Paper type Research paper
Method
Participants and procedure
A total of 292 employees from various Greek organizations participated in the current
study; 119 (41.8 per cent) were males and 166 (58.2 per cent) were females. The majority
of the participants were between 37 and 55 years of age (53.3 per cent) or 21 to 36 years
old (38.6 per cent). A total of 145 of them (51.6 per cent) were employed in
clerical-secretarial positions, 38 (13.5 per cent) in technical/professional positions, 25 (9
per cent) in managerial positions and finally 20 (7.1 per cent) were employed in
supervisory positions. The remaining, were employed in skilled-manual and sales or
marketing positions. A total of 154 (54.4 per cent) were married, 24 (8.5 per cent) lived
with their partner, and 82 (29 per cent) were single. Regarding their educational
background, 69 (24 per cent) were high-school graduates, 35 (12.2 per cent) had
graduated from a college or further education institute, 133 of them (46.2 per cent) were
university graduates, and 39 (13.5 per cent) had postgraduate degrees.
Participants completed a self-report questionnaire pack, which incorporated the
measures of attitudes to change and occupational stress. In addition, personal and
demographic data relating to age, gender, marital status and educational background
were also collected. Half of the individuals completed the attitudes to change measure
first and half second, in order to control for order effect. Researchers informed the
participants about confidentiality issues and that they had the right to withdraw from
the study at any time and any stage.
Measures
Occupational stress. Stress was measured through ASSET (Cartwright and Cooper,
2002), a new “Organizational Screening Tool” which is the advanced form of the
well-established and extensively used Occupational Stress Indicator – OSI (Cooper
et al., 1988). However, OSI is primarily intended for use with White Collar and
Managerial workers and is very long and time consuming to complete. Therefore, Occupational
ASSET has been developed, which is sorter and applicable to all occupations. It has stress
already been used successfully in health care organizations with adequate evidence of
construct and discriminant validity both in the UK (Johnson, 2001; Johnson and Cooper,
2003) and also in Greece (Nikolaou and Tsaousis, 2002). According to the authors,
ASSET is a very effective tool in diagnosing occupational stress, combining both the
sources and the effects of stress. ASSET conceptualizes occupational stress as 165
influenced by a variety of sources (each of them consisting an independent scale), such
as work relationships, work-life balance, overload, job security, control, resources and
communication, pay and benefits, as well as an evaluation of the employee’s perception
of the potential sources of stress that relate to the fundamental nature of the job itself
(e.g. physical working conditions, type of tasks and the amount of satisfaction from the
job, etc.) named “Aspects of the Job”. An overall Job Stress Index was calculated and
used for the purposes of the current study, based on the sum of all the stress indicators
described by ASSET. A high score in the overall job stress index indicates increased
perception of the stressors associated with high stress levels.
Simultaneously, it is recognized that occupational stress affects directly
organizational commitment as well as physical health and psychological well being.
These are the outcomes of occupational stress. In the current study, we will focus only
on organizational commitment. ASSET divides Organizational Commitment in two
sub-scales; Commitment of the Organization to the Employee (COE) and Commitment
of the Employee to the Organization (CEO). High score in both scales indicates
increased commitment. The former measures the extent to which individuals feel that
their organization is committed to them, whereas the latter measures the degree that
employees feel loyal and committed to the organization.
Attitudes to change. Attitudes to change were measured with the Attitudes to
Change Questionnaire (ACQ) developed by Vakola et al. (2003). The scale consists of 29
items (14 positive and 15 negative), and asks from the participants to rate the extent to
which they agree with each item on a five-point scale ranging from strongly disagree
(1) to strongly agree (5). A typical item of the positive attitude scale is: “I am looking
forward to changes within my work environment”. An example of a negative item is:
“When a new organizational change programme is initiated, I emphatically show my
disagreement”. The negatively stated items were reversed so that a high score to
indicate positive attitudes towards organizational change.
Work satisfaction – turnover intentions. The respondents were also asked to
indicate on a seven-point scale their global employee satisfaction levels (1 ¼ highly
dissatisfied, 7 ¼ highly satisfied) and their turnover intentions (1 ¼ highly unlikely to
leave the company within the next six months, 7 ¼ very likely to leave the company
within the next six months).
Results
Descriptive data
Table I presents the descriptive statistics along with the alpha reliabilities for the
variables used in this study.
Most of the scales used in the study showed good internal consistency. The alpha
for the attitudes towards change scale was 0.92, whereas the alphas for the ASSET
ranged from 0.49 (Aspects of the job) to 0.80 (Work Relationships). Due to the fact that
ER Scale N of items Mean SD Alpha
27,2
Attitudes towards organizational change 29 102.87 15.08 0.92
Employee satisfaction 1 4.75 1.47 –
Turnover intentions 1 2.22 1.87 –
Occupational stress indicators
166 Work relationships (WR) 8 23.13 7.34 0.80
Work-life balance (WLB) 4 11.56 5.71 0.57
Overload (OV) 4 11.13 4.31 0.76
Job security (JS) 4 11.66 4.38 0.60
Control (Cntrl) 4 13.29 4.22 0.68
Resources and communication (RC) 4 12.96 4.31 0.67
Pay and benefits (PB) 1 3.47 1.74 –
Table I. Aspects of the job (AJ) 8 23.69 5.73 0.49
Means, standard Overall job stress index 37 110.77 25.30 0.89
deviations and alphas of
attitudes to change and Organizational commitment variables
occupational stress Commitment of the organization to the employee 5 20.13 5.09 0.82
variables (n ¼ 292) Commitment of the employee to the organisation 4 15.94 4.12 0.75
the “Work-Life Balance”, “Job Security” and “Aspects of the Job” sub-scales
demonstrated very low internal consistency (below 0.60) they were not included in the
subsequent analyses. The alpha for the Overall Job Stress Index used in the current
study is 0.89. Similarly, the alpha reliability coefficients for the Organizational
Commitment subscales were also acceptable.
168
(n ¼ 292)
Table III.
Inter-correlation matrix
of the study’s variables
ES TI WR OV Cntrl RC PB OJSI COE CEO
Attitudes towards organizational change 0.10 0.00 2 0.25** 2 0.18** 2 0.11 2 0.11 2 0.14* 2 0.20** 0.06 0.13*
Employee satisfaction 2 0.25** 2 0.28** 2 0.09 2 0.30** 2 0.33** 2 0.25** 2 0.37** 0.45** 0.32**
Turnover intentions 0.07 0.03 0.08 0.02 0.12* 0.13* 2 0.22** 2 0.11
Work relationships 0.48** 0.41** 0.60** 0.38** 0.84** 2 0.31** 2 0.15**
Overload 0.22** 0.42** 0.33** 0.68** 2 0.03 0.16**
Control 0.57** 0.20** 0.58** 2 0.31** 2 0.24**
Resources and communication 0.32** 0.73** 2 0.40** 2 0.25**
Pay and benefit 0.48** 2 0.27** 2 0.20**
Overall job stress index 2 0.32** 2 0.14*
Commitment of the organisation to the
employee 0.73**
Notes: ES=Employee satisfaction, TI=Turnover intentions, WR=Work relationships, OV=Overload, Cntrl=Control, RC=Resources and communication,
PB=Pay and benefits, OJSI=Overall job stress index, COE= Commitment of the organization to the employee, CEO= Commitment of the employee to the
organization. * p , 0.05, ** p ,0.01
followed by organizational commitment and the interaction term. The results of the Occupational
regression analyses showed that the two types of organizational commitment do not stress
moderate the relationship between occupational stress and attitudes towards change,
rejecting thus the last hypothesis of the study.
Discussion
The analysis of the results confirms a relationship between occupational stress and 169
attitudes towards organizational change. Almost all occupational stressors (apart from
control and resources-communication) were related to negative attitudes to change.
Stress created by bad work relationships, overload and unfair pay and benefits can
cause negative attitudes toward organizational change and, therefore, inhibit change
processes. More specifically, lack of a socially supportive environment, as expressed by
bad work relationships, was found to be the strongest predictor of negative attitudes
towards change, as shown in the regression analysis. Further, job insecurity may also
become an obstacle to change, although this scale of the stress measure was not
included in the analysis due to low internal consistency. Evidence from the literature
R2 F
R Adj R 2 change change b
R2 F
Predictors R Adj R 2 change change b
Step 1
Overall job stress index 0.20 0.04 0.04 12.13 -0.20**
Step 2
Perceived commitment of organization to employee 0.20 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00
Step 3 Table V.
Interaction 0.20 0.03 0.00 0.36 -0.03 The moderating effect of
Step 1 organizational
Overall job stress index 0.20 0.04 0.04 12.13 -0.18** commitment on the
Step 2 relationship between
Perceived commitment of employee to organization 0.23 0.04 0.01 3.45 0.10 occupational stress and
Step 3 attitudes towards
Interaction 0.23 0.04 0.00 0.46 -0.04 organizational change
Notes: Dependent variable: attitudes towards organizational change.* p , 0.05; ** p ,0.01 (n ¼ 292)
ER suggests that job security is associated with organizational commitment, which is
27,2 associated with positive attitudes to organizational change (Morris et al., 1993).
The findings of the multiple regression analyses showed that work relationships
predict strongly attitudes to organizational change indicating the important role of this
factor in a change context. Evidence from the change management literature reports a
link between social support and employee adjustment indicating that a socially
170 supportive workplace was correlated with lower emotional exhaustion scores (LaRocco
et al., 1980). Similarly, Woodward et al. (1999) indicate that supportive colleagues play
an important role in employees efforts to cope with stress in organizational change,
although Cunningham et al. (2002) report a very limited contribution of job related
interpersonal relationships to prediction of readiness for organizational change.
Individuals with more social support tend to experience higher levels of physical and
mental health during stressful life events (Mallinckrodt and Fretz, 1988). Supportive
and positive work relationships were found to be helpful when individuals attempt to
cope with organizational change (Shaw et al., 1993).
Another issue, linked to employees’ attitudes towards change is the administration
of appropriate human resource functions, such as training (British Industrial Society,
2001). Employees need to feel adequately trained and informed especially during
change because effective communication reduces fear and uncertainty and, therefore,
resistance to change. Pay and benefits is another occupational stressor associated with
negative attitudes to change. Financial rewards determine the type of lifestyle that an
individual can lead and they are perceived to indicate the individual’s value to the
organization (Cartwright and Cooper, 2002). They are also important in a change
context since they facilitate change institutionalisation. For example, participation in
change programmes should be included in employee’s performance appraisals and
rewarded in order to reinforce such behaviours.
Furthermore, the results showed demonstrated a positive relationship between
organizational commitment and positive attitudes to change confirming evidence from
the literature showing that organizational commitment is one of the most important
determinants of successful organizational change (Iverson, 1996). The more employees
identify with their organizations the higher their commitment to their organization and
the greater their willingness to accept organizational change (Cordery et al., 1993).
Similarly, Guest (1987) suggests that organizational commitment will result in
willingness to accept organizational change. The current results further support
previous findings on the significance of employees’ commitment on successful
organizational change interventions (e.g. Iverson, 1996; Lau and Woodman, 1995) in a
non-English culture, such as Greece.
The present study has several practical implications for managers and
organizations facing organizational change. First, it was shown that good and
effective work relationships are very important in organizational change. Handling
conflicts, building supportive work relationships, communicating effectively all
contribute to the formulation of positive attitudes to change and, therefore, to the
success of a change programme. Second, organizations need to examine the extra
workload which organizational change may create. If, for example, the new and the old
system are continued in parallel for some period during or after the change
implementation resulting in extra workload, employees may create negative attitudes
to change and, as a result, be reluctant to contribute to the change. Increase in
workload is not only easily attributable to the change but it also makes change Occupational
unattractive and problematic leading to non-supportive attitudes. Therefore, stress
organizations need to plan the change carefully in order to create a well-structured
work environment and a well-balanced work schedule to reduce stress and uncertainty.
The current study has also a series of limitations. A limitation of the research design
could be that all measures originated from the same source resulting in possible
contamination from common method variance. Common method variance, in this case 171
refers to the problem that occurs when the same participant completes all the measures
using the same type of paper-and pencil response format. The correlation between the
measures will be higher that it ideally should be because participants will apply the
same biases to each task. However, the emergence of multiple factors in the results of
the factor analyses (Cartwright and Cooper, 2002) weighs against significant influence
from common method variance (Begley, 1998). Further, even if it exists, there is no
reason to expect that the differences in correlations among attitudes to change,
occupational stress and organizational commitment are due to the effect of common
method variance, since its presence would not be expected to exert differential bias on
the observed relationships.
Further, the cross-sectional research design adopted in the present study, as
opposed to a longitudinal or experimental methodology, do not allow affirmative
causal explanations. Future studies would profit from use of additional measures
to cross-validate findings of the relationships among workplace stress (e.g.
electro-physiological measures of stress) and organizational commitment
(e.g. absenteeism, turnover, etc.) and organizational change.
In their attempt to successfully cope with continuous changes in their business
environment, organizations frequently embark on planned change interventions.
Nowadays, this is more and more the rule rather the exception. The current research
findings highlight the need for acknowledging the significant effect of occupational
stress on employees’ attitudes towards organizational change. It is essential then that
this acknowledgement be followed up by problem-solving action through stress
management initiatives incorporated within the change programme; subsequently, the
stress factor is placed on the change management agenda. It is suggested then that
organizations implementing change should take into account the findings of the
present study and attempt to address the issue of employee well being by actively
ensuring that the increased demands being placed on employees, as a consequence of
the change process are counteracted with sufficient support. By doing so, organizations
become healthier for existing and more attractive for prospective employees.
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