Measuring the Change Capacity of Individuals in an Organization.
Master thesis, MscBA, specialization Change Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
November 1, 2007 ADRIANE NIEUWENHUIZEN Student number: 1335855 Berkenlaan 83 9741 JL Groningen tel.: +31 (0)6-16545986 E-mail: a.e.nieuwenhuizen@student.rug.nl Supervisor/university J.F.J. Vos
Supervisors/ field of study M. de Wit/ G. van Hoeijen Large Dutch Insurance Company
Acknowledgement: Words of thanks are owed to Janita Vos, my supervisor. Where I was about to loose overview, she pictured the goal of the research and gave me very useful comments. I also would like to thank Marco de Wit and George van Hoeijen, who gave me
the opportunity of working at their department and the possibility of exploring a bit of the business practice. All employees at the department deserve a word of thanks because of their
cooperation in interviews and questionnaires. Furthermore, I would like to thank Daniël Wegen, for revising the article, where the English language is concerned. Last, I would like to thank my husband Daniël for his support and care, which definitely enabled me to accomplish
DOES INDIVIDUAL CHANGE CAPACITY STAND THE TEST?
Measuring the Change Capacity of Individuals in an Organization.
In managing change situations, motivating individuals is essential. Assessing individual change capacity before starting a certain change project could therefore deliver advantages in managing change. This article describes the design of a measurement tool for measuring individual change capacity. The questionnaire that is the result of the design phase, was applied to the Cost Accounting department of a large Dutch insurance company. Their score was found to fit to their specific situation. For simpler structural changes, compliance from employees to a change situation might be enough, while full commitment is needed for cultural changes or changes in power structures. The instrument offers opportunities to measure change capacity and a connection of the score to either commitment, compliance or resistance gives meaning to the result. Dependent on the situation, a certain score can be judged as sufficient or in need of immediate improvements.
INTRODUCTION
In today’s changing world organizations aim to be capable of continuous adaptation. To achieve this, managers sometimes alter their information systems or their hierarchical structures, but most importantly, they aim to guide the change in a way that motivates
individuals to cooperate. Although individuals seem to be very important, there aren’t many organizations that investigate individuals’ attitudes towards change in advance of the project. This insight into the change capacity of individuals could perhaps help to choose a suitable change approach.
A large insurance company in Holland knows change as a regular phenomenon and a measurement of the change capacity of individuals in advance of a change project would be very helpful there. The continuous change is a result of the concentration on the Dutch market and the changing health care legislation. For the supporting ‘Financial Services Group’ within this insurance company, this also creates need for adaptation in order to keep serving the organization effectively (Kurstjens, Elverding & Haring, 2003). Financial Services is responsible for all administrative financial tasks of the divisions and its focus is on uniformity and quality of the processes. Cost Accounting is a department within Financial Services that consists of two teams, ‘Administration of Accounts Payable’ and ‘Analysis’. Because of the merger with another key player on the Dutch insurance market, Cost Accounting now needs to integrate the accounting activities of the merging partner into their own activities. This intensifies the need for uniformity in processes. Furthermore, today’s aim is to use a single software program instead of the two separate programs used by the companies prior to the merger. For a large part of the Cost Accounting department this creates changing working procedures, unknown to most of the employees and therefore a challenge for management.
To assist the management of Cost Accounting in choosing a suitable change management approach, the question I would like to answer in this article is:
What is the change capacity of the individuals at Cost Accounting?
The design of the instrument is in fact ‘just’ the method to be able to answer the main question. However, this method is inevitable. The goal of this research is in fact twofold: measuring the change capacity of the individuals at Cost Accounting and the design of an instrument to perform this measurement. Besides the instrument’s inevitability in answering the main question, it provides the possibility for the management of Cost Accounting to perform the measurement themselves regularly.
The three sub questions that logically follow from the main question and in which the double objective has been represented, are:
1. How can the concept of change capacity be made operational?
2. How can this be integrated in a measurement tool of the change capacity of individuals?
3. To what conclusions concerning the change capacity of individuals does the application of the measurement tool at Cost Accounting lead?
The theoretical section following this introduction will answer the first sub question by exploring the literature on change capacity. The second sub question will be answered in the method section, in which the steps that were taken to construct the questionnaire are described. The application of the instrument will also be described in this section. Following the presentation of the results in the fourth section, an answer to the third sub question and the main question will be provided in the fifth and concluding section.
MAKING CHANGE CAPACITY OPERATIONAL
The literature on change management seems to create confusion around the concept of change capacity. I will discuss several used definitions and based on these I will present the definition of individual change capacity to be used throughout this article. Consequently, indicators will be identified in the second part of this section.
Defining Individual Change Capacity
ability or power of an organization and her members to perform to a certain level under changing conditions.” Bennebroek Gravenhorst, Werkman & Boonstra (2003: 86) state that “the concept of change capacity refers to the degree to which aspects of an organization and aspects of a change process contribute to or hinder change.” Wissema, Messer & Wijers (1996: 18) refer to the concept as change potential, which they define as “the extent to which willingness to change basically is present and the extent to which change tendency is able to be flourished, all before the necessity of change is announced.” ‘Change willingness’ can result from fear to resist and loosing employment. You could say this is a more passive and ‘change tendency’ a more proactive, positive attitude towards change. ‘Change willingness’ is assumed to be basically present to a certain degree. Wissema et al. (1996) suggest that this is not the kind of change capacity to encourage, because they emphasize in their definition that it is ‘change tendency’ that should be able to flourish. Boonstra (1991) argues it is important we start acknowledging that restricted change capacity of an organization is not attributable to the characters of individuals, but rather to the bureaucratic character of most organizations. He also argues organizations should be flexible and client-oriented, with room for participation and involvement, in order to enhance change capacity in a dynamic world (Boonstra, 1991).
Kars (2006) does not have a clear individual focus, nor do Bennebroek Gravenhorst et al. (2003). Wissema et al (1996) focus on individual employees and middle managers. Boonstra (1991) seems to claim that individuals are not important in change capacity, but he stresses involvement and participation as important elements in enhancing change capacity. Thus, Boonstra (1991) suggests, in fact, that the participation and therefore the attitudes of individuals are important for change capacity. Hoekstra (2005) confirms the important role of individuals by arguing that changes will only have effect through individuals, the owners of the real change. Changes are effective when people are able to regulate their own investment in it, in such a way they will not damage or block themselves or others. Change capacity depends on true acceptation by the individual according to Hoekstra. In their ‘search of excellence’ Peters & Waterman (1982) state: “There was hardly a more pervasive theme in the excellent companies than respect for the individual. That basic belief and assumption were omnipresent” (Peters & Waterman, 1982: 238).
(1996) that need to be addressed before their definition can be adopted for the purposes of this article. The first concerns the distinction between ‘change willingness’ and ‘change tendency’. The second issue concerns the aspect of the definition where Wissema et al. (1996) claim that change capacity should be measured before the necessity of change is announced.
Wissema et al (1996) make a distinction between ‘change willingness’ and ‘change tendency’. When individuals perceive fear in a change situation, this can result in resistance to change (Kars, 2006). Alternatively, it could cause individuals to do everything they are told, just to prevent themselves from being disadvantaged. The latter alternative, among other things, is what Wissema et al. (1996) refer to as ‘change willingness’. The question that remains unanswered is whether this fear-driven cooperation is change capacity or not.
Having discussed the first issue from the definition of Wissema – the distinction between change willingness and change tendency - the second issue to be addressed is that Wissema et al (1996) state that change potential should be measured before the necessity of change is announced. This, in fact, is rather difficult: to measure people’s attitudes towards change in general, i.e. without any specific situation at hand.A person can be resistant to the one change situation and completely committed towards another. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the change capacity of people with regard to a specific change situation. Still there are factors in the everyday situation of an organization that influence change capacity, but do not concern a specific change situation. In the instrument, change capacity thus needs to be measured with regard to a specific change situation as well as to the general situation in the organization.
Having dealt with the two issues from the definition of Wissema et al. (1996), it is possible to slightly adjust the definition in a way that matches the above comments. After discussing both change willingness and change tendency I found that both have to be included, which is similar to the original definition. The sentence “… all before the necessity of change is announced” has been replaced by “…with regard to a specific change situation”. The adjusted definition that will be used throughout this article is:
The change capacity of individuals is the extent to which change willingness basically is present and the extent to which change tendency is able to be flourished, with regard to a specific change situation.
This definition has to be made operational before it can be used in an instrument and this will be discussed in the following part of this section.
Indicators of Individual Change Capacity
Having defined the concept in the preceding part, I shall now define what the indicators of this concept are. To this end, I reviewed factors mentioned by several authors.
factors as she does. Besides, her research is based on very extensive literature research and therefore Kars’ list served as starting point for this research.
Following the definition presented in the preceding part of this section, I only took into account the personal factors.
Kars (2006) explains that in the literature the factors are defined positively as well as negatively. For example ‘negative experiences with changing’ as a factor of influence is also defined as ‘positive experiences with changing’. Both are separate definitions of the same factor of influence to change capacity. Kars employed the most used definition for every factor. For purposes of measuring, in this article a more neutral definition will be used.
Below, I will provide summaries of Kars’ explanation of each factor. For some factors I added comments based on other authors in order to provide a more solid base for the list of indicators to be used in the final measurement tool.
Fear, insecurity and threat. Changes will replace the familiar situation by ambiguity and insecurity (Kars, 2006). Furthermore, according to Maslow (1954), people have physiological needs, safety needs and needs of belonging, esteem and of self-actualization. When these can not be fulfilled, this will result in insecurity, threat and fear.
Personal interest. Resistance may appear when the change is not in best interest of the individual employee in the same fashion as that personal advantage may cause strong cooperation. Perception of personal disadvantage will restrict change capacity (Kars, 2006).
Faith/trust. An individual’s faith in the attainability of the change project is essential to its success. Additionally individuals need to trust each other (Kars, 2006). Schaffer & Thompson (1992) state managers should try hard to vision the results aimed at, so employees have faith in the attainability. Bennebroek Gravenhorst et al. (2003) also suggest that the expectations individuals have of the result or outcome of the change process has significant influence on the change capacity.
Skills. The extent to which individuals perceive implementation tasks to be difficult or easy is dependent on someone’s knowledge and skills (Kars, 2006).
Support from top. Employees need to know that their needs and desires are taken seriously in order to let them feel safe in a changing environment (Kars, 2006).
to perform. Some characteristics of people with high willingness to change are: high social status, high level of cosmopolitanism and a high level of education. (Rogers in: Kars, 2006) Cosmopolitanism refers to the degree to which employees are focused not only on their own small part of the organization. Burns and Stalker (1994: 238) say “the growth in importance of the occupational self implies a closer identification of the whole person with work; the centre of gravity shifts significantly away from family and the outside world and towards his working life.” Burns & Stalker (1994) argue that this shift will enhance innovative capabilities. It is reasonable to suggest that this applies to change as well.
De Jong (2000) writes about personal resilience - the ability to adjust without too much damage. Resilient individuals are positive, focused, flexible, organized and proactive. Self-regulating ability, critical attitude and dialogue are mentioned by Hoekstra (2005) as important factors for effective change. “Changes are effective when people can regulate their own efforts in it, without causing damage or obstruction to themselves or others” (Hoekstra, 2005: 29).
Selective perception. Individuals tend towards selective information processing, through which they keep their perceptions alive. This will lead to restricted information and will therefore restrict change capacity (Kars, 2006).
Personal processing. Every member of an organization will react to a change differently and needs a different amount of time to process the change (Kars, 2006).
Autonomy, support and dedication. The majority of the organizations’ members do not themselves implement and lead the change, but are powerless and passive receivers. Involving this group of receivers with the group of leaders and implementers is beneficial to effective change (Kars, 2006). Peters & Waterman (1982) mention eight principles the best-run American companies use to stay successful. One of these principles is about autonomy and entrepreneurship. Breaking the company into small companies and encouraging them to think independently and competitively is beneficial for creativity and participation. Change capacity will be enhanced.
Loss of face. Change can cause employees to think that the old way of working was wrong and can cause them to feel a sense of failure with regard to their peers (Kars, 2006).
Acknowledgement of real danger. Clear statements about effects on employment will enhance willingness to change (Kars, 2006).
Presence of group categories. Not all individuals in a social system adopt the innovation at the same time. When management identifies these categories and makes use of knowledge gained, this will enhance change capacity (Kars, 2006). Diversity in an organization thus seems to be beneficial.
Degree of solidarity feelings. The members of a group do have mutual obligations. Resistance shows when bilateral relations are ignored. This in turn will decrease change capacity (Kars, 2006).
Different group norms. Group members show resistance because the changing situation coincides with the existing group norms (Kars, 2006).
Presence of conflicts. Discussion of existing power structures and conflicts will not enhance change capacity (Kars, 2006).
Participation and involvement. Participation and involvement of organizational members contribute to a successful course of change (Kars, 2006). According to Peters & Waterman (1982) individuals in a successful firm are aware that their efforts are essential and that they will share in the success of the company. An employee, who is involved like this and knows to what goal the project leads, will be better capable of change than an employee who is not.
Besides Kars’ article (2006) I studied other sources (De Jong, 2000; Werkman et. al., 2003; Metselaar, 1997) in order to find indicators of change capacity. These authors mention other factors of influence than those mentioned by Kars, but most of these could be incorporated into Kars’ factors. Take for example the factor performance expectations from Werkman et al. (2003) that means faith in attaining the goal will enhance change capacity. The factor
faith/trust from Kars (2006) includes this faith in attaining the goal as well as faith in peers. Another example is clarification of surplus value (Metselaar, 1997) which is represented in
participation and involvement. (Kars, 2006) This latter factor mentioned by Kars (2006) includes explaining to employees why certain changes will take place and what the surplus value is.
However, one indicator of change capacity remains that is not mentioned by Kars (2006): job
When employees’ motivation for the job is low, the motivation and willingness to change will not be very high either.
With the indicators identified in this section, it is possible to start designing the instrument, which will be discussed in the next section.
METHODS
To measure the rather complex concept of change capacity of people, it is wise to use a questionnaire, because a questionnaire offers the opportunity to lengthen the list of questions and deal with the subject more extensively (Oudemans & Markus, 2007).
The information from the preceding section was extended by seven interviews held with individuals from Cost Accounting, from which the outcomes will be discussed first. Second, the steps by which the questionnaire was constructed and the actual measurement within Cost Accounting are discussed.
The Interviews and their Outcomes
In the seven interviews held, a real-life change situation was discussed and the respondents were asked to explain what motivated or hampered them from changing in that particular situation. The objective was to find out whether the respondents recognized the influence of the indicators from table I and to unravel the indicators into more detailed items.
Most of the indicators were clearly acknowledged in their influence on change capacity. A few indicators however, were not mentioned and this caused me to take a closer look. Regardless of their influence on change capacity, I found that these indicators were difficult to measure separately and that in some cases partial overlap with other indicators existed. These indicators will be discussed now.
Selective perception refers to the fact that individuals never have complete information in a change situation. It is very difficult to measure the amount of selective perception and its influence on change capacity.
Loss of face is again difficult to measure separately. Personal disadvantage or fear of loosing a position is rather similar and is already included in the measurement.
In the interviews acknowledgement of real danger appeared to have a lot to do with the honesty of the manager. This will be elaborated on further below.
It appears that all of the above indicators influence change capacity as Kars (2006) argues. However, these factors seemed difficult to measure separately and are sometimes already partially represented in other indicators from the list, as explained above. Mainly for reasons of practicality, the discussed indicators will be removed from the list.
Aside from removing the mentioned indicators from Kars’ list, one indicator, in my opinion should be given more attention than Kars (2006) has given it so far. Where Kars (2006), for example, mentions faith and trust as factors of influence, it appeared in the interviews that this was at least partially determined by the kind of relationship an employee has with the manager. Acknowledgement of real danger also appeared to be related to the relationship with the manager, as explained above. Therefore I would like to include management as an indicator on the list.
Based on both literature and empirical research, the final list of indicators to work with in the phase of constructing the questionnaire is presented in table I.
The Construction and Application of the Questionnaire
After having constructed a final list of indicators to work with, I will now explain how the questionnaire was constructed and applied. First, I will briefly explain what the questionnaire looked like. After that I will discuss the small pilot-study that was executed to test the questionnaire and the matter of reliability. Finally I will explain how the actual measurement was performed and how the results were analyzed.
theses about this indicator, which tells the respondent what subject the questions are about.
Group norms and presence of group categories were constructed to be one group of theses about group characteristics in general, which is easier to comprehend for the respondent.
TABLE I
Indicators for the concept of change capacity
Second, the questionnaire contains questions concerning the software programs to be uniformed at Cost Accounting as well as questions concerning the (recent) general situation at the department. Third, for reasons of practicality the questionnaire contains closed questions and the answers could be given on a five-point Likert-scale, which I chose to make sure the range of answers is not too large to be still comprehensible and broad enough to provide respondents the possibility of choice. Fourth, at the start of the questionnaire a few questions concerning the respondent’s background are added to gain an image of the distribution of respondents. Finally, change capacity can be indicated by many different factors, as can be seen in the list of indicators in table I. All factors play a role, but with different priorities for every individual. To incorporate this into the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to indicate how important each indicator is to them in a change situation on a scale from 1 to 5, where 5 indicates ‘very important’.
1. Fear, insecurity, threat 2. Personal interest 3. Faith/trust 4. Skills
5. Support from top
6. Personality characteristics
7. Autonomy, support and dedication 8. Experiences with change
9. Presence of group categories 10. Degree of solidarity feelings 11. Different group norms 12. Presence of conflicts
13. Participation and involvement 14. Job motivation
The first concept of the questionnaire was tested in a small pilot-study. Four people were asked to fill out the questionnaire and to comment on the time needed to complete it, the terminology used, the comprehensibility, the ease of filling it out, etc. The comments from the test-respondents were minimal: where needed, the questionnaire was improved. A brief overview of the final questionnaire can be found in Appendix A.
One last step in constructing the questionnaire is the matter of reliability of the scale. In SPSS it is possible to execute an analysis to test this reliability in for example a questionnaire. Cronbach’s Alpha displays the result of this test into a single statistic measure. This measure needs to be at least (+).70 to let the scale be reliable. In this test, the data gathered from the final questionnaire were used, because the large number of data creates a more reliable basis for the test, than those from the small pilot-study. The result of the reliability test, in this case similar to Cronbach’s Alpha is .912. Given the fact that this result is above the required level of (+) .70. the scale can be judged as reliable.
The resulting questionnaire has been applied within the Cost Accounting department that employs 56 people including two teams of employees, 4 seniors, 3 managers and 2 secretaries. To measure the change capacity of the individuals at the entire department, it is important to include all levels. Because of the rather small number of people the research will involve the entire population. All of the employees received several e-mails in which they were encouraged to complete the questionnaire which was attached and most of them personally received a hard copy. All employees were given one and a half weeks to complete it. The questionnaire contains an elaborated introduction in which respondents received instructions for filling out the questionnaire. It also emphasizes the anonymous character and it clearly states that the results could not be traced back to the individual respondent.
RESULTS
In this section you will find a brief analysis of the data gathered from the questionnaires. First, an overview of the respondents’ background will be given and second the data concerning change capacity will be presented. In this research, interpretation of the numerical results is essential and will thus receive the necessary attention in the discussion section.
From the 56 individuals in the population of Cost Accounting, 33 questionnaires were filled out and delivered back, which provides a response rate of 59%. Note that at the start of the questionnaire a few questions concerning the respondent’s background were added to gain an image of the distribution of respondents. For the variables ‘age’ and ‘length of engagement’ at Cost Accounting the mean was calculated as a summarizing statistic. For the other two variables, ‘highest education’ and ‘position’, frequencies are given in tables II en III. The average age was 38 and the average length of engagement was 6.5 years. Most of the respondents are employed within the team of ‘administration of accounts payable’ and have had Senior Secondary Vocational Education (In Dutch: MBO). These statistics also apply to the entire department, which means the group of respondents is representative for the department.
To make a statement about the change capacity of Cost Accounting, the average score per indicator is needed as well as the corresponding standard deviation. The average score per indicator will provide information about how the individuals perceive, for example, the level of participation. Together all the average scores provide a number that represents the change capacity of Cost Accounting. The average scores per indicator also provide insight into the causes of a certain level of change capacity.
TABLE II
Frequencies for ‘highest education’
Highest education Frequency Percent Senior Secondary Vocational
Education 15 27.3
Higher Vocational Education 11 20.3
University Education 2 3.6
Other 4 7.3
Total 32 58.2
TABLE III
Frequencies for ‘position’
Position Frequency Percent
Administration of Accounts Payable 15 27.3 Analysis 12 21.8 Senior 3 5.5 Management 2 3.6 Other 1 1.8 Total 33 60
Compared to the score of 3.9, we find a few rather low and a few rather high scores per indicator. Participation and involvement and personal interest score relatively low. Job
motivation and management score relatively high. In the case of a rather low degree of change capacity, the factors with a relatively low score could be the cause of this. This will be elaborated on further below.
TABLE IV
Average score and standard deviation per indicator
Indicator Average score per indicator Standard deviation
Fear, insecurity, threat 3.8 0.11
Personal interest 3.3 -*
Faith/trust 3.8 0.45
Skills 4.2 0.33
Support from top 3.6 0.43
Personality characteristics 4.2 0.03
Autonomy, support and dedication 4.2 0.03
Experiences with change 4.0 0.32
Presence of group categories/different group
norms 3.7 0.12
Degree of solidarity feelings 4.0 0.32
Presence of conflicts 4.0 -*
Participation and involvement 3.4 0.12
Job motivation 4.4 0.06
Management 4.3 0.10
* There was only one thesis for the indicator, so calculation of a standard deviation is not possible.
TABLE V
Average weight and standard deviation per indicator
Indicator Average weight Standard deviation Faith/trust 4.2 0.64
Support from top 4.3 0.53
Autonomy, support and dedication 4.2 0.71
Presence of group categories/different group
norms 4.1 0.76
Degree of solidarity feelings 4.3 0.57
Participation and involvement 4.3 0.62
Management 4.2 0.55
CONCLUSIONS & DISCUSSION
The objective of this research was to measure the change capacity of individuals at Cost Accounting. In order to do so, a proper instrument needed to be designed. Based on literature and empirical research a workable definition and a list of indicators were identified and consequently a questionnaire was developed. The results were presented in the preceding section.
This section will start with providing an answer to the third sub question and the main question, which concern the specific case of Cost Accounting. Theory will be used to interpret the results. Second, conclusions will be given concerning the value and possibilities for generalization of the instrument designed. Furthermore, conclusions will be drawn with regard to important theory used in this article and finally, limitations of this research and resulting recommendations for further research will be given.
In the preceding section the results for Cost Accounting from the change capacity measurement were provided. The scores per indicator were presented and the total average score is 3.9 on a scale of 1 to 5, which is an answer to the main question. However, without any interpretation this figure has no significance, and following the third sub question I will explain to what conclusions for Cost Accounting this figure leads. 3.9 on a scale of 1 to 5 seems a relatively high figure, but objective measures to compare this number with, are not available. Comparisons need to be made or examples from the practice at the insurance company are needed to give this figure significance. Note that the situation at Cost Accounting was about changing the software system, which would cause new and unknown working procedures for most employees. This is not a completely unknown situation for most of the employees, because changes like this have been taken place before. Therefore people might not be completely resistant or scared, but not totally committed either. That would be consistent with the score of 3.9 on a scale of 1 to 5.
working procedures, structural elements of the organization, is easier and can be executed faster. The change situation at Cost Accounting concerns largely a structural change and will therefore probably not need full commitment to be successful. Assuming that full commitment is equal to score 5, the result of 3.9 seems to fit the change situation.
The information left to discuss for this specific case are the deviating figures of the separate indicators. At the Cost Accounting department, personal interest and participation and
involvement score relatively low, as mentioned in the results section. When management wishes to improve the change capacity, she could work on involving employees in the change project. The fact that personal interest scores low indicates that employees do not have much personal interest in this change. Again, it might be helpful to involve them more in the project and thereby aim to convince them of the interest they might have as employees. In the case of Cost Accounting, immediate action is not required though, concerning the fact that the score seems to fit the change situation.
In conclusion, for Cost Accounting are no immediate actions required. Applying the instrument in a new change situation could still be beneficial in choosing the right change approach. In this particular case, the measurement’s result confirms the chosen change approach.
Note that the objective of this research was twofold: measuring the change capacity of the individuals at Cost Accounting and the design of an instrument to perform this measurement. Because the specific result of Cost Accounting cannot be applied elsewhere, the scientific value of this research seems to be the instrument designed. The goal was to design an instrument that has a clear individual focus and that it should be able to be used by management herself. Until now, no such instrument existed. The questionnaire appeared to be easy to complete in short time and respondents were able to clearly understand the questions posed. In a new change situation the same questionnaire can be applied and the techniques used to analyze the results were relatively simple. Management could thus use the instrument herself to be able to choose a proper change management approach.
guaranteed for every other organization yet. However, the indicators used are mostly based on general change management literature and not on the specific situation at Cost Accounting. I therefore expect that the instrument can be applied elsewhere. For scientific confirmation, further research is needed, but the instrument resulting from this research has the potential to be of great practical value in managing change in every organization.
In this article, various authors have been discussed. Because the theory of Falbe & Yukl (1992) has an interesting and meaningful possibility of connection with the measurement results, I would like to discuss this further. Suppose that when full commitment is needed in a certain change situation, the change capacity score should be at least 4 or higher. Compliance would then resemble scores between 2 and 4 and resistance resembles scores below 2. These limits are arbitrary: dependent on the situation, but nonetheless, this gives Cost Accounting a framework for judging the score of 3.9. It would be valuable when the immediate outcomes of the influence tactics (Falbe & Yukl, 1992) – i.e. commitment, compliance and resistance – could be translated into a numerical score, resulting from a measurement tool like the one in this research. At this moment, the scientific confirmation of this connection can not be considered complete. It needs further research in order to design a solid theory that could be used by managers in judging the change capacity with regard to their situation. However, in this research a valuable start has been made.
Finally, I will end this article by discussing the limitations and recommendations. The instrument is designed, based on the literature research presented in the theory section. In the case of more time available, the literature research could have been extended, which might have provided a more complete list of indicators. Where Kars (2006) identifies factors of influence to change capacity, the resulting factors are not automatically suitable for purposes of measuring, which also appeared to be true when I removed certain factors of her list. More research could have been done concerning the value for purposes of measuring of these factors. Also the factors removed from the list could be of value after thorough research.
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