How to frame a vision of change?
Contrasting a Vision of Opportunities with a Vision of Continuity in their
relationship to Employee Support for Change
MSc Business Administration - Leadership and Management
Supervisor: dr. M. Venus
Master Thesis
Name: Niels Jansen
Student number: 11942762 Version: Master Thesis, Final Date of Submission: 21-06-2018
Abstract
Vision communication has been widely acknowledged to be an effective instrument in gaining support for organizational change. However, little clarity exists on its specific role in creating employee support for change and what a compelling vision of change entails. One stream of scholars suggests that leaders can motivate employees to contribute to change by communicating a certain vision of opportunities, whereas others suggest that employee support for change is rather created by reassuring them with a vision of continuity. To contribute to the understanding of how leaders can gain employee support for change by means of vision communication, this study contrasts a vision of opportunities with a vision of continuity in their relationship to employee support for change. It is proposed that both visions would stimulate employees to support change, whereas the first would be more appealing to employees with high levels of need for achievement and the latter to employees with high levels of organizational identification. These hypotheses are tested on cross-sectional data from 103 employee-leader dyads that were currently undergoing an organizational change of any type, which has been collected through online surveys using snowball sampling. Nevertheless, no significant positive relationships were found for both a vision of opportunities and a vision of continuity to employee support for change. In addition, no interaction effects were found between vision of opportunities and need for achievement and vision of continuity and organizational identification. The results and its theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and propositions are provided for future research.
Keywords: Organizational Change, Leadership, Vision Communication, Vision of
Opportunities, Vision of Continuity, Employee Support for Change, Need for Achievement, Organizational Identification
Table of Contents
Introduction ... 1
Organizational change ... 4
Employee Support for Change ... 5
The Role of Leadership ... 7
Vision Communication ... 8
Vision of opportunities (Hypothesis 1A) ... 9
Vision of continuity (Hypothesis 1B) ... 11
Individual related Factors of Employees ... 14
Need for Achievement (Hypothesis 2A) ... 15
Organizational Identification (Hypothesis 2B) ... 17
Research Method ... 22
Procedure ... 22
Sample ... 23
Measures ... 24
Results ... 27
Testing Hypothesis: Direct Relationships ... 28
Testing Hypothesis: Moderation ... 30
Discussion ... 32 Theoretical Implications ... 33 Limitations ... 40 Future Research ... 42 Practical Implications ... 46 Conclusion ... 48 References ... 49 Appendix ... 58 Statement of Originality ... 68
Introduction
Charles Darwin once stated: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”. In accordance with this thought, a common belief within the field of strategy is that the organization’s ability to change is a crucial competence to survive in the long-term (Fiol & Lyles, 1985; Rieley and Clarkson, 2001; Burnes, 2004). According to Parker, Charlton, Ribeiro, and Pathak (2013), successful change management is increasingly important to succeed in the global business environment which is continuously evolving. In line with this statement, it has been claimed that organizations that are unable to change are more likely to face declining performance in terms of profits, market share, stock prices and assets (Weitzel & Jonsson, 1989). Unfortunately, executing changes as an organization appears to be very challenging, since researchers such as Ford and Ford (2010) have suggested that more than halve of all organizational changes fail, whereas others put the failure rate even around 70% (Balogun & Hope, 2004).
Many authors have stated that employees play a central role in the change process and that their attitudes towards an organizational change highly determines its success (Choi, 2011). Therefore, on the one hand, employee support in the sense of positive attitudes and behaviors towards change has been considered an important contributor to the accomplishment of organizational changes (Kim, Hornung, & Rousseau, 2011). On the other hand, however, an often-given explanation for organizational change failure is resistance among employees, which can take the form of having negative thoughts and feelings about the change or even directly behaving against it (Oreg, 2006). On this matter, leadership is considered a key factor which influences employees’ attitudes and behaviors towards change (Yukl, 2010). For this reason, many scholars have conducted research on how leaders can influence employees’ reactions to change, to increase the likelihood of successfully accomplishing organizational changes. One of the main leadership practices that has been stated to positively influence employees’ support
for change is vision communication (e.g. Shamir & Howell; Bass & Riggio, 2006). Vision communication refers to communicating a mental image of the future state of the collective and thereby motivating employees to work towards that future state (Stam, Lord, Knippenberg & Wisse, 2014).
Nevertheless, although many researchers have claimed that vision communication generally is an effective leadership practice to motivate employees to support change, most of them have assessed this within a broader context such as transformational leadership (e.g. Bommer, Rich & Rubin, 2005; Herold, Fedor, Caldwell & Lui, 2008; Shin, Seo, Shapiro & Taylor, 2015). The lack of empirical research on direct links between vision communication and employee support for change within these studies has made it difficult to establish specific claims about its role in creating change acceptance (Venus, Stam & Van Knippenberg, 2018, in press). Furthermore, it remains unclear what employees find an appealing and inspiring vision, leaving us with the question of how a vision of change should be framed and communicated to be effective and why so (Fiol, Harris, & House, 1999; Yukl, 2010). Over the years, most organizational change scholars have recommended organizational leaders to communicate a vision that stresses the need to break the status quo to exploit existing opportunities to realize a better future (e.g. Pawar & Eastman, 1997; Shamir & Howell, 1999). Others suggest that an effective vision of change is one that stresses the continuity of the organizational identity (cf. Venus et al., 2018, in press).
Considering differences between employees could be a step in solving the issue of how to frame a vision of change to win employees’ support for change. Many scholars have approached certain individual related factors such as personality traits or psychological states as antecedents of employees’ reactions to change (e.g. Judge, Thoresen, Pucik & Welbourne, 1999; Coyle-Shapiro & Morrow, 2003; Holt, Armenakis, Feild, & Harris, 2007). Notwithstanding, it has not been well documented yet whether and how differences between
individuals play a role in the effects of change leadership practices such as vision communication on employees’ motivation to support change (Oreg, Vakola & Armenakis, 2011). Accordingly, it would be meaningful to assess whether individual related factors make employees differ in what type of vision communication is more appealing to them. This study seeks to make a step into that direction by contrasting the two different types of vision communication mentioned above and examining whether individual related factors of employees play a role in their relationship with employee support for change.
More specifically, the two vision communication types examined in this study examines are a vision of opportunities and a vision of continuity. The first is based on the premise of several authors that a vision motivates employees for change if it highlights existing opportunities and urges to break with the status quo, including the organizational identity, to realize the new portrayed desired alternative (e.g. Pawar & Eastman, 1997; Shamir & Howell, 1999; Fiol, 2002). The latter is formulated by Venus et al. (2018, in press) and implies framing the organizational change as one where the core identity of the organization will remain despite the change. It is based on the premise that employees resist changes due to concerns about the organizational identity and therefore their own’s. This study proposes that both types of vision communication are positively related to employee support for change. Notwithstanding, on the one hand, it is proposed that a vision of opportunities is more appealing to employees with the personality trait of having a high need for achievement. The reasoning behind is that they would appreciate challenge and moving forward relatively more and would be more uncomfortable with perceiving a gap between the organization’s current state and what it should be. On the other hand, it is proposed that a vision of continuity is more appealing to employees with the psychological state of high levels of organizational identification. It is argued that they would appreciate the current organizational identity relatively more and would be more uncomfortable with changing this identity. This is assessed by means of moderating hypothesis.
The aim of this study is to contribute to the understanding of how leaders can gain employee support for organizational change by means of vision communication. The aimed contributions of this study are threefold. First, this study aims to provide more insights for the assumption that vision communication is directly positively related to employee support for change, which is currently relatively unexplored. Second, by distinguishing two types of vision communication in their relationship to employee support for change, this study seeks to enhance the knowledge of what constitutes a compelling and effective vision of change. Third, by incorporating individual related factors into these relationships, this study could provide insights on whether the preference of the type of vision a leader should communicate is dependent on the type of employees involved.
Organizational Change
Organizational change can be regarded as establishing a difference in the organization’s functioning, to keep or improve the ability to meet the demands of the market environment (Kotter, 2007). It involves fulfilling the needs of both external and internal customers and stakeholders which are ever-changing (Moran and Brightman, 2001). Following Todnem (2005), organizational changes can indeed be driven by external and internal factors and can occur in all kinds of forms, shapes, and sizes. Examples of organizational changes include amongst others a business expansion, merger or acquisition, applying a new technology, a cultural change (e.g. establishing a more customer-oriented workforce), or a restructuring of organizational units (Smith, 2002). According to Burnes (2004), organizational change can be regarded as an ever-present attribute since the global business environment is continuously evolving. Therefore Burnes (2004) states that it cannot be separated from organizational strategy since it is constantly required to anticipate where the organization needs to be in the future and how to get there.
Considering the possibility to distinguish planned episodic changes from emergent continuous changes (Weick & Quinn, 1999), this study is concerned with planned changes whereas the desired end-state of the organization is determined a priori. Planned organizational changes are regarded to consist of multiple phases. Bullock and Batten (1985) developed a change model consisting of four phases which, although its simplicity, has been regarded as highly applicable to many change situations (Kraft, Spar & Peus, 2018). The phases are described as exploration -to ascertain the need for change-, preparation -the planning of how to change-, the actual implementation, and the evaluation afterwards. In this sense, the scope of this study is mainly considered with the implementation phase. This phase namely involves information processing to create consensus among organizational members regarding the need for change (Kraft et al., 2018), which coincides with the subject of vision communication of the leader.
Employee Support for Change
Any change implementation related strategy should at least focus on employees’ attitudes or behaviors towards change as an outcome. As Tsoukas and Chia (2002) put it, organizational change is inherent in human behavior and involves reweaving the organizational actors’ webs of beliefs and habits of undertaking action. In line with this statement, many authors have argued that employees play a crucial role in the change process and that their attitudes towards an organizational change eventually will highly determine its success (Choi, 2011). In this regard, outcomes that change management scholars have focused on in their researches involve reducing resistance among employees towards change as well as increasing employees’ support for change.
Resistance among employees is often considered a logical explanation for organizational change failure and therefore much research has been conducted on how to reduce this resistance (e.g. Goltz & Hietapelto, 2002; Lines, 2004; Oreg, 2006). Nevertheless, as Dent
and Goldberg (1999) discuss, the original concept of resistance as developed by Kurt Lewin implies that resistance can be rooted anywhere in the organizational system, including employees, change agents, or even in particular organizational practices. However, the received truth these days has shifted to the belief that resistance to change mainly or only exists within employees, almost as if they are predisposed to do so. Dent and Goldberg (1999) argue that holding on to this developed mental model ensures a limited understanding of change dynamics and thereby ensures ineffective decision making within organizations. In line with this statement, Ford and Ford (2010) argue that resistance is a natural reaction to a change proposal, whereas managers should treat this as a valuable source of input to improve the implementation of the change.
Instead of focusing on reducing resistance among employees, another way to approach the important role employees have in organizational changes is to focus on increasing their support, as is the focus of this study. According to Kim et al. (2011), attitudinal and behavioral change support from employees is a crucial contributor in succeeding all kinds of organizational changes, ranging from quality improvements to restructuring and strategic changes. For this reason, researchers have defined labels such as openness to change (Miller, Johnson, & Grau, 1994), readiness to change (Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder, 1993) and commitment to change (Conner & Patterson, 1982) to investigate how employees can be motivated to support change initiatives (Choi, 2011). Notwithstanding, these labels refer to employees’ attitudes towards change. As Kim et al. (2011) note, employees’ actual supporting behaviors towards organizational change have been relatively unexplored. In their study to employee support for change, they considered the active and positive role that employees can play to support the change as the outcome. They label this as change supportive behavior (CSB) and define this as: “actions employees engage in to actively participate in, facilitate, and contribute to a planned change initiated by the organization the organization’s management” (Kim et al., 2011, p.
1667). This view seems to come closest to the actual impact employees can have on the success of organizational changes. Therefore, the dependent outcome employee support for change in this study is considered with employees’ actual supporting behaviors as well.
The Role of Leadership
Since employees play a crucial role in accomplishing organizational change, scholars have conducted research on multiple antecedents that influence employees’ motivation to support change. These include amongst others certain individual traits such as locus of control (Holt et al., 2007) and tolerance for ambiguity (Judge et al., 1999), or psychological states such as trust in management (Oreg, 2006) and organizational commitment (Lee & Peccei, 2007). Unfortunately, such antecedents are hardly directly affectable. A lot of antecedents that can positively influence employees’ willingness to support change and are directly affectable as well appear to be involved within leadership.
The aim of leadership can be defined as “to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members” (House, Javidan, Hanges & Dorfman, 2002, p. 5). Therefore, it can be argued that organizational leaders have a high responsibility in the successful accomplishment of organizational changes. As Yukl (2010) claims, leadership is a key factor which influences employees’ attitudes and behaviors towards change. Leadership practices that have been found to positively influence employees’ support for change are for instance allowing for employee participation (e.g. Wanberg & Banas, 2000; Bartunek, Rousseau, Rudolph & DePalma, 2006), demonstrating fairness behaviors (e.g. Gopinath & Becker, 2000; Tyler & De Cremer, 2005) and providing sufficient high-quality information about the change (Wanberg & Banas, 2000; Bordia, Hobman, Jones, Gallois, & Callan, 2004).
From a leadership styles perspective, it has been suggested that transformational leadership is an effective leadership style to motivate and inspire employees for change.
Transformational leadership is a relatively broad concept, defined by multiple authors as being charismatic, visionary, inspirational, and transforming (Den Hartog & Koopman, 2001). It is often described to consist of four main dimensions, which are idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration (Bass, Avolio, Jung, & Berson, 2003). These dimensions entail that transformational leaders are exceptionally confident and inspire followers with a compelling vision, provide meaning to their work, stimulate their followers to be critical thinkers, and consider their followers’ needs individually. In general, transformational leadership is believed to stimulate followers to work beyond standard employment expectations and beyond their self-interest for the whole organization (Bass, 1985; Den Hartog & Koopman, 2009). But as transformational leadership can be regarded as being focused on transformation and change in nature (Bass & Riggio, 2006), this leadership style has been considered as being useful in change management as well. In line with this belief, it has been argued and found that transformational leadership has positive effects on employees’ reactions to change (e.g. Bommer et al., 2005; Herold et al., 2008; Shin et al., 2015). Although transformational leadership is a relatively broad concept, it is believed that creating and communicating a strong compelling vision is an important aspect that ensures the positive effects of this leadership style (Sashkin, 2004).
Vision Communication
As stated, vision communication entails communicating a mental image of the future state of the collective towards the employees (Stam et al., 2014). Considering the belief mentioned above, it could be expected that vision communication as such would be an effective leadership practice to motivate employees to support change, regardless of the fulfilment of other transformational leadership aspects. Nevertheless, so far only a few studies have assessed and found some direct positive links between vision communication and employee support for change (e.g. Griffin et al., 2010; Venus et al., 2018, in press). Thereby, it remains unclear how
exactly a vision of change should be framed and communicated in order to motivate employees to support change (Fiol et al., 1999; Yukl, 2010). One stream of scholars suggests that employees would be rather motivated by a vision that urges to break with the status quo, including the organizational identity, to seize existing opportunities to realize a better future (e.g. Pawar & Eastman, 1997; Shamir & Howell, 1999; Fiol, 2002); a vision of opportunities. Others suggest that employees would be more supportive to the change when the vision stresses a continuation of the organizational identity; a vision of continuity (cf. Venus et al., 2018, in press). Below, it is discussed how communicating a vision of opportunities and communicating a vision of continuity would influence employee support for change. Subsequently, it is discussed how employees’ need for achievement and organizational identification would moderate these relationships.
Vision of opportunities. Hence, one distinction in vision communication that can be made is a vision of opportunities; based on multiple authors who agree that a vision of change should discourage the status quo and highlight opportunities to realize the new desired alternative. According to Shamir (1999), especially in times of organizational change, employees require mental frameworks containing a purpose and a meaning to cope with the situation and to be guided in how to undertake action. Following Shamir and Howel (1999), in times of change, leaders can link a purpose and meaning to employees’ needs by highlighting existing opportunities. They state that when a vision contains novel ideas and solutions and promises a better future, it can inspire and excite employees. Conger and Kanungo (1998) also claim that highlighting opportunities is important, as it enables employees to follow a certain path or direction which is meaningful to them.
Furthermore, Shamir and Howel (1999) claim that creating dissatisfaction with the status quo among employees can increase their desire for change even more. In a similar vein, Conger and Kanungo (1987; 1998) state that charismatic leaders stress the need to change by
discouraging the status quo -convincing employees that the current way of doing business has become obsolete and restricts the organization to exploit the existing desired opportunities-, which would increase the extent to which employees are attracted to the portrayed desired future state. This belief is confirmed by other scholars as well such as Pawar and Eastman (1999), as they argue that organizational changes require a new frame of reference in terms of both technical and psychological elements among organizational members. It is even argued that a vision of change should stress to break with the current organizational identity, as the conventional identity would blind the recognition of new opportunities (Fiol, 2002). All in all, these visions of opportunities stress the need to change everything, including the organizational identity, to realize a better future.
Based on findings regarding important motives for employees to be willing to support change, several arguments can be provided for why a vision of opportunities would positively affect employee support for change. Research suggests that employees need to hold the belief that a change is required and valuable to the organization to be motivated to support change. More specifically, it is found that employees’ perception of a gap between the organization’s current state and what it should be is an important motive for them to support change, which is defined as the perception of discrepancy (Armanakis & Haris, 2009). Since a vision of opportunities on the one hand stresses the downsides of the status quo and on the other hand stresses the benefits of the new possible desired future, it should increase employees’ belief of the existence of such a gap. Moreover, in some overlap with but slightly different from the discrepancy perception, the organizational valence perception refers to the belief that the change would be beneficial to the organization, which would also stimulate employees to support change (Holt et al., 2007). Especially the aspect in a vision of opportunities of selling opportunities as a possibility to realize a better future should trigger this belief.
In addition, the perception of personal valence is another important motive for employees to support change, which refers to their belief that the change involves personal benefits for them as well (Holt et al., 2007; Armanakis & Haris, 2009). Discouraging the status quo and promising a better future instead, as a vision of opportunities does, should give employees the impression that supporting the change would allow them to work for a “better” organization. This could ensure that they perceive the change as a potential boost for their own individual careers as well.
In short, it can be argued that a vision of opportunities can ensure an increase in the beliefs among employees that a discrepancy exists between the organization’s status quo and what it should, that the change has organizational valence, and that the change has personal valence for the employees as well. These perceptions and beliefs are found to be important motives for employees to support change. Taken all together, it is expected that:
Hypothesis 1A: Communicating a vision of opportunities is positively related to employee support for change.
Vision of continuity. In contrast, Venus et al. (2018, in press) proposed another type of vision communication, labelled as a vision of continuity, which according to them would be an effective alternative to frame a vision of change. This type of vision communication entails framing the organizational change as one where the organizational identity will remain, whatever is going to change. As Venus et al. (2018, in press) note, several scholars have stated that even when employees recognize the need for change, perceive the change to be consistent with their personal interests, and have the organization’s best interests at heart, they still might resist change (Reger, Gustafson, Demarie & Mullane, 1994; Kotter & Schlesinger, 1979; Oreg, 2003). The introduction of the vision of continuity type is based on research suggesting that a significant reason for employees to resist change is their fear that the identity of the organization, and thereby their own identities and certainty, would be in danger (e.g. van
Knippenberg et al., 2008; Giessner, Ullrich & van Dick, 2011). The underlying argument here is based on the social identity theory. This theory implies that people tend to integrate the identity of social groups they belong to into their own identities, including the identity of the organization they work for, especially in times of uncertainty to reduce their uncertainty feelings (Hogg & Terry, 2000).
Venus et al. (2018, in press) do recognize that there are situations where a planned organizational change is likely to give employees the impression that the organizational identity will change as well. Nevertheless, they argue that the organizational identity is not a factual objective attribute but that this lies in the perception of employees which is subjective. Therefore, the leader can frame the organizational change such that it appears that the organizational identity will remain, even when the organizational change initially would be likely to send other signals. In line with this statement, Shamir, House & Arthur (1993) claim that effective leaders can provide a purpose and meaning to changing events by framing them to be linked with the past and the future. To clarify, instead of completely breaking with the organization’s current identity, a change could also be framed as “this is part of who we are”, such that the change involves a continuation of what the organization stands for.
Thus, whereas visions of opportunities urge to break with the whole status quo, including the organizational identity, visions of continuity contain an element of collective continuity by promising that the organizational identity will remain (Venus et al., 2018, in press). Since a vision of continuity less emphasizes downsides of the status quo, it may relatively less trigger employees’ perception of discrepancy than a typical vision of opportunities would. However, as discussed, the introduction of a vision of continuity is especially based on research showing that employees often resist change because of fears for discontinuity and identity interruptions. The focus here rather lies on reassuring employees.
Indeed, research shows that people value a sense of coherence, consistency or continuity over time within group processes (Shamir, 1991; Sani et al., 2007). Moreover, as stated, people tend to rely on the organizational identity to reduce their feelings of uncertainty (Hogg & Terry, 2000). Promising a continuation of the organizational identity, as a vision of continuity does, would positively address all these attributes.The organizational identity can namely serve as a guideline of norm boundaries to base and evaluate decisions and behaviors on (Ashfort, Harrison & Corley, 2008). Therefore, especially in a context of change where organizational identity threats could occur and uncertainty could arise (Jacobs, Christe-Zeyse, Keegan & Polos, 2008), employees should value a continuity of this identity as it would allow them to contribute to the change from within a certain comfort zone. Additionally, framing the change as one where the organizational identity will remain would make the change appear less dramatically. Accordingly, it can be expected that a vision of continuity would positively address employees’ change related efficacy. Broadly speaking, this efficacy refers to the individual’s perception of his or her own capacity as well as that of the organization to fulfil the change properly, which has been found to be another important determinant in employees’ willingness to support change (Holt et al., 2007; Armanakis & Haris, 2009).
Furthermore, it could even be argued that a vision of continuity increases employees’ change readiness by means of rather motivational mechanisms. First, since a vision of continuity allows for framing the change as an important act to ensure a continuation of what the organization stands for (Venus et al., 2018, in press), it still can positively address employees’ perception of the organizational valence of the change. As mentioned, the perception of organizational valence slightly differs from discrepancy, but would still be another important determinant for employees to support change (Holt et al., 2007). Second, besides the rational consequences decision making model, people tend to evaluate options using the identity decision making model whereas they get motivated by options that fit their own
identity (Heath & Heath, 2010). Since people tend to integrate the organizational identity into their owns -for more reasons than uncertainty reduction only (Fiol, 2002)- a change where the organizational identity is promised to remain is likely to fit employees self-developed identities, possibly even better. Therefore, it can be argued that a vision of continuity can positively address employees’ perception of personal valence of the change as well through a motivational effect due to perceived identity congruence. The organizational change might then namely be perceived as beneficial to one’s ability to comply with his or her self-developed identity.
In short, it can be argued that a vision of continuity can address employees’ desire to experience a sense of consistency, coherence and continuity, and thereby contribute to employees’ change-related efficacy. In addition, despite a vision of continuity does not completely discourages the status quo, it can be argued that a vision of continuity still can positively address employees’ perception of organizational valence and even personal valence. These beliefs are considered to play an important role in employees’ willingness to support change. Therefore, it is expected that:
Hypothesis 1B: Communicating a vision of continuity is positively related to employee support for change.
Individual Related Factors of Employees
Thus, the discussed hypotheses are in line with both streams of scholars stating that “a vision of opportunities” stimulates employees to support organizational changes as well as with the authors stating that a “vision of continuity” does so. Notwithstanding, to elaborate on this “debate”, this study considers that a vision of opportunities could be more appealing to a particular type of employees, whereas a vision of continuity could be more appealing to another type of employees. As Oreg et al. (2011) discuss, although many individual related factors have been found to be important antecedents in employees’ motivation and behavior in supporting change, these have not much been considered in explaining effects of change leadership
practices. In this light, employees’ personality trait of a need for achievement and their psychological state of organizational identification are considered as factors that could determine the preference for the type of vision that should be communicated to make employees ready for change.
Need for Achievement
Many authors recommending leaders to motivate employees for a change by means of a vision of opportunities do in fact not discuss whether communicating such a vision would motivate all different kinds of employees equally. In this study, it is argued that a vision of opportunities would be relatively more appealing to employees with the personality trait of having a high need for achievement. Need for achievement refers to the extent to which one maintains high standards, desires to accomplish difficult tasks, and strives for high excellence (Phillips & Gully, 1997; Hansemark, 2003). According to Phillips and Gully (1997), a typical characteristic of people with a high need for achievement is that they have a high learning goal orientation since they want to increase their task competence. In addition, they state that such people have a high-performance orientation as well because of a desire to demonstrate above normal performance and to be positively judged by others. Following Phillips and Gully (1997), both characteristics would lead to a high willingness to set difficult goals. Along these lines, Hansemark (2003) states that a need for achievement entails motives or expectations of doing something better than one’s own previous accomplishments or than anyone else performing the same tasks. Considering organizational change literature, Miller et al. (1994) claim that individuals with a high need for achievement are likely to be willing to contribute to change as they would respond favorably to opportunities and get excited by challenges.
As discussed, a vision of opportunities should generally encourage employees to support change. One argument is that by discouraging the status quo and promising a better future instead, a vision of opportunities would trigger employees’ perception of a discrepancy between
the organization’s current state and what it should be. It can be argued that creating a perception of such a gap would stimulate employees with a high need for achievement even more to contribute to change. Such people namely often have a relatively high desire to improve their own performance or to outperform others (Phillips & Gully, 1997; Hansemark, 2003) and are therefore more likely to value new opportunities (Miller et al., 1994). For this reason, it can be expected that such people would be even more uncomfortable with perceiving a gap between the status quo and a new desired alternative and more inclined to exploit existing opportunities to solve this gap.
Furthermore, another argument for why a vision of opportunities would be positively related to employee support for change is that they could perceive the change to be a boost to their personal careers and therefore to have personal valence as well. It can be argued that perceiving the change as a personal career boost would be even more appealing to employees with a high need for achievement. Besides the desire to improve their own performance and to outperform others, people with a high need for achievement also put a high priority on being positively judged by others (Phillips & Gully, 1997). Such people might consider a personal career boost as an increase in prestige, which would make it a more important reason for them to support the change than for employees with a lower need for achievement. Finally, the aspect of a vision of opportunities to break with the status quo, including the organizational identity, might appear like a difficult challenge to employees. Notwithstanding, individuals with a high need for achievement seem to value a sense of challenge and would get motivated by it (Miller et al., 1994).
To summarize, based on the characteristics of people with a high need for achievement, it can be argued that they would be more uncomfortable with perceiving a discrepancy between the status quo and what the organization should be. When this is the case, they would be more inclined to contribute to a change. In addition, perceiving the change as a personal career boost
would motivate employees with a high need for achievement relatively more to support the change, as they would put more value on being positively judged by others. Last, people with a high need for achievement would particularly get motivated by a sense of challenge. As it is proposed that a vision of opportunities positively addresses these aspects and that these would positively affect employee support for change, it is expected that:
Hypothesis 2A: The positive relationship between communicating a vision of opportunities and employee support for change is moderated by employees’ need for achievement, such that this relationship is stronger with higher levels of need for achievement.
Organizational Identification
In their research to vision of continuity, Venus et al. (2018, in press) argued and found that a vision of continuity has a positive effect on employee support for change, especially on employees experiencing high uncertainty. The underlying argument is that people in times of uncertainty tend to identify themselves with the identity of the organization they work for to reduce their feelings of uncertainty (Hogg & Terry, 2000). Therefore, employees experiencing high uncertainty would value the promise that the organizational identity will remain during change, as a vision of continuity does, even more. Notwithstanding, people also tend to identify themselves with the organization for other reasons than reducing uncertainty feelings. These include for instance to fulfill their need for belonging, attractiveness and prestige or to fulfill the need to establish a clear distinction between certain ingroups and outgroups (Fiol, 2002). It would be interesting to assess whether one’s organizational identification as such strengthens the proposed positive relationship between a vision of continuity and employee support for change, regardless of one’s reason to identify with the organization. As will be discussed, organizational identification namely appears to be an interesting conflicting topic within change management.
Organizational identification refers to the extent a person identifies his- or herself by the same attributes of which the person believes the organizational identity consists of (Dutton, Dukerich & Harquail, 1994). This entails the extent to which one incorporates the organizational values, norms and interests into the self-concept and can be regarded as the perceived oneness with the organization (Van Knippenberg & Sleebos, 2006). According to Ashfort et al. (2008), the concept of organizational identity serves as a guideline where people can base and evaluate their decisions and behaviors on, which can also be communicated to others to coordinate their work behaviors as well. In line with this thought, Bergami and Bagozzi (2000) found a positive association between organizational identification and organization-based self-esteem, which would suggest that a sense of organizational identification provides employees a certain guidance and safeguard in doing their jobs. Regarding the organizational level, employees’ organizational identification has been linked to positive outcomes such as organizationally beneficial decision making, participation, information sharing and action coordination, and task performance (Ashfort et al., 2008).
Nevertheless, as Drzensky and van Dick (2013) note, there exist two contrasting hypotheses within organizational change literature considering organizational identification. On the one hand, it is claimed that highly identified employees would rather support change, since they would have the organization’s best interests at heart as these interests would be highly aligned with their own interests. On the other hand, however, it is claimed that highly identified employees would rather resist change, as changes in organizational attributes may confuse and harm employees’ self-concept. This is because the organizational identity can be highly integrated into their own personal identity, and therefore perceived changes in the organizational identity may be perceived as threats to their own. Interestingly, both hypotheses have been empirically supported (Drzensky & van Dick, 2013), which could imply that it
depends on a certain context how organizational identification plays a role in employee support for change.
A possible explanation for these contrasting findings could be that employees identify themselves with organizations for different reasons and therefore that one’s organizational identification can take on different roles in organizational change. As mentioned, reasons for employees to identify with the organization can vary from reducing uncertainty to fulfilling the need to belong to something prestigious (Fiol, 2002). Employees with the main reason to identify themselves with the organization that is based on a felt need to reduce uncertainty may generally rather get scared by a change since they could perceive the change to harm their guidance (Venus et al., 2018, in press). In contrast, employees with the main reason based on a felt need to belong to something prestigious may generally rather get excited by a change. Literature on need for achievement namely shows that employees characterized by such desires can perceive a change as a possibility to seize new opportunities (Phillips & Gully, 1997; Hansemark, 2003). Hence, even though both types of employees can be highly identified with an organization, their reasons to be identified with an organization may differ and therefore their reactions to change may differ as well. Due to these different reasons, there may be a great variation among highly organizational identified employees in their levels of change-related efficacy; their confidence that they as well as the organization itself can accomplish an organizational change.
Nonetheless, it can be argued that a vision of continuity can stimulate all types of organizational identified employees to support change and that this vision would be even relatively more appealing to such employees, regardless their reasons to be identified. First of all, it is reasonable to posit that a vision of continuity would at least be valued by all types of highly organizational identified employees since all of them would agree with the identity as it is. Such employees would namely have incorporated this identity into their self-concept and
therefore put a high value on this identity (Van Knippenberg & Sleebos, 2006; Ashfort et al., 2008). Furthermore, as discussed, promising a continuation of the organizational identity is likely to positively address employees’ change-related efficacy. Therefore, especially the employees with initially low levels of change-related efficacy who attach high value to this identity would be extra reassured and stimulated by a vision of continuity to support a change.
Second, even more, similar to a vision of opportunities, a vision of continuity could increase employees’ perception of organizational valence of the change as well, as previously discussed. The argument is that a vision of continuity can frame the organizational change as an important movement to be able to continue what the organization stands for. It can be expected that employees who identify themselves with the organization to a high extent are likely to respond more favorably to a perception of organizational valence than less identified employees. Highly organizational identified employees would namely have the organization’s best interests at heart, whereas the organization’s interests would be relatively more closely linked to their own (Dutton et al., 1994; Van Knippenberg & Sleebos, 2006). This would ensure that they are more likely to perceive a benefit to the organization as having personal valence.
Third, as discussed, a vision of continuity might even directly positively address employees’ perception of personal valence because people tend to apply the identity decision making model whereas they get motivated by options that fit their own identity (Heath & Heath, 2010). As people generally integrate the identities of social groups they belong to into their own, including that of the organization (Hogg & Terry, 2000; Fiol, 2002), a change containing a continuation of the organizational identity is likely to fit employees’ self-developed identities. Therefore, since highly organizational identified employees extensively incorporate the organizational identity into their own, a vision of continuity should also trigger their perception of personal valence relatively more in a direct way. If the change is framed as an important act to continue what the organization stands for, they would namely be more inclined to perceive
the change as beneficial to their ability to comply with their self-developed identities than less organizational identified employees.
To summarize, it is argued that all types of highly organizational identified employees would value a sense of a continuation of the organizational identity, whereas especially the ones with initially low levels of change-related efficacy would be reassured. This could solve the issue of some highly organizational identified employees reacting negatively to a change. Even more, considering general common thoughts and feelings of highly organizational identified employees, it can be argued that they would be more motivated for a change by a perception of organizational valence than less identified employees. Their interests would namely be relatively more closely linked to those of the organization. In addition, it is more likely for employees with higher levels of organizational identification that an organizational change involving a continuation of the organizational identity directly triggers a sense of personal valence due to perceived personal identity congruence.
Since it is proposed that a vision of continuity positively addresses these aspects by means of these discussed mechanisms and that these would positively affect employee support for change, it is expected that:
Hypothesis 2B: The positive relationship between communicating a vision of continuity and employee support for change is moderated by employees’ organizational identification, such that this relationship is stronger with higher levels of organizational identification.
Conceptual Model
Research Method Procedure
This study has been conducted within a project with other students also studying change leadership practices. Following Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee and Podsakoff (2003), a technique to reduce common method bias in measuring leader behavior effects on employee performance is to obtain the measures of leader behavior by means of the employees’ perception and vice versa. Therefore, to examine relations between change leadership practices and employee support for change, assessing employee-supervisor dyads appeared to be more appropriate then measuring the perception of employees or organizational leaders only. For this study, this would reduce the likelihood of common source bias in the relationships between the two types of vision communication and employee support for change. Accordingly, two online surveys have been established for these studies altogether to collect data from employee-supervisor dyads (see Appendix A and B). In light of organizational change, the survey aimed at the employees contained questions about their perceptions about their work and their direct supervisor, whereas the survey aimed at the supervisors contained questions about their perceptions regarding their employees’ work behaviors. The surveys of the supervisors and the survey(s) of their corresponding employee(s) have been matched by means of unique codes within the data set. To gain access to data from multiple dyads within multiple organizations, the students of this research project have applied a snowball sampling strategy. To obtain appropriate respondents, the students have approached relatives working in -or in contact with- organizations that were currently undergoing an organizational change. As the data has been collected at one point in time, the data is cross-sectional in nature.
Sample
Since this study considers organizational changes in general, all public and private organizations worldwide facing any type of organizational change fall into the research population of this study. Therefore, the selection criteria for the employee-supervisor dyads “only” implied that there is a current change affecting the way of working for employees to some extent, which may involve any type of change within any type of organization on an organizational-, department- or team-level. Moreover, a supervisor was allowed to form multiple dyads with different employees, whereas the employees were allowed to only participate once. Using these criteria, the total sample size has grown to N=103 dyads (140 respondents, with 27 supervisors and 103 employees). Due to the snowball sampling strategy, a precise response rate could not be calculated.
The sample mainly consists of Dutch respondents (85 %) due to that the students mainly approached Dutch relatives. In total, these dyads come from 17 different organizations. 12 of these organizations are active in the private commercial sector, whereas the automotive and HR consultancy sector are the most represented. The other 5 organizations are active in the public education sector. The most cited types of organizational changes refer to internal structure changes such as the introduction of self-managing teams and changes to work processes and job responsibilities, as well as cultural changes and mergers. Hence, an example of a type of change that is not much represented in the sample is the implementation of new technology. Furthermore, among the supervisors there were 19 men and 8 women that participated, with an average age of 45 ranging from 25 to 64. Among the employees there were 50 men and 53 women that participated, with an average age of 35 ranging from 18 to 74. On average these employees have an organizational tenure of 6,3 years, work 38,9 hours per week, worked for 3,1 years under their current supervisor, and are in direct contact with their supervisor for 3 to 4 days per week.
Measures
The independent variables “vision of opportunities” and “vision of continuity” as well as the moderating variables “need for achievement” and “organizational identification” are measured by means of the employee survey. The dependent variable “employee support for change” is measured by means of the supervisor survey. All variables have been measured on a 5-point Likert scale [1 = Strongly disagree; 5 = Strongly agree], which is the original design for all the applied measures, except for “need for achievement” (originally 7-point Likert scale). Furthermore, the survey incorporated the respondents’ demographics and control variables such as leader-member exchange (LMX). The surveys have been translated to Dutch for Dutch respondents.
Vision of opportunities. Since vision communication has not much been investigated as such so far but rather in broader concepts such as within transformational leadership, this study required self-developed items to adequately represent the conventional view of communicating a vision of opportunities. To adequately represent the is concept, items where developed such that they covered the part of focusing on future opportunities, as well as the part of urging to break with the status quo. Example items for the first part are: “My direct supervisor often communicates his/her ideals for the team in his/her vision” and “My direct supervisor often communicates about the opportunities for the team in his/her vision”, whereas the item representing the second part is formulated as: “My direct supervisor makes clear how his/her vision deviates from the current situation” (α = 0.88).
Vision of continuity. Venus et al. (2018, in press) introduced the concept of a vision of continuity whereas they also developed three items to measure this construct. Since this study in theory contrasts a vision of opportunities with exactly this vision type, this study used the same items to measure a vision of continuity. These items focus on the employee’s perception of whether the leader stresses a continuation of the organizational identity regarding the
organizational change. An example of these items is “My supervisor often communicates in his/her vision that our team in the future will be a continuation of what we stand for” (α = 0.80).
Need for achievement. This variable has been measured using Liu, Liu and Wu’s (2010) four items which they developed in their study to career growth. An example item included is “I love to confront challenges of the job”. Whilst these items had a Cronbach’s alpha of α = 0.86 in their study, this study indicated α = 0.53. After removing the second item: “In order to fulfil tasks, I would like to take risks”, the other three items indicated together α = 0.62. As this Cronbach’s alpha is still below the desired threshold of 0.7, the analysis regarding this variable would have to be interpreted with some caution.
Organizational identification. This variable has been measured by Mael and Ashfort’s (1992) six items. Many researchers have acknowledged and used these items to measure this construct. An example of one of the items included is “When I talk about this organization, I usually say 'we' rather than 'they'” (α = .75).
Support for change. Employee support for change has been assessed with three items from Herold, Fedor and Caldwell (2008). These items focus on the employees’ change supportive behaviors. An example of these items is “This person does whatever (s)he can to help the change be successful” (α = .94).
Control variables. The first control variable being used in this study is organizational tenure. An employee with a relatively long tenure might attach more value to the current way of working and therefore generally experience more difficulty to overcome and contribute to a change implementation. Therefore, it is expected that an employee’s organizational tenure may influence relationships between any variables and employee support for change. Organizational tenure has been measured with the open question: “How many years do you work in your current company?”. The second control variable considered in this study is leader-member exchange (LMX), which entails the quality of the relationship between leader and employee in
terms of exchanges of (non) material goods beyond the scope of employment (Liden, Sparrowe & Wayne, 1997). It is expected that the higher the quality of this relationship, the more likely the employee is to embrace ideas and actions from the leader in general. Hence, a higher LMX may ensure that the employee is more likely to embrace the leader’s vision regardless of the content and therefore more likely to be supportive to the change. LMX has been measured from the employees’ perspective using Graen and Uhl-Bien’s (1995) 7 developed items. An example item included is: “I have so much confidence in my supervisor that I would defend his or her decisions when he/she is absent” (α = .86).
As discussed, the essence of this study consists of contrasting two types of vision communication in their relationship with employee support for change, whereas the construct of vision of opportunities had to be developed for the first time for this study specifically. Therefore, it is very meaningful to be able to ascertain whether two different constructs are being measured. In order to do so, a principal axis factoring analysis (PAF) was conducted on the scales of vision of opportunities and vision of continuity. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure (Kaiser, 1974; Dziuban & Shirkey, 1974) verified the sampling adequacy for the analysis, KMO = .864. Bartlett’s test of sphericity χ² (28) = 448.530, p < .001, indicated that correlations between items were sufficiently large for PAF. An initial analysis was run to obtain eigenvalues for each component in the data. Two components had eigenvalues over Kaiser’s criterion of 1 and in combination explained 63.06% of the variance. In accordance with Kaiser’s criterion, assessment of the scree plot revealed a leveling off after the second factor. Thus, two factors were retained and rotated with an Oblimin with Kaiser normalization rotation. Table 1 shows the factor loadings after rotation. It is apparent that the fourth and fifth item do not have a principle loading on factor 1 completely twice as big than on factor 2. However, it can be argued that this is not too problematic. These two items refer to a leader stressing opportunities and deviations from the current situation in general. All the other items focus on the leader’s
statements about the future of the team specifically. Here, the first three items -clearly loading on factor 1- stress opportunities and a better future for the team, which clearly contrasts with the last three items -clearly loading on factor 2- stressing a continuation of the team’s current circumstances. Hence, it can be stated that two different constructs are being measured, whereas factor 1 represents vision of opportunities (VOP), and factor 2 vision of continuity (VOC). Table 1. Factor loadings after Oblimin with Kaiser normalization rotation
Note: factor loadings over .40 appear in bold
Results
Scale means for the variables have been computed, which can be found in the correlation matrix below (Table 2). This table contains the variables: organizational tenure in years (tenure), leader-member-exchange (LMX), vision of opportunities (VOC), vision of continuity (VOC), and employee support for change (SUP). It appears that a vision of opportunities does not significantly positively correlate to employee support for change (r = .05, p > 0.05). The
Rotated Factor Loadings
Item VOP VOC
My direct supervisor often communicates his/her
ideals for the team in his/her vision .87 -.03
My direct supervisor often communicates about the
opportunities for the team in his/her vision .83 .07
My direct supervisor emphasizes the improvements
for the team in his/her vision .91 -.15
My direct supervisor argues in his/her vision that the
future is full of opportunities .51 .33
My direct supervisor makes clear how his/her vision
deviates from the current situation .50 .30
My direct supervisor often communicates in his/her
vision that our team in the future will be a continuation of what we
stand for .26 .70
My direct supervisor often communicates in his/her
vision that our team in the future will be a continuation of our team
now -.05 .80
My direct supervisor regularly communicates that it
is important that our team will maintain its identity -.04 .72
Eigenvalues 4.46 1.31
provide more clarity on these relationships. Moreover, the correlation table shows that vision of opportunities and vision of continuity significantly positively correlate with each other (r = .56; p < 0.01). Notwithstanding, their correlation is lower than .80 and the collinearity statistics show a VIF value of 1.5, which implies that these variables can be used both simultaneously in conducting a meaningful hierarchical regression analysis. Nevertheless, to get a clear grasp of hypothesis 1A and 1B as such, vision of opportunities and vision of continuity have been analyzed in two separate hierarchical regression models.
Table 2. Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed), *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
Testing Hypothesis: Direct relationships
Hierarchical multiple regression was performed to assess hypothesis 1A and 1B. This implies investigating the ability of vision of opportunities and vision of continuity to predict levels of employee support for change. Organizational tenure and leader-member exchange are taken into account as control variables.
Starting with the analysis of hypothesis 1A, the first step of hierarchical multiple regression was to enter the control variables tenure and leader-member exchange. This model explained 4.7% variance in employee support for change, however this model was statistically insignificant F (2, 100) = 2.44; p = .092.After entry of vision of opportunities at Step 2 the total variance explained by the model as such was 5.4%, however, still with the model being insignificant F (3, 99) = 1.87; p = .140. Hence, the introduction of vision of opportunities did not explain any significant additional variance in employee support for change, after controlling for tenure and leader-member exchange (R2 Change = .007; F (1, 99) = .74; p = .390).
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 1. Tenure 6.23 8.64 -2. LMX 4.20 0.63 .15 (.86) 3. VOP 4.06 0.79 .02 .56** (.83) 4. VOC 3.59 0.89 .02 .42** .56** (.80) 5. SUP 4.00 1.03 -.01 .21* .05 .06 (.94)
Accordingly, in this final model vision of opportunities was not significantly positively related to employee support for change (β = -.10, p = .390). Only one out of the three predictor variables was significant in this model, which was leader-member exchange (β = .28, p < .05). From these results, it follows that hypothesis 1A cannot be accepted. The results are shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Hierarchical Regression Model– Vision of Opportunities
Dependent Variable: Employee Support for Change Note. Statistical significance: *p <.05
To test hypothesis 1B, again the two predictors tenure and leader-member exchange were entered in the first step of hierarchical multiple regression. As previously mentioned, this model explained 4.7% variance in employee support for change, whereas this model was not significant F (2, 100) = 2.44; p = .092. After entry of vision of continuity at Step 2 the total variance explained by the model as such was 4.8%, with the model still being insignificant F (3, 99) = 1.66; p = .180. Hence, the introduction of vision of continuity did not explain any significant additional variance in employee support for change, after controlling for tenure and leader-member exchange (R2 Change = .001; F (1, 90) = .15; p = .701). Accordingly, in this final model, vision of continuity was not significantly positively related to employee support for change (β = -.04, p = .701). Again, in this model only leader-member exchange was significantly positively related to employee support for change (β = .27, p < .05). Hence, based on these results also hypothesis 1B cannot be accepted. The results are shown in Table 4.
R R² R² B SE β t Change Step 1 .22 .05 Tenure -.01 .01 -.04 -.39 LMX .36 .16 .22* 2.21 Step 2 .23 .05 .01 Tenure -.01 .01 -.05 -.45 LMX .46 .20 .28* 2.31 VOP -.13 .16 -.10 -.86
Table 4. Hierarchical Regression Model – Vision of Continuity
Dependent Variable: Employee Support for Change Note. Statistical significance: *p <.05
Altogether, these results imply that it cannot be claimed that an increase in communicating a vision of opportunities nor communicating a vision of continuity would be positively associated with an increase in employee support for change. Such a claim can only be made for an increase in leader-member exchange, whereas the results imply that if LMX increases for one, employee support for change increases for .27 to .28.
Testing Hypothesis: Moderation
With hypothesis 2A it was proposed that a vision of opportunities would be relatively more appealing to employees with a high need for achievement. This would imply that higher levels of need for achievement would ensure a stronger relationship between vision of opportunities and employee support for change. Even though the proposed positive relationship between vision of opportunities and employee support for change was found insignificant, it is still meaningful to test for this proposed moderation effect. Having employees involved with high levels of need for achievement could namely be an important required condition for vision of opportunities to be able to positively relate to employee support for change. To test for moderation, the program PROCESS developed by Hayes (2017) has been used (model 1, bootstrap 5000, variables mean centered). As the effects of the control variables tenure and LMX already have been shown within the previous hierarchical regressions, they have been neglected within this analysis. The overall model explained 0.6% of the variance of employee
R R² R² B SE β t Change Step 1 .22 .05 Tenure -.01 .01 -.04 -.39 LMX .36 .16 .22* 2.21 Step 2 .23 .05 .01 Tenure -.01 .01 -.04 -.41 LMX .39 .18 .27* 2.27 VOC -.05 .13 -.04 -.38
significant interaction was found between vision of opportunities and need for achievement (NFA) on employee support for change (B = -.08, p = .833). This implies that the effect of vision of opportunities on employee support for change does not depend on employees’ levels of need for achievement. Therefore, hypothesis 2A cannot be accepted. Results are shown in Table 5.
Table 5. Moderation with Vision of opportunities – Need for Achievement
Dependent Variable: Employee Support for Change
Then, with hypothesis 2B it was proposed that a vision of continuity would be relatively more appealing to employees with high levels of organizational identification. This would imply that a vision of continuity would be stronger related to employee support for change when employees with relatively high levels of organizational identification are involved. Again, although the relation between vision of continuity and employee support was found to be insignificant, organizational identification could be an important condition to allow this relationship to be significantly positive. To test this proposed moderation, PROCESS (Hayes, 2017) has been applied (model 1, bootstrap 5000, variables mean centered). Again, the control variables tenure and LMX have been neglected. The overall model explained 1.5% of the variance of employee support for change and was not significant F (3,99) = .5799; p = .630. More specifically, no significant interaction was found between vision of continuity and organizational identification (OI) on employee support for change (B = -.05, p = .728). This implies that the effect of vision of continuity on employee support for change does not depend on employees’ levels of organizational identification. Therefore, also hypothesis 2B cannot be accepted. The results are shown in Table 6.
Coefficient SE t p Intercept i1 3.96 .11 36.21 <0.001 VOP (X) C1 .06 .15 .40 .688 NFA (M) C2 .13 .25 .51 .611 NFA*VOP (XM) C3 -.08 .36 -.21 .833 R²=0.006 p = .891 F (3,99)= .208
