Dealing with professionals; the influence of trust in management,
participation and communication on resistance to change
Master thesis, MSc. BA, specialization Change Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
November, 26, 2012
Erwin Mulder Studentnumber: 2013215
Star Numanstraat 99A 9714JM Groningen The Netherlands Tel.: +31 18436360 e-mail: erwin.mulder.3@student.rug.nl Supervisor / University H.P. van Peet 2nd Supervisor / University J. Rupert
Supervisor / field of study A. Geertsma
Philips, Drachten, The Netherlands
2
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
The influence of trust in management, participation and
communication?
Dealing with professionals during change
ABSTRACT
This research studied the extent to which trust in management, participation and communication are related to resistance to change. Data was gathered through distributing surveys among technical professionals of an innovation department which had just been reorganized. This resulted in 51 respondents. The outcomes show that resistance to change remains an area for investigation. Interestingly and contrary to the expectation that they would lower the resistance to change; communication, participation and trust in management did not show a significant relationship with resistance to change. The participation motivated by the department’s management, did show a significant relationship with cognitive resistance to change. Furthermore, this study is one of the first who claims a different change strategy when dealing with professionals during a change. These findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical contribution to the literature on resistance to change and in relation to practical implications for the management of organizational change.
Keywords: resistance to change, organizational culture, trust in management, participation,
3 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ... 4 Organization ... 4 Change process ... 5 Research Question ... 6 LITERATURE REVIEW ... 9 Resistance to change ... 9 Organizational Culture ... 10 Trust in Management ... 14 Participation... 15 Communication ... 16 METHODOLOGY ... 18 Participants ... 18 Data collection ... 19 Measures ... 20 Data analysis... 22 RESULTS ... 27 DISCUSSION... 31
Other remarkable findings ... 35
Managerial implications ... 36 Limitations ... 37 Future research ... 38 Conclusion ... 38 REFERENCES ... 39 APPENDIXES ... 44 Appendix A Questionnaire ... 44
Appendix B Transcripts interviews ... 50
Appendix C Box plots ... 59
Appendix D Factor Analyses ... 61
Appendix E Multi-collinearity test ... 67
Appendix F Extra comments survey ... 68
Appendix G Presentation Philips ... 71
4 “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” - Winston S. Churchill
INTRODUCTION
Organizational changes are abundant. Both in the private and public sectors organizations continuously face new challenges and need to adapt to changing environments (Oreg & Berson, 2011). Philips also felt the need to change and adapt to their changing environment. In May 2011, the executive committee of Philips launched a worldwide initiative called ‘Accelerate!’. The Accelerate! transformation program is meant to drive innovation and customer centricity, while improving operational performance, enabling Philips to deliver on its 2013 targets. A part of this program is the reorganization of the High Impact Innovation Center (HIIC) (approximately 100 employees) from January 1, 2012 onwards. Members of this innovation department were reassigned to other departments within Philips CL Drachten. During this process, Philips CL Drachten encountered resistance towards the reorganization from the former ‘HIIC’ employees as several involved employees expressed their concerns in the meetings that were held and created work groups to influence the reorganization. Philips CL Drachten is now curious how they managed the change process and what influenced the encountered resistance to change. As Kotter & Schlesinger (2008) already stated, reorganization is usually feared, because it means disturbance of the status quo, a threat to people’s vested interests in their jobs, and an upset to established ways of doing things.
Organization
5 Accelerate!, which is focused on increasing Philips’s business speed, was announced in 2010. Pieter Nota, CEO Philips Consumer Lifestyle, stated the following on this initiative: “With Accelerate! We continued on our path to transform Consumer Lifestyle – reshaping the
portfolio for profitable growth and moving from a functional, centrally led organization, to an organization built around businesses and markets.’’
Building on this, employees of HIIC were divided over the several business groups (such as: shaving, vacuum cleaners etc.). Besides, a group of 35 employees remained a separate group and continued under the name of ‘TEG’, which stands for Technical Expert Group. Approximately 70 employees, including the TEG group, are still located in the old HIIC building. This is because there is not enough office space at the departments some employees were placed in or because they need to use resources, such as labs, which are only present in the former HIIC building.
HIIC existed of a group of highly educated technical employees (or: professionals). Around 90% has an academic background and the rest has completed at least 1 bachelor study. HIIC supported many different departments within Philips Drachten, although their expertise was also used for other Philips sites. Due to their expertise they were involved in an early stage in the development processes. They developed and tested the functional part of the new products and made sure all parts (liquid, metal, plastic etc.) functioned together correctly. The products they had an influence in were, among others, the Philips Senseo and the Philips Wake-up light.
Change process
The change process started with a visit of Frans van Houten (CEO of Philips) and Pieter Nota (Director of Philips Consumer Lifestyle) in June 2011 to Philips Drachten. They announced the Accelerate! program and employees were invited to ask questions, although it was not clear at the time that HIIC was going to be reorganized. On 17 October, 2011, an application for advice was sent to the Work Council. In this application was stated why and how Philips CL Drachten was meant to change according to the Accelerate! program. The main point was that personnel needed to be deployed in the markets and business as much as possible. To achieve this, employees of HIIC were to be replaced among other businesses within Philips, mostly in Drachten. In October 2011, the upcoming reorganization was also announced at HIIC by HIIC’s manager.
6 happen. The management team of HIIC, which consisted of 8 people, was informed by Philips CL’s higher management (located at Philips Headquarters in Amsterdam) on how the reorganization should be managed. As those of their employees, their functions also disappeared. Human Relations was involved from the beginning to assist in communicating the change toward the employees and answering questions. The manager of the HIIC department held weekly meetings in which employees were able to ask questions and express their concerns. Although the manager of HIIC was conscious that he would lose his job, he communicated with higher management on how the reorganization should be implemented, but had little influence on the reallocation of employees. He also consulted with his management team and he communicated the change towards HIIC.
Maurer (2011) states that many changes in organizations are inflicted on people. Managers and staff are told what the organization will do to meet a threat or opportunity, when it will start, the goals and benchmarks, and what's expected of the workforce. There is hardly a place for anyone to influence any part of the change; from the idea itself to developing plans. This also seemed to have occurred at Philips CL Drachten. During the change process, members of as well as HIIC’s management team as the HR-department received several concerns from the involved employees about the reorganization. Employees feared the reorganization would do them no good and they started actively resisting towards the change. So called ‘work groups’ were formed in which employees worked together to influence the reorganization. They soon realized HIIC’s manager was not the person who could help them influence the change and started involving and influencing Philips Drachten CL’s site manager. Through this manager they influenced the reallocation of several groups of specialists. This manager communicated with higher management located in Amsterdam. Through mainly presentations the work groups convinced higher management to place groups with one specialty (for example: metal) together in one business group and not separate them over different business groups.
In December 2011 all employees were informed about their new positions and new managers. From 1 January, 2012 onwards HIIC-employees were replaced in new functions and departments and the eight members of HIIC’s management team were reassigned or left the company.
Research Question
7 reorganization? And how was this process managed and is there a possibility for improvement(s)? This will be researched by studying existing literature on the variables and comparing this with the actual process during the reorganization of the ‘HIIC’ department. This will lead to confirmation of existing theory or possible new insights on how to manage change that involves highly educated professionals and a better understanding of the process which Philips CL Drachten can use for possible upcoming reorganizations and organizational changes. Besides, as Ford et al. (2008) already stated, it is time to expand our understanding of resistance to change, including its sources, influences and its potential contribution to effective change management.
8 reactions to change. It is interesting to study trust in management as an antecedent of the reactions to change.
This lead to the following research question:
‘To what extent do organizational culture, trust in management (both context variables), participation and communication (both process variables) influence the recipient’s resistance to change?
9
LITERATURE REVIEW
Resistance to change; a major problem in driving change in organizations is dealing
with and managing the resistance you will encounter (Atkinson, 2005; Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979; Smollan, 2011; Dent, 1999). Giangreco (2001: 14) provides one of the most extensive definitions of resistance to change: ‘Resistance to change is a form of organizational dissent to a change process that the individual considers unpleasant or disagreeable or inconvenient on the bases of personal and/or group evaluations. The intent of resistance to change is to benefit the interests of the actor or a group (to which the actor belongs or relates to) without undermining extensively the needs of the organization. Resistance to change manifests itself in non-institutionalized individual or collective actions. It might take the form of non-violent, indifferent, passive or active behavior.’ In early management science, resistance to change is typically regarded as an obstacle or barrier to change (Giangreco, 2001; Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979; Klein, 1984). Kurt Lewin (1947) was one of the first in recognizing resistance. Lewin's theory conceptualized the present condition or level of activity of a system as a dynamic social equilibrium, which is a state of balance maintained by active driving and resisting social forces. Change then consisted of altering the driving and resisting forces thereby facilitating the movement of the system to a new level of equilibrium.
More recently, Prasad and Prasad (2006) described resistance as the result of a complex interplay between individual and collective action and interpretation in the workplace. Smollan (2011) states that it is only natural that people resist change when they anticipate or experience poorer working conditions, lower remuneration, fewer privileges, lower status, a loss of identity and even the loss of their jobs. Additionally, Smollan (2011) claims that people are not only concerned for themselves. It may be felt that change, or the way it is implemented, is not appropriate for the organization. Van Dijk & Van Dick (2009) feel that change leaders and non-change leaders within a changing organization are likely to have diverse perspectives of their organization’s goals and related change. This is mainly due to factors as different backgrounds, experience, job roles and departmental memberships.
10 change, and eliminating unnecessary, impractical, or counterproductive elements in the design or conduct of the change process. So, by many authors resistance to change is perceived as something that needs to be ‘overcome’ (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979; Klein, 1984; Dent, 1999), but more recent articles claim it can also be identified as a reaction to change which change managers can use to build awareness and momentum for the change (Ford, 2008; Smollan, 2011; Kavanagh, 2004).
A ‘multi-dimensional view’ of resistance to change has been initiated by Piderit (2000), who proposed a multidimensional view of responses to proposed organizational changes, capturing employee responses along at least three dimensions (emotional, cognitive, and intentional/behavioral). Within this view, "resistance to a change" is represented by the set of responses to change that are negative along all three dimensions, and "support for a change" is represented by the set of responses that are positive along all three dimensions. Accordingly, Smollan (2011) states that a change manager has to note that people react (and resist) on cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels and that these reactions are not always aligned. Piderit (2000) states that in this view the cognitive dimension of an attitude refers to an individual's beliefs about the attitude object. Secondly, the emotional dimension of an attitude refers to an individual's feelings in response to the attitude object. Finally the behavioral dimension refers to a plan or resolution to take some action towards the change. Of course the three components are not independent of one another, and what people feel about a change will often correspond with what they think about it and with their behavioral intentions in its regard. Nevertheless, the components are distinct of one another and each highlights a different aspect of the resistance phenomenon (Oreg, 2006).
A theoretical elaboration on the variables culture, trust in management, participation and communication will be performed next.
Organizational Culture; still, there is no clear consensus on a clear definition of
11 Cameron and Quinn (2011), who describe culture as what is valued, the dominant leadership styles, the language and symbols, the procedures and routines and the definition of success that make an organization unique. All three definitions have quite an overlap. Based on this, one can argue that culture determines the way things are done in the firm/organization. An author that agrees with this statement is Marglin (1990). He states the organizational culture defines how the employees handle conflicts that can arise when their norms and values (or: culture) are affected by change efforts.
Although there is already a lot of theory on resistance to change, little can be found on the relationship between an organization’s culture and resistance to change (Oreg, 2011). Jones et al. (2005) found that the degree to which the organization’s existing cultural values were aligned with the change vision and objectives predicted change recipients’ readiness to change. Oreg (2011) ended his part on culture with stating that evidence that links culture and climate with recipients’ reactions to change is still limited and requires further research. A way to study this influence might be by identifying different types of culture and study their separate influences.
In order to typify cultures within organizations, Cameron & Quinn (2011) have developed the ‘Competing Values Framework’. This framework is displayed below and will be used for this study. This framework is chosen because it is one of the most influential and extensively used models in organizational culture research and validated as a powerful measure of organizational culture (Yu & Wu, 2009).
12 The model is divided by two dimensions. The first dimension is that of ‘internal focus and integration’ against ‘external focus and differentiation’. The second dimension focuses on ‘flexibility and discretion’ contrary to ‘stability and control’. This leads to four different quadrants each representing one cultural type. The cultural types have different names in theory; this study will use the distinction from Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983). They have the following names for the cultural types:
Table 1 Cultural types
Cameron & Quinn (2011) Quinn & Rohrbaugh (1983)
Clan Human Relations
Adhocracy Open Systems
Hierarchy Internal Process
Market Rational Goal
As pointed out by Quinn (1988), all four culture types can exist in a single organization/department, although some values are likely to be more dominant than others. The possible relationships of the four cultural types and reactions to change will be examined by studying the book of Cameron & Quinn (2011).
Human Relations
Within the Human Relations culture, Cameron & Quinn (2011) indicate that leaders are thought of as mentors and perhaps even as parent figures. Employees believe that leaders will do what’s in the company’s interest. High cohesion, morale, commitment and involvement of employees are very important in this type of culture. Also open communication and participation are characteristics. Therefore one can expect that there is little resistance to change when this type of culture is present.
Open Systems
13 readiness for change and meeting new challenges are important. This indicates that having an open systems culture will influence and lower the resistance of change.
Rational Goal
Within the Rational Goal culture, organizations are oriented on competition, emphasize control and focus on the external environment. Leaders are hard-driving producers and competitors and are tough and demanding. This culture characterizes itself by having clear goal setting, planning, centralized decision-making and instructional communication; which is communication that is directed to a specific action or goal. This would indicate that when change occurs, employees will most likely resist it, as it means a disturbance of the established status quo.
Internal Process
The last culture is the Internal Process culture. In their book, Cameron & Quinn (2011) state that the Internal Process oriented culture is strongly associated with resistance to change and a reactive orientation toward change. Besides control, these organizations emphasize stability, efficiency and predictability. Through formal and standardized procedures, policies and rules, there is a lot of formal information sharing, communication which is based on data and clear decision-making authority. These characteristics make an organization with this type of culture very formalized and standardized.
14 Deriving from above theory, one can argue that a culture with flexibility and discretion (Human Relations and Open Systems) will be most likely to accept change and thus not resist it, contrarily to a culture that is aimed at stability and control (Rational Goal and Internal Process). Therefore, the following two hypotheses are formulated:
H1a: The more a culture is aimed at flexibility and discretion, the lower the resistance to change among employees during reorganization.
H1b: The more a culture is aimed at stability and control, the more resistance to change among employees during reorganization.
Trust in Management; Michaelis et al. (2009) conceptualized trust in top
management as an attitude held by employees toward the leadership of the organization that indicates a willingness to be vulnerable to top management. Another definition is provided by Bouckenooghe et al. (2009) who states that trust in leadership or management is the extent to which staff members perceive their supervisors and top management as trustworthy.
The influence of trust in management during organizational change is a topic that requires further research. Armenakis et al. (1993) have already identified trust to play an important role in change in their study. Recently, Oreg (2011) stated that in several studies trust in management was viewed as an indirect consequence of the change, rather than an antecedent of the reactions to change. Change recipients who reported holding high levels of trust in management, who perceive management as supportive, and who feel respected, were more receptive to suggested changes and reported a greater willingness to cooperate with the change (Oreg, 2011). Contrarily, organizational members who perceived their work environment as generally unsupportive were more likely to possess cynical reactions, suffer from negative emotions, and ultimately resist to the change (Oreg, 2011).
15 change. They also state that in order to enhance trust in top management, it should be integrated into the organizations’ reward system, leadership guidelines, and company policies. Based on above literature review, the following hypothesis has been formulated on the influence of trust in management.
H2: The more a change context shows signs of trust in management, the less resistance to change will occur during reorganization.
Participation; A considerable amount of research has already been done on the topic
of employee participation in organizations and during change efforts. It is one of the oldest areas of inquiry within organizational behavior (Glew et al., 1995). This had led to many different definitions of employee participation. Burnes (2004) states that participation is the process of involving people in decision making and change activities within organizations. Quite similarly, Bouckenooghe et al. (2009) sees participation as the extent to which staff members are involved in and informed about decisions that directly concern them, decisions about organizational change inclusive.
Focusing on the role of participation within organizational change and reactions towards it, Oreg (2011) found in his study that existing studies on participation found that participation focused on the effect of the degree to which change recipients were involved in planning and implementing the change. Oreg (2011) furthermore states that as a rule, change recipients who experienced high levels of participation tended to report higher readiness and acceptance of change, appraised change as less stressful and exhibited overall support for the change. Bartunek et al. (2006) linked participation, during the change process, with the experience of positive emotions, a greater understanding of the meaning of change, realizing possible gains associated with the change and greater involvement in implementing behavioral changes.
When focusing on resistance to change, the outcome of Oreg’s (2011) study mentions that increasing change recipient involvement in the change and setting change recipients at greater ease, by allowing participation and ensuring a just process have been shown to go a long way in alleviating resistance to change.
16
H3: The more a change process is characterized by participation, the less resistance to change will occur during reorganization.
Communication; closely related to participation, another variable has to do with the
amount and quality of change information with which change recipients are provided (Oreg 2011). Daft (1997) defines communication as the process by which information is exchanged and understood by two or more people, usually with the intent to motivate or influence behavior. Burnes (2004) underlines the essential function of communication for all change activities. Communication can decrease the uncertainty of employees which decreases the resistance to change. In planned change, change communication involves exchanging and transmitting information to influence changes (Frahm and Brown, 2005). One study that has a similar outcome as Burnes (2004) is that of Schweiger & DeNisi (1991), they found that lack of communication during the change can lead to uncertainty, which may be a key source of change recipients’ difficulties during change implementation. Therefore, change communication can both be seen from an instrumental perspective, where it is used as a mean to communicate change, and also as the communication that takes place during a change process (Frahm and Brown, 2005).
17 However, in the study of Oreg (2006) additional information about the change corresponded with negative evaluations of the change. The rationale provided for this finding was that it is not merely the amount of information that determines reactions to change but also the content of this information. Alongside the value for change recipients in receiving additional information, sometimes learning more about the change can give change recipients all the more reason to resist it (Oreg, 2006). This study will aim to gain a better insight in the relationship between communication and resistance to change and focus on the intensity and quality of the communication. The intensity reflect on the amount regularity of communication and the quality reflects on the content and relevance of the communication. Therefore, the following hypothesis has been formulated.
H4: The more a change is characterized by intensive and qualitative communication, the less resistance to change will occur during reorganization.
Wrapping up, culture and trust in management will be seen in the light of the change context. This means the existing environment in which the change takes place and that cannot be directly influenced by a change agent. Participation and communication will be viewed as part of the change process, which a change agent can have direct influence on. This literature review led to the following theoretical framework, which is displayed below.
18
METHODOLOGY
As stated, this study aims to investigate if and how organizational culture, trust in management, participation and communication influence resistance to change. Based on the described existing literature, it is expected that all four variables have an influence on the resistance to change. This section will cover the methodology. First, the participants of this study are described. After this, the procedure is explained, followed by information on the survey and the way the gathered data was analyzed.
Empirical research was performed at Philips CL Drachten. The empirical research used a research method aimed at quantitative data and consisted of a survey. The quantitative research method was used because quantitative research, unlike qualitative research, reduces phenomena into numerical values in order to carry out statistical analysis, and therefore makes it possible to investigate causal effects (Gelo, Braakmann & Benetka, 2008). Besides the quantitative research, a few semi-structured interviews were held with former HIIC members. These interviews included the former manager, a senior employee and a team leader and were used to examine and understand the background of the situation in which the change took place. Transcripts of the interviews can be found in Appendix B.
Participants
The survey was distributed among the 85 former members of the ‘HIIC’ department, as well the former management team (8) as the staff members (77). The survey has been filled out by 51 former HIIC employees. Table 4 provides the general characteristics of this group.
Table 4
General characteristics
Male Female
Gender 88% (45) 12% (6)
Management Team Staff member
Position 8% (4) 92% (47)
21-30 years 31-40 years 41-50 years 51->
Age 20% (10) 30% (15) 25% (13) 25% (13)
<- 1 year 1 – 5 years 6 – 10 years 10 ->
19 The measured sample (51) must be representative for the entire population (85). Hogarth (2005) stated on the representativeness that both experimental participants and the situations with which they are faced should be representative of the populations to which researchers claim to generalize results. The above table shows that the largest group who filled in the survey were man and a staff member at HIIC. This is according to the distribution that was present at HIIC. Overall, the age and the time working for HIIC show a good variation. Employees with different ages have completed the survey and the time working at HIIC shows a variation ranging from <1 to >10 years in participants.
All respondents faced the same situation during the change and went through the change process as a group. Consequently, the 51 respondents are representative for the entire population of 85 employees.
Data collection
The departments in which the HIIC-members were placed, were not taken in to account, as they were open towards the new members and no resistance was encountered there. The survey was organized with the help of the reorganization’s HR manager and Philips CL Drachten’s general HR manager. The survey was formulated in English, as all ‘HIIC’ employees are used to work in English and there are approximately five employees with a non-Dutch nationality. Besides, all statements were formulated in the past time, as the reorganization was finished at the time of the survey. The used statements were derived from studies who performed their study before or during a change and not afterwards. The survey consisted of 71 questions and was grouped in five parts. Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with statements on change in general by using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The Likert scale was used as Dittrich et al. (2007) stated that the Likert scale is an essential tool in psychology and in social surveys, and is a ubiquitous method of collecting attitudinal data. Dawes (2008) studied different Likert scales to see whether they are comparable. The outcome was that the 5-, 7- or 10-point scales are all comparable for analytical tools such as confirmatory factor analysis or structural equation models. Furthermore, he found that the 5- and 7-point scales produced the same mean score as each other; therefore the ‘regular’ 5-point scale was used in the survey.
20 grammatical errors. They concluded that overall the survey functioned correctly. Furthermore, the survey was sent to the translator of Philips CL Drachten. She also provided several small improvements to the grammar of the survey. After this, the HR manager pre tested the survey again and found it user friendly and ready to be sent out. She also tested the time required to complete the survey and was set at 15 minutes. Participants were e-mailed with a covering letter, instructions and a hyperlink to the survey.
Fanning (2005) stated that the success of your survey will be the response rate, or how many people actually respond to your survey. Thus, all participants had two weeks to complete the survey. After the first week, 27 employees had filled out the survey. A reminder was sent by the general HR manager which resulted in a response of 51 employees from the 85 potential responders. This is a response rate of 60%. Manfreda et al. (2008) compared response rates of web surveys with those of other modes. They concluded that a 60% response rate achieved with a web survey is very acceptable, although their conclusion was not based on a great number of cases. The acceptable response rate may be due to the reminder, but also due to the fact that during the time the survey was online, an interview with a team leader had been conducted. He requested clarification on some aspects of the survey and consequently reminded and instructed his team to complete the survey.
Measures
Per variable the number of items plus an example of an item will be stated. Besides, the validated researches from which the statements were derived will be given.
Dependent variable
The statements concerning resistance to change were based on the surveys set up by Oreg (2003) and Giangreco (2001). These surveys are validated and combined they contain statements on emotional, cognitive and behavioral resistance to change. Nine questions were derived from Oreg (2003) and covered the statements on emotional (5) and cognitive (4) resistance to change. Only the item ‘I was overwhelmed by all the things that needed to be done according to the change’ was left out, as HIIC employees were not meant to do anything within the reorganization. The behavioral (3) resistance to change questions came from Giangreco (2001); he stated six statements on this of which only three were used in this study. The following statements were left out:
21 - ‘I report complaints about the change to my superiors’
- ‘I support union actions against the change’
Based on the interviews with HIIC- employees and discussions with both HR-managers it became clear that these behavioral actions did not take place during the reorganization and the statements were therefore left out. Resistance to change was covered with in total 12 statements. An example of a statement on resistance to change is: ‘I don’t really think the
reorganization was necessary’.
Independent variables
Culture contained the largest amount of statements, namely 28. The statements on culture were based on Meyer et al. (2010), who based their research on Quinn’s (1988) Competing Values Framework. These statements were divided in 4 times 7 questions (7 per cultural type). The 7 questions cover the following attributes: the organization’s climate, the ‘glue’ that binds the organizations, the mission/vision, the organization’s leader, management style, reward structure and recruitment and selection. To give an example of these attributes, seven statements used in the survey are listed below:
1. Climate: ‘The inside climate emphasized stability and predictability. Expectations
regarding procedures were clear and enforced.’
2. Glue: ‘The glue that held the department together was its formal procedures, rules,
and policies.’
3. Mission/vision: ‘The mission and vision statements promoted an image of a stable and
rule-oriented department.’
4. Leader: ‘The general manager was generally considered to be a coordinator and
organizer.’
5. Management style: ‘Middle management enforces rules, procedures, and consistency.’ 6. Reward structure: ‘Recognition and rewards were most often given to those who
abided by the rules and expressed caution.’
7. Recruitment and selection: ‘Recruitment and selection practices were geared to bring
in employees who were conservative, logical and predictable.’
Trust in management was measured by using 10 statements, an example of a statement on trust in management is: ‘Philips’ management can be trusted to make sensible decisions
22 Bouckenooghe et al. (2009) and Cook and Wall (1980). Items TIM1 to TIM5 were derived from Bouckenooghe et al. (2009) and items TIM6 to TIM10 on Cook and Wall (1980).
The statements on participation (11) were entirely based on Bouckenooghe et al. (2009). An example of a survey item reflecting participation is: ‘HIIC staff members could raise topics for discussion during the process.’
Communication was measured using statements on the quality and intensity of the communication. A statement covering the intensity of the communication is: ‘I was regularly
informed on how the change was going’. An example of a statement covering the quality of communication is: ‘Philips’ management clearly explained the necessity of the
reorganization’. For more information on the statements on Intensity (I) and Quality (Q),
please see Appendix A. In total, there were 7 questions on the intensity and 4 on the quality. The management of Philips CL Drachten added three questions to the 8 questions on communication from Bouckenooghe et al. (2009). These questions were specific for this particular reorganization and sounded as follows:
- ‘Philips’ management clearly explained the necessity of the reorganization in person’ - ‘The regular information meetings were the right way to inform us about the
reorganization process’
- ‘During the reorganization, I knew where to go with my questions’
Control variables
In front of the statements on the five variables, four questions were asked on the employee’s background. These questions concerned the gender (male or female), the age (21 – 30, 31 – 40, 41 – 50 and 51 years and older), the position (management team or staff member) and the time spent working at HIIC (less than 1 year, 1 – 5 years, 6 – 10 years and longer than 10 years). Besides, at the end of the survey an empty text box was provided which employees could use for additional remarks.
Data analysis
23 analysis is a technique to identify groups or clusters of variables (Field, 2005). When performing a factor analysis, four criteria should be met:
1. Variance explained > 60%; 2. Eigenvalue (EV) > 1;
3. Kaiser‐Meyer‐Olking (KMO) > .500;
4. Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity significance < .05.
All items within the variables have codenames which can be found in appendix A. The ‘principal component matrix’ with the ‘varimax rotation’ has been used to perform the factor analysis. Furthermore, all performed analyses were with components based on Eigenvalue (EV) > 1.
Before starting with the factor analysis to analyze the data, a look at the sample size in comparison with the number of items in the survey was required. The number of items measuring culture there was originally a total of 28. When comparing this to the number of respondents (51), an issue aroused. Hair et al. (2010) state that as a general rule, the number of observations should be at least five times the number of variables (or as they are called in this study, items) and even preferably there should be a 10:1 ratio. Therefore this study could not study the relationship between culture and resistance to change as the number of items was too high in comparison with the number of respondents. The hypotheses on culture were therefore left out and the change context existed only from the items of trust in management. Besides, the change process existing of participation (11) and communication (11) also contained too many items compared with the number of respondents. The decision was made to identify the strongest items from both constructs. To do this, a factor analysis was first performed on all variables separately. After the separate factor analysis, a factor analysis on the different constructs within the change process was performed to make sure they were not measuring the same aspect of the change process. Per variable the outcomes of the factor analysis are summarized. For more information on the factor analysis, please see Appendix D.
Resistance to Change
24
Trust in Management
Firstly, the factor analysis identified three components within the scale. Mainly due to the fact that this component contained questions from Bouckenooghe et al. (2009) and Cook & Wall (1980), 5 items were removed. The final factor analysis placed the remaining 5 items in one component (variance = 62%).
Participation
Items PAR4 and PAR8 scored on a different component as the other items. These two items are really specific aimed at HIIC’s management and considering the particular role HIIC’s management played, the decision was made to make these two items a different component: PARHIIC. All this resulted in a variance of 60% with component 1 containing 6 items and component 2 containing 2 items.
Communication
Statements COM9, COM10 and COM11, who were all added by Philips’ management, were removed from the scale. After removing two more items, the remaining 6 items were placed in 1 component with a variance of an acceptable level of 63%.
Afterwards, a factor analysis on the change process variables was performed. The change process now existed of the variables: COM, PAR and PARHIIC. The factor analysis identified three components based on EV > 1. However, COM4 and PAR5 both scored on two components and therefore they were left out. Both COM and PAR now existed of 5 items and the variance was at an acceptable level of 62%. Finally, a factor analysis on all independent variables was performed. This lead to 4 components based on EV > 1 and a variance of 65% and all variables remained their items up to this point.
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Table 2 Cronbach's Alpha
Component Number of items Cronbach’s alpha
Dependent variables
Resistance to Change Behavioral 2 0.638
Resistance to Change Cognitive 4 0.887
Resistance to Change Emotional 2 0.638
Independent context variable
Trust in Management 5 0.841
Independent process variables
Participation 5 0.798
Participation HIIC’s Management 2 0.624
Communication 5 0.792
The next step of the data analysis is the identification of extreme values, since these can render the data non normal. The extreme values of all factors are examined through a box plot. Two of the box plots show extreme values, but when studying these extreme values the other scores appear normal. Besides, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test showed that all components are normally distributed. Therefore, all components are useful for this study and will be used to examine the relationships between them. The box plots and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test can be found in Appendix C.
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Table 3 Hypotheses
H2: The more a change context shows signs of trust in management, the less resistance to
change will occur during reorganization.
H3a: The more a change process is characterized by participation, the less resistance to
change will occur during reorganization.
H3b: The more a change process is characterized by participation offered and motivated by
the department’s management, the less resistance will occur during reorganization.
H4: The more a change is characterized by intensive and qualitative communication, the less
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RESULTS
To be able to analyze the results of the survey and test the stated hypotheses, a multi-collinearity (Appendix E), a Pearson correlation (table 7) and a single and a multiple regression analysis (tables 8 & 9) test have been performed. Pearson's correlation reflects the degree of linear relationship between two variables. It ranges from +1 to -1. A correlation of +1 means that there is a perfect positive linear relationship between variables. The correlation analysis has been done 1-tailed, as all hypotheses are formulated with a negative correlation with resistance to change. The single linear regression looks whether there is a predictive relationship between a single independent variable and a single dependent variable. The multiple regression analysis looks at whether, based on the correlation of multiple independent variables with the dependent variable(s), a predictive relationship exists and it can be used to test the stated hypotheses. In this study, behavioral resistance to change, cognitive resistance to change and emotional resistance to change are the dependent variables.
As stated, a multi-collinearity test was performed. The Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) and tolerance are both widely used measures of the degree of multi-collinearity of the independent variable with the other independent variables in a regression model (O’Brien, 2007). The VIF should be < 10 to be able to interpret the results. The multi-collinearity shows no values that exceed this level and therefore all results can be interpreted. More information on the multi-collinearity test can be found in Appendix E.
The correlation table shows a signification correlation between trust in management and RTCB (R = .279, P < 0.05), not with RTCE and RTCC. Neither the single nor the multiple regression analysis shows a significant relationship between trust in management with any of the dependent variables. The results show that trust in management has no significant on either three of the aspects of resistance to change and as a result, hypothesis 2 is rejected.
28 relationship between communication and resistance to change and consequently hypothesis 4 is rejected.
Thirdly, the correlation analysis shows a significant correlation (R = -3.46, P < 0.05) between participation motivated by HIIC’s management (PARHIIC) and cognitive resistance to change (RTCC). The multiple regression analysis shows a significant relationship between PARHIIC and RTCC. This indicates that the higher the participation motivated by HIIC’s (or the department’s) management, the lower the cognitive resistance to change. As a consequence, hypothesis 3b is accepted.
Fourth and last, participation (PAR1) itself does not show a significant correlation with either three forms of resistance to change in the correlation table. In accordance, the single and multiple regression analysis do also not show any significant relationship between participation and any form of resistance to change. Therefore, hypothesis 3a is rejected.
Although the relationship between culture and resistance to change is no longer studied, the validated tool of Meyer et al. (2008) does provide an idea of which cultural type was most present at HIIC. Below table shows the different cultural types and their scores.
Table 5 Scores of cultural types
Mean Average score
Human relations 25.88 3,70
Open Systems 26.78 3,83
Internal Process 17.30 2,47
Rational Goal 20.64 2,95
The table shows that two cultural types were most present at HIIC, namely Human Relations and Open systems.
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Table 6 Outcomes hypotheses
Hypothesis Accepted/
Rejected H2: The more a change context shows signs of trust in management, the less
resistance to change will occur during reorganization.
Rejected
H3a: The more a change process is characterized by participation, the less
resistance to change will occur during reorganization.
H3b: The more a change process is characterized by participation offered
and motivated by the department’s management, the less resistance will occur during reorganization.
Rejected
Accepted
H4: The more a change is characterized by intensive and qualitative
communication, the less resistance will occur during reorganization.
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Table 8
Single Regression analysis
RTCB RTCC RTCE TIM ,278 ,168 ,101 COM ,242 ,074 ,069 PAR1 ,202 -,037 ,-040 PARHIIC -,163 -,409** -,012 * P < .05, ** P < .01, *** P < .001 Table 9
Multiple Regression analysis
31
DISCUSSION
In this section the results of the previous chapter are being discussed. The goal of this section is to generate new insights on the topics under research and to provide practical insights. The focus of this discussion is to find an answer to the proposed research question; “To what
extent do organizational culture, trust in management (both context), participation and communication (both process) influence the recipient’s resistance to change?’’ Additionally,
other remarkable findings and the managerial implications of these findings are provided. The limitations of this research and suggestions for future research are given thereafter. As described in the methodology, culture was left out of the study and will therefore not be discussed.
Theory (Oreg, 2011; Elving & Bennebroek-Gravenhorst, 2005; Michaelis et al., 2009) suggests that participation, communication and trust in management all influence resistance to change. This study, however, did not find statistical evidence for most of these relationships. Below will be discussed why it may be that most stated hypotheses were rejected. This will be done per construct.
Trust in management
Trust in management was expected to lower the resistance to change. This study, however, found no statistical evidence that, although there is a significant correlation, there is a significant relationship between trust in management and resistance to change. This could be explained by the time frame of the survey. As the survey was held after the change, this might have influenced the results of the survey, although recipients were instructed to place themselves in the situation as they experienced it during the change. A second explanation might lie in the low number of respondents compared with the high number of items. This might have influenced the results. A third explanation might be found in the fact that the reorganization involved professionals. Weggeman (2007) provides a quote of David Maister in his book on leadership of professionals. He states that the key message to managers of professionals is to create meaning. A manager should help his subordinates to find the excitement in their work. When now looking at Philips, one employee mentioned ‘I wished
higher management would have come here to really explain WHY we were changing so that it made sense.’ This indicates that higher management did not succeed to create meaning and is
32 surely include responsibility for the relationship with recipients, as well as the tactics of change implementation. This includes taking charge of the change dialogues to include inquiry that gets to the root of apparently resistive behaviors by bringing both agent and recipient background conversations to the fore and engaging in those actions needed to maintain and improve the agent-client relationship. At Philips, higher management did not actively take charge of change dialogues and did not invest in the agent-client relationship. Especially when dealing with professionals, this seems a necessary part of a change process to be able to create meaning.
Participation
When performing the factor analysis, this study made a distinction between general participation in the change itself and the participation offered and motivated by HIIC’s management. This was done due to the particular role HIIC’s management played during the reorganization. The correlation analysis showed a significant correlation between participation offered and motivated by HIIC’s management and resistance to change. The multiple regression analysis also showed a significant relationship, which indicates that the higher the participation motivated by the department’s management, the lower the cognitive resistance to change. This is in line with the expectations. The particular role that especially HICC’s management team has had by communicating the change, but not influencing the change content is examined by Balogun & Johnson (2004) and might explain why a significant relationship was found. They state that the role of middle managers in change is deemphasized. They studied the role of middle managers as “change recipients”; those who are being told to change but who have had no influence on the decision. These middle managers have the challenge of grasping a change they did not design and negotiating the details with others equally removed from the strategic decision making. Balogun & Johnson (2004) conclude that the middle manager’s lateral processes occurring in change are critically important. This because it is not only the formal lateral processes that play a significant role in schema change, but also the multiple (and largely informal) conversational vehicles: stories, gossip, and rumor; behaviors and actions; discussions and negotiations; and sharing of personal experience and interpretations of change interventions.
33 recipients were not meant to participate, this was not measured. Another explanation might come from the fact that the reorganization involved professionals. Weggeman (2007) states that an important factor when institutionalizing a structure is to let the professional be involved in the process of a structural change. Moreover, Weggeman (2007) states that you have to inform the professional on what you are doing and don’t wait until change is completely planned. When looking at HIIC, this has not occurred. The change recipients (or: professionals) were not involved in the process of the change and this might explain why there is no relationship found. Besides, the low number of respondents might also have influenced these results and might explain why no relationship was found.
Communication
Many researchers (Oreg, 2011) have identified communication to have an influence on resistance to change. This study has found a significant correlation between communication and behavioral resistance to change. However, the multiple regression analysis showed no significant relationship between communication and any of the three dimensions of resistance to change. An explanation for this might be found in Oreg (2006). He hypothesized communication to lower the behavioral resistance to change, however the results also indicated otherwise. Oreg (2006) states that the relationship between information and resistance would appear to depend on the content, rather than the mere existence, of the information. This is underlined by the different statements on quality and intensity in Appendix H. The items on the intensity of communication score higher (average of 3,31) than the items on the quality (average 2,42) of the communication. Closely related, a second explanation why no significant relationship was found, might lay in the content of the change. As the statements on resistance to change show in Appendix H, employees did not see the meaning behind the reorganization and did not think the reorganization would do them any good or was necessary. A third explanation can also be derived from Oreg (2006), he discusses the nonlinear relationship between information or communication and resistance to change. Not enough information, as well as too much information might lead to more resistance to change. An employee commented the following on communication during the reorganization: ‘Although the local management team could not tell a lot of new things, the
sessions they organized were a good tool to use’. The way the communication was organized
34 content on the change would be best to lower resistance to change. Although the large amount of studies on the influence of communication on resistance to change, this remains an area that requires further research.
In this discussion, four aspects seem of high importance in the search for an explanation on why most of the stated hypotheses were rejected: the low number of respondents, the content of the change, the time frame and the fact that the reorganization involved professionals. The fact that there were only 51 respondents is highly like to have influenced the results. Furthermore, there is not a lot of literature on the influence of the time frame of the survey on the outcomes, but there is some literature on dealing with professionals. The content of the change might be in close relationship with the fact that the reorganization involved professionals. Weggeman (2007) is one of the main authors with his book on leadership of professionals. Although his book lacks information on dealing with professionals during a change process, this book was studied to understand how to manage professionals.
Weggeman (2007) claims that many managers have lack of knowledge of the work their professionals are doing. Burrill (1986) already said that in order to successfully manage the technical professional, a company performs a balancing act. A company walks a tightrope between providing an open atmosphere in which creative ideas flourish, and structuring research activities so that marketable products emerge. Moreover, Mintzberg (1998) stated that knowledge workers (or: professionals) respond to inspiration, not supervision. When looking at the reorganization that happened at Philips CL Drachten, Weggeman (2007) states that an important factor when institutionalizing a structure is to let the professional be involved in the process of a structural change. When comparing this with the actual change process at HIIC this seems the opposite. Change recipients were informed on a weekly base, but the information they received was most of the time not new and interesting to them and did not contain a significant content. Moreover, change recipients were not meant to participate in the change. Change recipients commented that they did not see the need for reorganization and therefore did not agree with the content. The change agents (higher management) did not succeed in creating meaning for the reorganization and therefore there they were insufficient when it comes to sense making.
35 change agent to employee, but professionals want to be involved and understand why change is occurring and what the outcome means for them.
Other remarkable findings
This study was, among other things, meant to study the relationship between different cultural types and the resistance to change. As stated, unfortunately this was not possible due to the number of respondents. However, the most prominent cultural types were identified for HIIC. These cultural types were Human Relations and Open Systems. The hypothesis that was originally formulated on these two cultural types sounded as follows: ‘The more a culture is
aimed at flexibility and discretion, the lower the resistance to change among employees during reorganization.’ Although this study cannot reject or accept this hypothesis, a
remarkable finding is that the resistance to change was relatively high. Even though the two cultural types which seem most fit for change were most prominent. Most current studies (for example: Meyer et al. (2008)) focus on identifying the most prominent cultural type, but not see it in relationship with resistance to change. This is an area that requires future research, so managers can identify the prominent cultural type and the adherent type of resistance to change and adjust their change strategy to it.
Another remarkable finding was that several employees commented in the survey that they felt higher management was not visible during the change. One employee remarked: ‘Corporate and CL management should come to the reorganizing site themselves and explain
the rationale of the reorganization, deal with the emotions of people, etc. Make it more personal, show that higher management is involved and do care about people. Take ownership and responsibility of the decision and do not delegate it to lower management to convey the message of the reorganization.’ Atkinson (2011) states that without leadership
36 relationship with trust in management and sense making, as Ford et al. (2008) found that when people experience an injustice, they report resentment, a sense of being done to, and a desire for retribution which can result in such negative behaviors as less cooperation along with the loss of trust of and satisfaction with their employer.
Managerial implications
Based on the discussion, several managerial implications can be formulated. First of all, this study provided the management of Philips CL Drachten with an indication of the actual level of resistance to change. As the items on resistance to change in Appendix H show, employees scored high on resistance to change. This study also provided the management an idea of which cultural types were most present at HIIC. Furthermore, it provides them with insights on how to manage possible upcoming reorganizations or changes that involve a similar department or other professionals. When dealing with professionals, creating meaning is probably the most important aspect during a change process. Additionally, the amount and the quality/content of communication should be in the right balance. During this reorganization the amount of communication was perceived as good, but the quality/content as insufficient. As a change agent, it is important to find the right balance between the amount and quality/content. Do not communicate just to be able to say you did it, but do actually have a good reason and interesting information when communicating. Another finding that is interesting for Philips CL Drachten is the fact that many employees perceived higher management as not visible during the reorganization. Change recipients were quite disappointed higher management was not there to explain the rationale of the change in person, but left it to the department’s management. They did not show responsibility for the change in person. This is an area for improvement for Philips CL Drachten and might lead to less resistance to change.
37 a contingency theory of implementation where one applies the model that best fits a given situation. Each change is different and requires a different approach.
Limitations
Although this study aimed to test any significant relationship in an as complete and correct way as possible, still some limitations can be mentioned. One of the most important limitations of this research is the number of respondents. Although a response rate of 60% has been achieved, still only 51 change recipients completed the survey. In future researches the number of applicants should be higher to test the results of this study. Moreover, the high number of 71 items in the survey might have influenced the outcomes of the study, although the 28 items of culture were left out of the study after the survey. Another limitation is the fact that the empirical research has been performed at one department within Philips CL Drachten. Oreg (2011) states that this prevents the consideration of variables (e.g., antecedents) at the organizational level. Therefore, this might have influence the external validity. Furthermore, due to time constraints this cross-sectional study measured the variables only once; after the change process. Therefore, the participants can have previously occurred events in mind which might influence their behavior and consequently the validity of this research. Further research should perform a longitudinal study in which the variables are measured at multiple points during the change process. Finally and probably most important, the empirical research has been performed from February 2012 onwards. The reorganization was completed on the first on January, 2012. Although employees were asked to place themselves in the situations as they experienced them during the reorganization, the time frame might have influenced the results. Employees might not have been capable to place themselves in the situation during the change process, as they are already integrated in their new functions and departments. Besides, the used items from the studies of Bouckenooghe (2009), Oreg (2003) and Giangreco (2001) all performed their survey before or during the change. This might have influenced the validity of this research.
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Future research
This study has indicated several areas that require further research. First of all, a more longitudinal study with a higher number of respondents might increase the external validity and possibly confirm the conclusions of this study. Furthermore, this study focused on professionals during change. Highly likely, this influenced the outcomes of this study in the way that the variables do influence each other (or not). Different change strategies for changes that involve professionals need further research. As this study was not able to study the relationship between different cultural types and resistance to change, this remains an area for future research. Should change managers adjust their change strategy to the most present cultural type or not? Besides, communication remains an area for attention. There is no doubt that communication is of high importance during a change, but as this study suggests, the amount and quality of that communication may be of equal importance. Is it wise to communicate when there is actually no news worth communicating on just to keep your employees aware of the change? Or is it not?
Conclusion
This research investigated the relationship between trust in management, participation, communication and resistance to change. The research question was: “To what extent do
organizational culture, trust in management (both context), participation and communication (both process) influence the recipient’s resistance to change?’’ This study has not found
evidence for most of these influences (or: relationships). Only the participation motivated by the department’s management turned out to have a significant relationship with resistance to change. This study sought explanations why trust in management, participation and communication did not show a causal relationship resistance to change.
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