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Successfully managing resistance to

organizational change:

The relationship between individual readiness, group readiness, and employees’ resistance

January 20, 2014 Rick Kelderman Student number: 1771043 Bluesdreef 7 3845 BS Harderwijk tel: +316 3986 1137 email: r.kelderman@student.rug.nl

MSc. BA: Change Management Supervisor:

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1. Introduction

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often

- Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead – and find no one there

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, former American president

In today’s world technological advances, a global marketplace, and the deregulation of the marketplaces have resulted in an accelerating environmental complexity (Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder, 1993; De Meuse, Marks, & Dai, 2010; Gordon, Stewart, Sweo, & Luker, 2000; Haffar, Al-Karaghouli, & Ghoneim, 2013; Oreg & Berson, 2011). This requires organizations to change

themselves regularly in order to survive (Gordon et al., 2000). Research has shown that

organizations go through a moderate to major change at least every four to five years (Lewis, 2000). While organizations often see stability as a source to minimize risk, it actually presents them with an Achilles heel leading to organizational blindness as change is vital for survival and success (Smith & Graetz, 2011).

Even though change is essential (Madsen, John, & Miller, 2006) implementing organizational change successfully is like swimming the entire Amazon river while counting raindrops (in rainy season); extremely time consuming, never-ending, and full of potential dangers. A Greek historian once described the difficulty of managing change by saying that diseases always attack men when

they are exposed to change1. This is exactly the case in organizational change, as changes cause

deeply rooted symptoms of mismanagement to rise to the surface and become visible. Although organizational change often consists of carefully planned alterations, up to 70% of all change initiatives fail (e.g. Cartwright & Schoenberg, 2006; Hammer & Champny, 1993; Higgs and Rowland, 2000; Kotter, 1990). This high failure-rate is often due to the failure to recognize the crucial role of change recipients (e.g. Bartunek, Rousseau, Rudolph, & DePalma, 2006; Beckhard, 1969; Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2012; Hammel & Champny, 1999; Kotter, 1990). Successfully implementing change is not simply a matter of seizing the opportunity and effective planning, it is rather a process of getting all those involved and affected to accept the change process as well as the results (Coetsee, 1999).

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Recently, increased awareness is emerging concerning the crucial role of change recipients (e.g. Caldwell, Herold, & Fedor, 2004; Fugate, Kinicki & Prussia, 2008; Oreg, 2003; Rafferty & Griffin, 2006), that is, those who are affected by the change (Cawsey et al., 2012). Even though most research on successful change implementation has been conducted at the organizational level, reactions of individual change recipients are a main determinant of the extent to which change can succeed (Oreg & Berson, 2011). In order to successfully implement organizational change, individual change is needed (Band, 1995; Dunphy & Dick, 1989; Evans, 1994). If not managed properly by the change agent(s), resistance to change among individuals will have its impact on business. Therefore, reducing the resistance of individual employees is a major challenge for change agents and is arguably the most important aspect of the change process (Bovey & Hede, 2001; Judson, 1991; O’Connor, 1993).

In optimizing organizational change implementation, potential resistance needs to be tackled before it starts to develop. Change agents can do so by creating momentum, excitement and buy-in to increase individual readiness for change (Armenakis et al., 1993), and tackle potential resistance during the early stages of change implementation (e.g. Armenakis et al., 1993; Bouckenooghe, Devos, & Van den Broeck, 2009; Vakola, 2013). In extant literature readiness and resistance have most often been used interchangeably (Bouchenooghe et al., 2009), however some research argued that readiness is an important predictor of resistance (Armenakis et al., 1993; Holt, Armenakis, Field, & Harris, 2007; Schein, 1979). Therefore separating these two constructs will help to tackle

resistance before it starts to develop. To our best knowledge, current literature on the relationship between readiness and resistance has described a theoretical relationship between the two (e.g. Bouckenooghe, 2010; Desplaces, 2005; Holt et al., 2007; Vakola, 2013), but empirical evidence is lacking. By providing empirical evidence for this proposed relationship, this paper will help to refine discussions on how to implement change successfully (e.g. Armenakis et al., 1990; Kanter, 1983; Kissler, 1991); a vitality for survival and success (Smith & Graetz, 2011). As an important predictor of resistance, increasing individual readiness is argued to result in less resistance during the change process.

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Johnson, 2005) and are doomed to fail (Antoni, 2004; George & Jones, 2001).

Besides the focus on individual readiness as a result of the individual’s attitude, the influence of the individual’s subgroup in the organization gains increasingly more attention (Balogun & Johnson, 2005; Carton & Cummings, 2012). Purely focusing on individuals in isolation from the group in which he or she operates, causes research to be deficient and one-sided (Coghlan, 1984; Kuhn & Corman, 2003) as only very few individuals can resist the powerful influence of the group on its own behavior, beliefs, and values. The group tendency to treat individuals with common beliefs more positively (Stalling, 1970) often triggers an adaptation of the individual’s mindset in order to be accepted by the group. Existing literature suggest a model in which group readiness is the predictor of individual readiness, shaping its attitude through group norms (e.g. Cummings, 2004; Griffin, 1987; Macri, Tagliaventi, & Bertolotti, 2002), therefore we argue that individual readiness plays a mediating role between group readiness and individual resistance . Although research on group norms exists, its role in the readiness-resistance relationship is often ignored (Vakola, 2013). This paper tries to shed some light on this blind-spot by providing initial empirical evidence concerning the role of group readiness in the development of individual readiness and resistance.

Furthermore, the discussion on attitudes and behavior triggers researchers to argue that resistance is a self-fulfilling prophecy where change agents expect resistance to occur, and

eventually in their eyes it will (Cawsey et al., 2012). Due to this self-fulfilling prophecy caused by the mindset of the supervisor, he/she may assess his/her subordinate’s resistance significantly different than self-report would suggest. Other reasons for possible deviancies between self-report and other-report concerning behavior-related items have been discussed by Manfredo & Shelby (1988), looking at existing studies on attitude and behavior. Although some studies have shown that self-reports are reasonably accurate (e.g., Cahalan, 1968; Clark & Tifft, 1966; Clausen, 1968) Manfredo & Shelby found that self-reports resulted in different outcomes compared to more objective reports. Tittle & Hill (1967) suggested that self-reports result in higher attitude-behavior relationships, and

correspondence of self-reports to behavior was found to be problematic (Manfredo & Shelby, 1988). In order to provide a more reliable and valid measurement of resistance, within the possibilities of this research, a leader-report on the individual’s resistance will be used as a second dependent variable (Bauman & Dent, 1982; Dipboye & Flanagan, 1979; Feldman & Lynch, 1988; Mitchell, 1985). By assessing recipients’ resistance from both the perspective of the leader and the employee affected by the change, we aim to contribute to extant literature by providing a more holistic approach towards resistance.

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between readiness and resistance by analyzing extant literature and empirical data obtained from a case study (e.g., Armenakis et al., 1993; Desplaces, 2005; Holt et al., 2007). Secondly we argue that perceived group readiness plays an important role in the formation of individual readiness and resistance (e.g. Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Armenakis et al., 1993; Balogun & Johnson, 2005; Bandura, 1982; Coghlan, 1984; Kuhn & Corman, 2003; Vakola, 2013), and empirical evidence is used to support this argument. Thirdly, a more holistic view towards resistance will be provided by assessing it through both self-report and leader-report. Establishing a relationship between individual readiness, group readiness, and resistance will help to refine discussions on successful change implementations.

Below, first paragraphs will clarify two of the core constructs, individual readiness and

resistance, by discussing the similarities and differences between them. Next, we elaborate on the theoretical mechanisms that explain how and why individual readiness is argued to be an important predictor of resistance to change. Then we focus on the existence of a third core construct, group readiness, and elaborate on its proposed influence on individual readiness and resistance. After that we report the results of a study among 67 employees of a Dutch production plant developed to test our hypotheses.

H3

Group readiness for organizational change

Figure 1: Research model

Individual readiness for organizational change

Individual resistance to organizational change

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2. Literature review

2.1 Organizational change

As today’s world is becoming more and more turbulent, organizational change has become a widely discussed subject (Oreg & Berson, 2011). But what exactly is organizational change? Organizational change occurs in all kinds of forms, scopes, and volumes ranging from mergers and acquisitions to installations of new technology. According to Cawsey et al. (2012), organizational change can be described as planned alterations to improve the effectiveness of the organization. Possible components of organizational change are changes to the organizational mission and vision, strategy, goals, structure, processes or systems, technology, and the composition of personnel (Cawsey et al. 2012). Essential to notice is that even though the alterations are planned, it far from guarantees that outcomes are as intended (Balogun & Johnson, 2005). In order for change to be successful, people need to change as well. Without that it is just a rearrangement of the chairs (Bridges, 2009, p.3).

One example of a company failing on change implementation is Benetton (Bridges, 2009), a large Italian clothing firm who came up with a promising-sounding diversification plan. By neglecting the crucial psychological process of changing people, Benetton went from making a profit of $5 million to posting a loss of $31 million. Though not all mismanaged transitions turn out to be so harmful, this example shows that mismanagement of the change project can cause even highly promising plans to fail.

2.2 Individual resistance to change

Organizational changes, threatening the status quo, are bound to face resistance at different organizational levels (Bovey & Hede, 2001; Gil, 2003; Kotter & Schlesinger, 1979; Maurer, 1996; Senge, 1999), and often this resistance is the key to failure (Bovey & Hede, 2001; Judson, 1991). If not managed properly, even the best and most carefully planned organizational changes are bound to fail (Balogun & Johnson, 2005) and therefore dealing with resistance is a prerequisite for

successful change implementation.

Before progressing, it is important to note that resistance can be both functional (positive) and dysfunctional (Rivard & Lapointe, 2012). Functional resistance conveys a message about problems of the change and contributes to improving the change process, whereas dysfunctional resistance is a threat to change implementation. When talking about resistance in the progress of this paper we mean dysfunctional (negative) resistance.

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several authors have provided arguments for separating the two (Armenakis et al., 1993; Holt et al., 2007; Schein, 1979) in order to refine discussions on successful change implementation (e.g.

Armenakis et al., 1990; Kanter, 1983; Kissler, 1991). Therefore in the following paragraphs a theoretically-based separation between the two concepts will be made based on extant organizational change literature before testing it in practice.

Research on resistance to change dates back to the 1940s (e.g., Coch & French, 1948), opening doors for psychologists in the field of organizational change research. Even though resistance has been a popular subject of research ever since (Boukenooghe, 2010), a widely accepted definition still does not exist (Dent & Goldberg, 1999). As a result, in spite of the insights in the phenomenon of resistance to change that literature offers, the large pallet of definitions also has contributed to the development of misunderstandings such as mixing it up with readiness.

However, in analyzing extant literature on resistance to organizational change we have found that most definitions have one thing in common, being the behavioral aspect, or at least the

intention, to resist the change. By comparing and contrasting these definitions we found three

categories of definitions namely behavior, behavioral continuum, and intentions and attempts. Table 1 shows a global overview of the definitions of the literature on resistance to organizational change and provides sources of each of the three categories.

This overview shows that in all those definitions one word clearly jumps out: behavior. In most cases resistance is described as behavior or as a behavioral continuum in which resistance occurs in multiple forms or intensities, for example ranging from subtle acts of non-cooperation to industrial sabotage (Folger & Skarlicki, 1999). The second category shows resistance as specific sets of intentions and attempts, ranging from more passive intentions and attempts of minimizing own inputs (Joshi, 1991) and avoiding change (Enns, Huff, & Higgins, 2003), to more active examples of slowing down change implementation (del Val & Fuentes, 2003) and fighting reengineering efforts (Lee & Clark, 1996-7). The third category shows that resistance is not simply a matter of black or white; being resistant or not. Therefore it shows resistance as a continuum of different intensities (e.g. Coetsee 1999; Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002; Folger & Skarlicki, 1999), ranging from supportive behavior to passive and active forms of resistance. From existing literature we define resistance to organizational change as negative behavior, or intentions to behave negatively, regarding the

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Table 1: Overview of literature on individual resistance to change

Resistance as: Authors: Definition of resistance:

Behavior Markus (1983) Resistance as behavior intended to prevent change implementation, use of a system, or prevent system designers from achieving their objectives Marakas & Hornik

(1996)

Resistance as recalcitrant, covert behavior

Martinko, Henry, & Zmud (1996)

Resistance as wide variety of behavioral forms

Stanley, Meyer, & Topolnytsky, (2005)

Resistance as behavioral aspect of resistance versus support

Intensions and actions

Joshi (1991) Resistance as attempting to minimizing own inputs and others' outputs as well as trying to maximize others' input

Lee & Clark (1996-97)

Resistance as fighting reengeneering efforts

Bovey & Hede (2001)

"an individual’s intentions to engage in either

supportive or resistant behaviour toward organizational change" (p.375)

del Val & Fuentes (2003)

Resistance as a set of intentions and actions that slows down or hinders change implementation Enns et al. (2003) Resistance as avoidance of change (e.g. arguing,

delaying Behavioral

continuum

Coetsee (1999) Resistance as behavioral continuum ranging from apathy to aggressive resistent behavior

Folger & Skarlicki (1999)

Resistance as behavioral continuum ranging from subtle acts of non-cooperation to industrial sabotage

Herscovitch & Meyer (2002)

Resistance as behavioral continuum ranging from resistance to support

2.3 Readiness for change

In contrast to resistance that is of a behavioral nature, Armenakis et al. (1993) based their research on Lewin’s (1954) unfreezing stage of change implementation and defined individual readiness as a set of beliefs and feelings of the individual to which changes are needed, and capability of

implementation is present. A global overview of the extant literature shows that most researchers have used (an adapted version) of this definition of Armenakis et al. (e.g., Rafferty, Jimmieson, & Armenakis, 2013; Madsen et al., 2006; Desplaces, 2006; Haffar et al., 2013; Vakola, 2013;

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definition of readiness was kept intact. From this literature overview we can conclude that individual readiness is the mindset, consisting of beliefs and thoughts, that exists among employees during the implementation of organizational changes.

Table 2: Overview of literature on individual readiness for change

Readiness as: Authors: Definition of readiness Precursor of

behavior

Armenakis et al. (1993)

Beliefs and feelings of the individual to which changes are needed, and capability of implementation is present.

Backer (1995) Jansen (2000) Madsen et al. (2006) Rafferty & Simons

(2006) Bouckenooghe et al. 2009) Additional set of beliefs Armenakis & Bedeian (1999)

Expanding the first definition by adding beliefs regarding appropriateness of, support for, and value of the change

Holt et al. (2007)

Neves (2009)

Readiness as perception

Eby, Adams, Russell, & Gaby (2000)

The individual's perception of the organization's ability to implement large-scale change

successfully Positive

thoughts and beliefs

Jones et al. (2005) The extent to which an individual holds positive thoughts about the need for change, and believe that changes will benefit them personally as well as the wider organization

Kwahk & Lee (2008) Kwahk & Kim (2008)

Multilevel existence

Vakola (2013) Expanding current definitions of readiness by introducing three levels: individual readiness, group readiness, and organizational readiness

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Secondly, principal support measures to what degree recipients perceive that key organizational leaders support the change, and are there to support change recipients in making the

implementation as successful as possible, including both formal- and informal leaders (“respected peers”) (Armenakis & Harris, 2002). Leaders may show commitment by investing time, energy, and resources necessary to make the change implementation a success. If leaders are not committed to the change, one cannot expect employees to be and therefore low principal support can have a negative influence on the attitude of the individual (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).

Discrepancy is the answer to a crucial gap-analysis measuring the gap between the current state and the desired future state (Armenakis & Harris, 2002). If the answer to the question “is the change really necessary?” is negative it shows that there is no need for change, one of the essential

necessities to make the organization and its employees ready to move (Bandura, 1986; Bartunek et al., 2006; Coch & Frenh, 1948). As denial is a natural reaction for employees to any given change (Bridges, 1991), a compelling need for change needs to be communicated to the organization’s members. Leaders can do so by pointing out things that changed in the external context (e.g. economic change, scarcity of goods) and/or in the internal context (e.g. unacceptable productivity, high turnover). In order to make the organization move, one needs to convince its members that change is needed (e.g., Bandura, 1986; Bartunek et al., 2006; Coch & French, 1948; Kotter, 1995; Nadler & Tushman, 1989; Pettigrew, 1987; Rafferty & Griffin, 2006).

Appropriateness is the degree to which the individual thinks that the current change is right for dealing with the identified gap in discrepancy (Armenakis & Harris, 2002). Last decades show that often needed changes are executed in a ‘fashionable’ way, as organizational downsizing is often executed without careful diagnosis and planning (Armenakis & Harris, 2002). This fashionable way of changing negatively impacts the perceived appropriateness of the change as employees do not see that this change is the right one. Besides carefully preparing the change at the top, individuals who have not been part of the decision-making process need to be informed in a proper way to create a bigger platform for the change to be successful (Armenakis & Harris, 2002).

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discrepancy, appropriateness, principal support, efficacy, and valence form the individual’s readiness for change.

2.4 Individual readiness for change versus resistance to change

Of course, change can occur under conditions of low readiness however behavioral science suggests that higher levels of readiness lead to higher probability of success (Backer, 1995). In several

conceptual frameworks (e.g. Armenakis et al., 1993; Backer, 1995; Desplaces, 2005; Holt et al., 2007; Rafferty et al., 2013) individual readiness for change, being the individual’s beliefs and feelings, has been labelled as the most important predictor of supportive or resistant behavior in any kind of form and intensity. A first argument for the expected negative relationship between readiness for change and resistance stems from the social psychology literature, where research has shown that people immediately appreciate situations in terms of positive or negative attitudes (Ajzen, 1991). For example, in case of an upcoming organizational change all different attributes of change are immediately valued positively or negatively by the self, and an attitude towards the change is formed automatically (Ajzen, 1991). According to the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), individuals make conscious decisions to engage in a certain behavior triggered by their personal attitude. This logic, when applied to organizational change settings in which individuals

automatically form an attitude towards the proposed change, provides evidence for arguing that individual’s with a more positive attitude towards change are expected to have less resistant during the change process.

A second argument for the expected negative relationship between readiness for change and resistance stems from organizational change literature, linking the components of readiness to resistance. First of all, Bandura (1977) states that individuals form motivators of behavior through cognitive representation of the change’s outcomes. A link between this representation and behavior is argued by Desplaces (2005) suggesting that a positive cognitive representation should allow the

individual to embrace change by adopting new behaviors (Desplaces, 2005, p.32). According to

Desplaces (2005), this cognitive representation is especially linked to efficacy however the formation of valence is also based on the outcomes of a certain organizational change (Armenakis & Harris, 2002; Armenakis et al., 2007). The negative relationship between valence and resistance is

supported by Armenakis et al. (2007), arguing that resistance is likely when organizational changes do not reveal any added-value to the members of the change target. Secondly, high levels

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(Armenakis & Harris, 2002). Thirdly, social learning theory (Bandura, 1986) posits that individuals sense the levels of support throughout the organization through their interpersonal networks. Perceived principal support, the fifth component of individual readiness (Armenakis & Harris, 2002), can influence whether or not the change initiative will be embraced by the individual (Armenakis et al., 2007). If leaders and/or respected peers do not embrace the change, do not “walk the talk”, or change efforts have been abandoned in the past, change recipients will be less willing to support the change (Armenakis & Harris, 2002; Armenakis et al., 2007). Therefore, since organizational change literature as well as social psychology literature shows that individual readiness for change and resistance are negatively related (Ajzen, 1991, Armenakis et al., 2007; Backer, 1995; Desplaces, 2005; Holt et al., 2007), we argue that individual readiness for change is a negative predictor of resistance to change.

As literature suggests differences in perceptions of resistance (Bauman & Dent, 1982; Dipboye & Flanagan, 1979; Feldman & Lynch, 1988; Manfredo & Shelby, 1988; Mitchell, 1985), the influence of individual readiness will be tested for both resistance as self-report and as leader-report separately. Even though Tittle & Hill (1967) suggest that higher correlations are to be expected for resistance as self-report (Tittle & Hill, 1967), extant literature does not provide solid arguments to expect that the relationship in H1a would differ from H1b.

Hypotheses set 1:

1a. Individual readiness for organizational change is a negative predictor of individual resistance as self-report

1b. Individual readiness for organizational change is a negative predictor of individual resistance as leader-report

2.5 Group readiness

Research on the formation of individual beliefs and attitudes has shown that the role of the group or network is of great importance (Battilana & Casciaro, 2013; Coghlan, 1984; Carton & Cummings, 2012; Prasad & Prasad, 2000). This is especially the case as organizations have been organizing their work more and more around teams in the past decade (Carton & Cummings, 2012). Therefore, besides focusing on the relationship between individual readiness and individual resistance, a second focus will be on the role of group readiness in the relationship between individual readiness and individual resistance. This group readiness comprises a group’s attitude emerging from the

cognitions and affects of individuals that become shared because of social interaction processes

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A first reason why we expect that group readiness can be expected to affect individual readiness lays in organization change literature on the role of inter-recipient sensemaking (Balogun & Johnson, 2005). As organizational change causes surprise (Balogun & Johnson, 2005), change recipients start to act in a more conscious sensemaking mode (Brown 2000; Johnson, Smith, & Codling, 2000). In this social process of sensemaking individuals exchange stories and past experiences, engage in gossip and negotiations, seek information, take note of signs and signals, in order to give meaning to the change (Isabella 1990; Gioia & Chittipeddi 1991; Gioia, Thomas, Clark, & Chittipeddi, 1994; Gioia & Thomas 1996; Poole, Gioia, & Gray, 1989; Labianca, Gray, & Brass, 2000). Through these inter-recipient processes, often within their work group, individuals shape their interpretations of the change (Balogun & Johnson, 2005). As individual interpretations form the attitude (Ajzen, 1991), we argue that this inter-recipient sensemaking related to the change causes group readiness to

influences the individual readiness.

A second reason to expect group readiness as a predictor of individual readiness can be found in consumer research literature on the role of social comparison and normative mechanisms on individual attitudes (e.g., Boster & Cruz, 2002; Festinger, 1950). Paying attention to group

interactions allows for unique predictions on how attitudes shift through social influence (Duhackek, Zhang, & Krishnan, 2007). As consumer research showed that consumers seek advice or refer to the opinion of group members in forming their own judgments regarding a product (Duhackek et al., 2007). This information, obtained through social comparison (Festinger, 1950) and normative mechanisms (Boster & Cruz, 2002), influences individual attitude by shifting attitude in the direction

of others with whom the individuals share ties (Duhackek et al., 2007, p.396). However, even

anticipated group interaction was shown to influence people’s attitude (Augustinova, Oberle, & Stasser 2005; Schlosser & Shavitt 2002). Therefore it shows that people’s attitude are changed through group interaction, but also through expectations of future group interactions. Applying this logic to organizational change settings triggers us to argue that people’s attitude towards the change are highly influenced by the attitude (readiness) of the group. The influence of anticipated group interactions shows us that this relationship between group readiness and individual readiness also exists in situations of limited information sharing between the group and the individual.

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the beliefs on bullying among students (Henry, 2001). Henry found that the student’s individual beliefs about the acceptability of bullying were influenced by the overall beliefs of the group. Secondly, research on absence norms , shared understandings and beliefs regarding absence

(Rentsch & Steel, 2003), showed that the group’s absences norm significantly influenced the attitude of its individual members (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Thirdly, Poteat & Spanierman (2010) found that peer group ideological beliefs were highly predictive of the racist and homophobic attitudes of its group members. Additionally, their research showed that ideological beliefs of the group influenced individual attitude more than the individual’s own ideological views did.

This holistic approach of using evidence from different subjects of research has provided us with evidence for arguing that a group’s attitude is a positive predictor of its members’ attitude (e.g., Boster & Cruz, 2002; Duhackek et al., 2007; Festinger, 1950; Henry, 2001; Lewin, 1943; Lewin, 1965; Poteat & Spanierman, 2010; Schlosser & Shavitt 2002). As group readiness and individual readiness comprise their respective attitude, we argue that group readiness is a positive predictor of individual readiness.

Hypotheses set 2

2. Group readiness for organizational change is a positive predictor of individual readiness

In addition to the influence of group readiness on individual readiness, extant literature on organizational change as well as on social psychology shows evidence for a direct relationship between group readiness and resistance. An argument for this relationship was found in the role of the subjective norm (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), reflecting the social pressure on the individual’s decision whether or not to perform the behavior (Vakola, 2013). Social norms are informal rules on behavior to which members of the group are required to comply to (Teraji, 2013), forming

expectations of what “ought to” happen (McGrath, 1984). These group norms, although often one of the least visible, are among the most powerful forms of control over individual behavior as

individuals implement the expectations of what ought to happen into their own actions

(Bettenhausen & Munnighan, 1985). Research has proven that social norms even direct individuals to undertaking actions that are inconsistent with selfish behavior (Teraji, 2013). As social norms are informal rules and formal sanctions for its violation do not exist, norm compliance works through several distinct mechanisms (Ehrhart & Naumann, 2004; Martinez, Fiorito, & Ferris, 2011; Teraji, 2013).

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decentralized punishment (e.g., punishment carried out by individuals without the intervention of a central authority) has a positive effect on norm compliance (Tejari, 2013). Secondly, individuals who perceive that the group as a whole forms a positive attitude towards a certain behavior (e.g., resistance) are more likely to engage in similar behavior as the heuristic “social proof” saves them

time and energy and identifies the behavior with a high likelihood of successs (Ehrhart & Naumann,

2004). This indicates that following group norms is chosen as it is the easiest, fastest, and safest way to behave. Thirdly, early work on the influence of groups (Mayo, 1933) found that individuals do not act according to group norms simply because of above two mechanisms of group pressure, but also act in natural solidarity with their coworkers. Consistent with this insight, it is assumed that the need

to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation (Baumeister & Leary,

1995, p. 497). Martinez et al. (2011) tested this assumption in a union certification election. Findings indeed showed that group attitudes toward unions accounted significantly for individual voting behavior.

As evidence suggests that individuals act in a certain way through the influence of their group norms and attitudes, we argue that group readiness and individual resistance are two related constructs. Although we argue that group readiness is related to resistance, research has shown that all activities, even the most collective, are the result of actions by individuals (Soumyaja,

Kamalanabhan, & Bhattacharrya, 2011). This formation of resistance through the individual attitude is supported by the theory of planned behavior by Ajzen (1991), stating that individuals make conscious decisions based on their personal attitude. By comparing extant literature on the relationship between individual readiness and resistance, and between group readiness and individual readiness, we argue that the relationship between group readiness and individual resistance is mediated by individual readiness.

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3a. Individual readiness for change acts as a mediator between group readiness and individual resistance as self-report

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3. Methodology

3.1 Organizational context

AutoCo2, founded in 1923 in the Netherlands, has established its reputation in the automotive industry and over the years it acquired a strong position in the market of exhaust production and distribution. The initially family-owned Dutch organization grew rapidly to a revenue of about €800 million in 2011, and with over 30 plants all across the world its portfolio of clients is impressive. However, this rapid international expansion posed a threat to its “power to the plant” attitude in which plants all over the world had the freedom of doing business autonomously. This silo-construction led to decentralized decision making, but was also the reason behind increasing cost redundancy. In order to reduce these costs, a more centralized decision-making culture was implemented. As economies of scale began to emerge, new threats arose: AutoCo had become a bureaucratic entity where even the purchase of coffee mucks had to be signed by the new CEO. Over the years, AutoCo Netherlands (AutoCo NL) had become the worst performing plant of its group. As total shutdown of its business was menacing, AutoCo NL started to change drastically into becoming a more professional and profiting business. As it acquired the rights to develop and produce a highly-innovative product, a cultural change was needed. Starting off from a highly control-based plant, the ‘new AutoCo’ was supposed to be characterized by autonomy and

accountability for its employees. This organizational change, the planned alteration of its position in the competing values framework (Quinn, 1991), brought along a difficult period of getting

employees in motion.

3.2 Procedure

This questionnaire was part of a research at AutoCo on improving its employees’ readiness, as all employees were asked to participate by the management team and their respective supervisors. Our research was introduced during a monthly meeting with all employees of AutoCo. In getting to know the what’s, why’s and how’s of this organizational change the whole extended management team (MT), existing off 11 managers, was interviewed. The main purpose of these interviews of about one hour was to get a good understanding of the change itself. Examples of changes provided by these interviews (e.g. increased autonomy, increased professionalism) were used as examples in the introduction of the questionnaire. The introduction further explained the goal of the research and ensured confidentiality.

Each employee was asked to fill in questions related to individual readiness, group readiness,

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individual resistance, and demographics like age, sex, and tenure. Besides these questions, supervisors were asked to fill in an extra set of questions concerning the resistance of their subordinates. As all questionnaires were coded in order to ensure confidentiality. By means of a code the names listed by the supervisors could be traced back by the researchers to self-reports of resistance. By having two reports on individual resistance, self-report and leader-report, we tried to overcome potential social desirability problems of questionnaires purely based on self-report as well as mono-method bias. For example, research has shown that respondents are often unwilling to admit sensitive behaviors like resistance (Bauman & Dent, 1982). Therefore supervisors have been asked to fill in several extra questions relating to the behavior of their subordinates.

The employees were given a maximum time of one week to hand in the questionnaires. The researchers were present the whole week to provide employees the opportunity to hand in the questionnaire personally or they could use a box located at the reception to hand in their questionnaire.

3.3 Sample

From the 97 respondents, 80 returned their questionnaires (response rate of 82%). 7 cases were deleted because of exceeding the threshold of more than 10% missing data (Hair et al., 2010). After listwise deletion of missing values, the final complete employee dataset consisted of 67 cases. Of the 67 employees, 7 respondents were female (11%) and 60 were male. Of these 67 respondents, 16 were supervisors (24%). In total, 46 respondents have been assessed by their supervisors (69%). The age of the respondents ranged from 26 to 64 (M = 45.4, SD = 8.8 ) and their average tenure was 11.2 years (SD = 8.3).

3.4 Measures

Individual readiness was measured through 16 (see appendix 1) itemsof the original 24 items from the Organizational Change Recipients Beliefs Scale (OCRBS) from Armenakis et al. (2007). Selecting these 16 items, as it was necessary to make the questionnaire as accessible as possible, was based on items scoring the highest on factor loadings presented in the original article. All questions were measured on a five-point scale ranging from definitely not (1) to definitely yes (5). In meeting statistical requirements for a representative factor analysis, each item was checked on its measure of sampling adequacy (MSA); a measure to quantify the appropriateness of factor analysis (Hair et

al., 2010 p.102). Items with MSA scores below .50 are unacceptable (Kaiser, 1970; Kaiser, 1974) and

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measured through 7 items (see table 3) from appropriateness, personal valence, and efficacy (e.g.,

Are the changes good for you?). The Cronbach’s α for individual readiness was .91.

Perceived group readiness was measured with 12 items (see appendix 1) identical to the items

belonging to individual readiness, though adapted to group readiness instead of individual readiness. According to Vakola et al. (2013) only three categories of readiness are relevant in group readiness, and therefore the non-applicable categories (appropriateness and principal support) were left out of the research. For efficacy we used the same questions twice, once on efficacy concerning their immediate colleagues and once for AutoCo as a whole. Therefore resulting in a total of 12 items. The questions were measured using a five-point scale ranging from definitely not (1) to definitely yes (5). In this research, the group’s readiness for change has been measured according to the perception of the individual. Measuring group readiness by using the individual’s perception of group readiness is allowed considering Thomas Theorem, as it’s the individual’s perception that makes it real for them (Thomas & Thomas, 1928). Identical to the individual readiness scale, group readiness was tested on MSA and communalities in order to meet statistical requirements (Hair et al., 2010). Therefore, group readiness was measured through 7 items of efficacy and valence (e.g., Are the changes good

for your team?). The Cronbach’s α for group readiness was .91. The independent variables group readiness and individual readiness were analyzed in one factor analysis simultaneously, separated

from the dependent variables. Mixing independent and dependent variables in one factor analysis is inappropriate (Hair et al., 2010).

Individual resistance as self-report was measured with 6 items (appendix 1) from the

DINAMO-scale (Metselaar, 1997) and 4 items from Bovey & Hede (2001). These items were also rated along a five-point scale ranging from never (1) to always (5). One item was deleted due to inconsistencies in the question itself. Individual resistance as self-report was measured through 5 items (e.g., Do you

support the change?) meeting the statistical requirements described above. The Cronbach’s α for

resistance as self-report was .86.

Individual resistance as leader-report was measured with 5 items (appendix 1) from the

DINAMO-scale (Metselaar, 1997) and 2 items from Bovey & Hede (2001), rated along the same 5-point scale as self-report. In meeting the statistical requirements for a factor analysis 3 items were deleted. Therefore individual resistance as leader-report, measured through 4 items (e.g., Does

he/she support the change?), showed a Cronbach’s α of .88. The two dependent variables resistance as self-report and resistance as leader-report were analyzed in separate factor analyses as

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An extra check on factor loadings, including both types of resistance reports, showed that report and leader-report loaded on different components. Therefore it shows that resistance as self-report cannot simply be replaced or mixed-up with resistance as leader-self-report.

Table 3: Rotated Component Matrix

Component

1 2 3 4

Individual readiness for change

1. Will the changes from [this] to [that] have favorable effect on our operations?

.77

2. Are the changes correct for this situation? .71

3. Are the changes appropriate for the organization? .81 4. Can you successfully implement this change in your job? .73 5. Will the change from [this] to [that] benefit you? .91 6. Will you experience more self-fulfillment with this change in your

job?

.87

7. Will these changes increase your feelings of accomplishment? .80

Group readiness for change

1. Can your colleagues successfully execute their jobs after the change?

.71

2. Do your colleagues have faith in making the change a success? .88

3. Do your colleagues think that AutoCo can implement the change successfully? .83 4. Do your colleagues think that AutoCo will be able to operate successfully after the change? .79 5. Do your colleagues think that the changes will benefit them? .79

6. Will your colleagues experience more self-fulfillment with this change? .72 7. Will your colleagues accomplish more with this change? .74

Individual resistance to change (self-report) 1. Do you put energy in the change? .80

2. Do you support the change? .87

3. Do you feel part of the change? .87

4. Do you accept the change? .81

5. Do you take initiative during the change? .72

Individual resistance to change (leader-report)* 1. Does the respondent take initiative? .88

2. Does the respondent actively take part in the change? .82

3. Does the respondent place himself/herself in the background? .83

4. Does the respondent support the change? .85

Eigenvalue 8.60 2.30 3.33 3.32

Percentage of total variance 50.85 13.53 66.61 66.39

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3.5 Data analysis

In order to test the relationship between individual readiness, group readiness, and individual resistance we used multiple regression analyses. As resistance was measured in different ways, two separate analyses have been conducted; one for resistance as self-report and one for resistance as leader-report. Testing H1, with self-report and leader-report resistance as dependent variables, included two demographic control variables (age, tenure). Gender was not used as a control variable in this case as the distribution of this variable made it inappropriate for regression (Hair et al., 2010). After controlling for age and tenure, individual readiness was included to test the relationship between individual readiness and individual resistance.

In testing H2, individual readiness was used as dependent variable. The same control variables were included (age, tenure) and group readiness was included in the second step to test the relationship between group readiness and individual readiness.

For testing the proposed mediation in H3, Baron & Kenny (1986) was used to conduct a four-step approach for each type of resistance including the same control variables. The first of these four steps examined the relationship between the independent variable (group readiness) and the dependent variable being resistance. A second step tested the relationship between the

independent variable and the proposed mediator (individual readiness), whereas step three tested the relationship between the mediator and the dependent variable. The fourth and final step tested the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable when controlled by the mediator.

In most cases, the major objective of testing hypotheses is deciding the direction of the relationship (Chow, 1988; Frick, 1996; Harris, 1997; Turkey, 1991), as it is in this case (e.g., the negative relationship between individual readiness and resistance). Whereas traditional two-tailed tests are most used and provide evidence for deciding whether a relationship exists, it does not provide evidence for testing the direction of the relationship (Leventhal, 1999). Therefore

“directional two-tailed tests” (Kaiser, 1960, p164) provide an outcome, stating that α/2 can be used as a threshold when a direction is expected. Even though traditional two-tailed statistics were used as default, directional two-tailed tests were used in cases where α was only marginally deviant from .05 (marked by a triple asterisks).

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4. Results

4.1 Correlations and descriptive statistics

Table 5 shows the means, standard deviations, and Pearson correlations of the variables in this research. As expected, individual readiness was positively related to group readiness (r = .61, p < 0.01) and negatively related with resistance as self-report (r = -.80, p < .01). As predicted, there was also a negative relationship between individual readiness and resistance as leader-report (r = -.41, p < 0.01). Group readiness was negatively related with resistance as self-report (r = -.61, p < 0.01) though not with resistance as leader-report (r = -.24, n.s). Results furthermore showed that resistance as self-report is positively related to resistance as leader-report (r = .34, p < .05). Remarkably, though hardly surprising, the mean for individual resistance as self-report (2.13) is lower than resistance as leader-report (2.97). As it was not relevant for this research, no statistical tests were conducted to test the significance of this difference.

Looking at the control variables age (M = 45.41, SD = 8.84) and tenure (M = 11.20, SD = 8.28) we see that they were not correlated with any of the independent and/or dependent variables in this research. They did however correlate with each other significantly (r = .41, p < .01), indicating that there is a positive relationship between age and tenure.

Table 4: Means, standard deviations, and correlations of variables

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5

1. Individual readinessa 3.72 .72

2. Group readinessa 3.52 .62 .61**

3. Individual Resistance (leader-report)b 2.97 .91 -.41**

-.24

4. Individual resistance (self-report)a 2.13 .68 -.80**

-.61** .34* 5. Agec 45.41 8.84 -.11 .18 .43**

.04 6. Tenurec 11.20 8.28 .01 .19 .24 .00 .41**

Note: a. N=73, b. N=47, c. N=69, *p<.05, **p<.01

4.2 Testing the hypotheses

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Table 5 shows the multiple regression analysis between group readiness and individual readiness. After controlling for age and tenure in step 1, group readiness seemed to be positively related to individual readiness (b = .39, t = 4.92, p < .01). Therefore we can accept H2 in describing group readiness as a positive predictor of individual readiness.

H3 was tested using Baron & Kenny’s (1986) four-step approach on mediation. The first requirement for mediation, the relationship between group readiness and resistance (table 7), is met for self-report (b = -.37, t = -5.05, p < .01) as well as for leader-self-report (b = -.24, t = -1.79, p < .05)3. The relationship between group readiness and individual readiness found in H2 meets the second requirement, whereas H1 meets requirement three by showing a significant relationship between individual readiness and resistance as self-report and leader-report. Table 7 shows that the direct relationship between group readiness and resistance as self-report is reduced when controlled by individual readiness but is still significant (b = -.13, t = -2.02, p < .05). Therefore partial mediation has been proven for H3a (Baron & Kenny, 1986).

Table 7 shows that after being controlled by individual readiness, group readiness shows no significant direct relationship with resistance as leader-report (b = -.06, t = -.41, n.s), therefore full mediation is proven for H3b (Baron & Kenny, 1986).

3

α/2 was used as threshold (Kaiser, 1960)

Table 5: Regression analysis of group readiness on individual readiness

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Table 6: Regression analysis of individual readiness on resistance as self-report and leader-report

Resistance as self-reporta Resistance as leader-reportb

Step Variable 1 2 1 2 1 Age .03 -.03 .39** .31* Tenure -.01 .02 .13 .16 2 Individual readiness -.52** -.33* R2 .00 .57** .20** .31* ∆R2 .00 .57** .20** .11* Note: a. N=69, b. N=47. *p<.05, **p<.01

Table 7: Regression analysis of group- and individual readiness on resistance as self-report and leader-report

Resistance as self-reporta Resistance as leader-reportb

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5. Discussion and conclusions

5.1 Summary of main findings

The purpose of this research was to shine a light on the complexity of organizational change implementation with a focus on resistance to-, and readiness for change by establishing a

relationship between individual readiness, group readiness, and individual resistance. As conceptual frameworks already suggested a distinction between the two exist, we have tried to find empirical evidence to match these suggestions. Based on existing literature we expected that an increase in individual readiness results in a decrease in individual resistance (Armenakis et al., 1993; Holt et al., 2007; Schein, 1979). Whereas individual readiness was suggested to be an important precursor of resistance, it was expected to be a function of perceived group readiness itself. This expectation was based on extant organizational change literature (e.g., Balogun & Johnson, 2005), consumer

research literature (e.g., Boster & Cruz, 2002; Festinger, 1950), and social psychology literature (e.g., Henry, 2001; Rentsch & Steel, 2003). Besides these ‘simple’ relationships, we expected to find a mediating role for individual readiness in the relationship between group readiness and individual resistance based on extant both organizational change literature and social psychology literature (e.g., Bettenhausen & Munnighan, 1985; Teraji, 2013; Vakola, 2013).

Empirical evidence has provided evidence for accepting the first two hypotheses, establishing a negative relationship between individual readiness and individual resistance, and a positive

relationship between group readiness and individual readiness. Even though it was argued otherwise (e.g., Avolio et al., 1991; Bauman & Dent, 1982; Manfredo & Shelby, 1988; Tittle & Hill, 1967), the proposed attitude-behavior relationship of H1 did not differ between both reports of resistance as individual readiness showed to be negatively related to both resistance as self-report and resistance as leader-report. However, research did show deviancies in the mediating role of individual

readiness. Whereas the relationship between group readiness and resistance as self-report turned out to be partially mediated by individual readiness, full mediation by individual readiness was suggested between group readiness and resistance as leader-report. Even though these outcomes slightly differ, results suggest that group readiness plays an important role in the formation of individual readiness and therefore in the formation of resistance as well.

5.2 Strengths and weaknesses

The main strength of this research is the multi-dimensional view on resistance. Research has shown that self-reports may influence the findings, especially in attitude-behavior relationships (Tittle & Hill, 1967) by halo effect (Avolio et al., 1991). Halo effect represents artifactual results instead of the “real” truth. The halo effect occurs because the respondent uses a common set of rules or

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Flanagan, 1979; Feldman & Lynch, 1988; Mitchell, 1985) and therefore the use of more objective measures is supported. Besides that, validity is of a particular concern when respondents are asked to fill in questions concerning sensitive behavior (e.g., resistance), because they are often unwilling to admit such behavior (Bauman & Dent, 1982). In this case it could be very well possible for respondents to rate themselves as less resistant than others would rate them. Therefore, adding resistance as leader-report provides a more holistic view on the relationship between readiness and resistance.

A second strength of this research is that by using articles from different fields of research (e.g., organizational change literature, social psychology literature, consumer research literature) we provide a more holistic view on the relationship between the three core constructs of this research. One of the weaknesses of this research is rooted in the selection of items related to all three constructs. Partly due to lower educated employees we were urged to keep the questionnaire as accessible as possible, thereby limiting the time necessary to fill in the questionnaire as shortening the questionnaire was proven to have a significant positive effect on the response rate (Lockhart, 1990). Even though items were selected systematically, based on factor loadings in the original research, deletion of items could have influenced our findings. Taking the readiness scale as an example, deleting some specific aspects of readiness could have been missed. One of the deleted questions on readiness was related to whether the recipient would earn a higher pay after the change, which measures a very specific type of personal valence. However, in this case this question was irrelevant as pay rates would not change.

A second weakness lays in the low response on leader-report of resistance. It turned out that only 66% of the respondents were assessed by their supervisors, resulting in an N of 46. This means that regression was conducted on a lower N for leader-report which could have influenced the results as such. Furthermore it seems that part of the respondents filled in the questionnaire at work, simultaneously with their colleagues. This might have reduced the variety of answers as people could have discussed questions and filled in the same answers.

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explaining our research might have prevented these reactions.

A last potential weakness of this research is related to the number of respondents used in this research, resulting in a final dataset of 67 cases from one and the same organization. Being sufficient for further analysis (Hair et al., 2010), a larger sample size could possibly make the findings more reliable and less case-specific, although our results seem to be very robust.

5.3 Theoretical and practical implications

First of all, this paper contributes to existing theoretical and practical knowledge in separating individual readiness for change and individual resistance to change. Our global overview of extant literature shows that there is a strong common definition for individual readiness, as being the mindset/attitude of the individual concerning the change. Whereas resistance is behavior, or the intention to behave, negatively towards the change. To our best knowledge, this research was the first to conduct empirical research on the relationship between the two. This theoretical and practical separation of the two constructs helps to refine discussions on how to successfully implement change, as readiness can be improved in order to reduce resistance. Failure in early stages of change implementation, the unfreezing stage (Lewin, 1947), will harm business through individual resistance to change. Therefore these findings imply that readiness and resistance should always be analyzed as separate constructs.

Resistance has often been treated as unreasonable obstacles formed by unwilling or stubborn employees (Cawsey et al., 2012; Dent & Goldberg, 1999; Ford, Ford, & D’Amelio, 2008; Klein, 1976), in which change agents are assumed as the victims of recipients’ obstructive and dismissive

reactions. The results of this research imply that change agents should not be seen as harmless victims of resistance, but rather as (partial) contributors to resistance. Our findings suggest that their actions and/or inactions during the process of readiness creation influence the levels of resistant behavior of their employees.

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note that group norms, and therefore group readiness, are hard to change once they are established (Vakola, 2013), and therefore it requires attention in the earliest stages of change

implementation/preparation. Ignoring or neglecting group readiness in the early stages of the implementation, may cause it to backfire resulting in increased resistance later on in the change process.

Lastly, this research does contribute to authors questioning the use of self-reports in attitude-behavior relationships. Just like Manfredo & Shelby (1988) our findings question the reliability of relying solely on self-reports. Even though self-report and leader-report reflected the same relationships in the first two hypotheses, the more complex model of a mediated relationship showed a different outcome for resistance as self-report than it did for leader-report. Therefore the results between resistance as self-report and resistance as leader-report imply that future research should always try to overcome a reliance on self-reports by adding a second measure of behavior. In doing so, false representations of relationships can be prevented.

5.4 Limitations and directions for future research

A first limitation of this paper is the fact that due to limitation of time and resources this research has been conducted at one organization only. Especially due to the stable history of the organization that this research was conducted in, it could be very well possible that the exact same research would bring different results when conducted at another organization. Executing the exact same research in an organizational which is more experienced in implementing organizational changes could also alter the outcomes. It seems plausible that organizations with more experience concerning organizational changes would respond higher on individual and group readiness, and lower on resistance as being part of an organizational change process becomes more natural to them. As people become used to changes, anxiety is reduced and change becomes more like a second nature to them. Therefore, it seems plausible that countries differing significantly on uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede, 1980) would provide different results. One component of readiness which seems most vulnerable for change experience is efficacy, as arguably the sense of efficacy would increase once the individuals have experienced change and anxiety is thereby reduced.

Furthermore, it turned out that the role of the group was of great importance in the

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readiness, and between group readiness and individual resistance. As an example, personal

experience shows that the role of the group is of greater importance in a country like Indonesia than it is in France. It seems plausible that the exact same research in an Indonesian organization would result in higher correlations between group readiness and the other two constructs than it would in a French organization.

Furthermore, the generalizability of this research is questionable as the respondents consisted of a largely homogeneous group largely consisting of male employees (89%). Differences in attitude-behavior relationships between gender were found in a case of research on organ donation (Mohs & Hübner, 2013). Even though female respondents showed higher positive attitudes, a stronger attitude-behavior relationship was found for male respondents. These findings could indicate that a group consisting of 50% male and 50% female employees would result in weaker relationships between group readiness and resistance, and between individual readiness and resistance.

All in all, we stimulate further research using the same measures at different organizational and demographic contexts to further test the generalizability of the findings, and hope that more enlightening results will come. Besides doing the same research at (a) different organization(s), conducting a longitudinal study would be able to test if the relationships between individual

readiness, group readiness, and resistance would remain the same during different phases of change implementation. For example, one could argue that the role of the group is more significant in initial phases of change implementation in which individuals refer to their group in order to seek

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