“The effect of organizational culture and agent-recipient interaction on the degree of recipient readiness for change projects: Towards a more universally applicable recipient readiness framework”

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“The effect of organizational culture and agent-recipient

interaction on the degree of recipient readiness for change

projects: Towards a more universally applicable recipient

readiness framework”

By Julian Mathies Student number: S1748334

University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business

Master BA, Change Management

Master International Business and Management Petrus Campersingel 255

9713 AR Groningen Groningen, The Netherlands

Telephone: 0626782830

Supervisor: Dr. J.F.J. Vos, Dr. R.W. de Vries

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“The effect of organizational culture and agent-recipient interaction on the degree of recipient readiness for change projects: Towards a more universally applicable recipient readiness framework”

Abstract

This qualitative research examined the effect of organizational culture, in terms of motivation of employees and trust of employees in the change agents, and agent-recipient interaction, in terms of communication between agents and recipients and participation of recipients in the change process, on the degree of recipient readiness for organizational change projects. The investigation of the relationships was conducted through examining case studies of 8 planned change projects in 4 countries. 5 change agents participated in 7 semi-structured interviews. First the data analysis was performed at the level of each case. Afterwards the findings were presented and the two sub questions were answered. Then the main research question was answered. The findings reveal that organizational culture, in terms of motivation of employees and trust of employees in the change agents, and agent-recipient interaction, in terms of communication between agents and recipients and participation of recipients in the change process increased the degree of recipient readiness for all 8 projects. A major implication for practice is that this research enables managers to understand the importance of an

organizational culture of trust and motivation and to understand the importance of agent-recipient interaction through communicating with agent-recipients and agent-recipient participation for creating a higher degree of recipient readiness for change projects. A major implication for theory is the developed framework which can be used as a solid foundation for ultimately developing a more universally applicable recipient readiness framework for change projects

Key words: Organizational culture, trust, motivation, agent-recipient interaction,

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1 Introduction

Today’s organizations are exposed to a constantly changing business environment, creating many possibilities for business, but also potential threats to the organization. Vakola (2013) states that in the modern business world of today, the capability of the organization to change is driving the growth of the organization. Change taking place in firms, is very typical in the work environment of today. Firms are struggling to deal with the deregulation of markets, and the increased complexity of the business environment (De Meuse, Marks & Dai, 2010). Globalization erases the boundaries between international and domestic markets as organizations expand their international presence in different markets, and globalization increases market opportunities but also competition (Knight, 2000). Therefore, due to these complex environments that firms are operating in, they need to change themselves so that their survival is guaranteed (Gordon, Stewart, Sweo & Luker, 2000). One prominent example of a major organizational change is the recent successful implementation of an expensive ERP system that the Fortune 500 company Bombardier Aerospace conducted at the Saint Laurent plant, costing the company millions of dollars (Aubert, Bourdeau & Walker, 2012). Successful organizational change is not common, and Elrod and Tippet (2002) state that producing organizational change is complex, and change attempts often fail, which is backed up by Quinn (2004) who states that roughly 50% of change efforts are failures, and By (2005), Isern and Pung (2007) state that failure rates of change initiatives vary from 40 % to 70%. Since companies engage in changes every 4 to 5 years according to Lewis (2000), it is clear that it is a necessity in today’s business world. This shows that organizational change is a topic that is very up to date.

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neglected more people issues (Nikolaou, 2007). Additionally Burnes (2004) states there might be a lack of a universally applicable framework regarding implementation and the management of change in firms, stating that current research approaches are contradicting and confusing. Therefore this research aims to make an attempt to produce a clear conceptual change readiness framework to enable change managers to ultimately create recipient readiness for change in a broad setting of industries, organizations and national settings, answering the call of Burns (2004) for a more universally applicable model of producing organizational change. A more universally applicable change readiness model should help change agents in different countries, at different companies, operating in different industries to more effectively produce recipient readiness of organizational change, the neglected people issue that although carried out frequently in organizations is prone to high failure rates. Through a better understanding of how to more effectively create recipient readiness for organizational change, an attempt can be made by change agents to ultimately increase the success of change initiatives due to a higher readiness of recipients for the change.

The variety of change projects in the various countries examined in this research is

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45 % plan to increase the number” Black, Steward and Gergesene, (1999). Dowling, Fasting and Engle (2008, p. 9) state referring to the 2006 World investment report, there are 77000 transnational corporations, employing 62 million workers, and when comparing this to the 24 million workers employed globally in 1990, the increase of globalization and its impact on the workforce is undeniable. When one accepts that change is an inevitable process in organizations, that organizations are constantly changing, and that the world is a global and interconnected marketplace, it stands to reason that individuals of different national backgrounds will find themselves working and facing change in organizations which are not operating in their domestic market. This means that change managers can be faced with leading change projects in different countries, facing different organizational cultures, so a better understanding of how to create recipient readiness should enable them to better manage the people issue of creating recipient readiness for organizational change and to therefore also answer the call for more internationally capable managers.

The research gap that this paper is going to address consists of two core elements; one being that the change agent-change recipient interaction and its impact on creating recipient readiness for change projects has not been extensively researched. Secondly the effect of organizational culture on producing recipient readiness for a change projects has not been extensively researched. A few academics focus their research at either the change agent (Higgs and Rowland, 2011; Armenakis et al., 1993) or at the change recipient (Oreg, 2006; Bouckenooghe, 2010). The general view is that the change agent is making the change happen (Higgs and Rowland, 2011), and the recipient is conforming to the change (Ford, Ford & D’Amelio, 2008). This shows that agents and recipients interact with each other during organizational change. When accepting that organizational change is a process that involves both the recipient and the agent (Sonenshein, 2010), there are not many studies focusing on the interaction of agents and recipients. Therefore this paper argues that examining the interaction between agents and recipients is helpful to understand how it creates recipient readiness for organizational change.

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organizational culture have an effect on effectiveness of organizational change projects. This shows that the effect of culture on change effectiveness has not been researched extensively. Secondly, Armenakis et al. (1993) stress that readiness for organizational change is not researched as extensively as resistance to organizational change. They make apparent in their research that the beliefs and values of individuals make up the concept of readiness for change. Since recent research of Janicevic (2012) still calls for examining what effect organizational culture has on organizational change projects, this gap that Armenakis et al. (1993) identified 21 years ago is still existent. Showing that the influence of organizational culture on change readiness is an area that up to date has not been examined much. Janicijevic (2012) states in his research paper that it is necessary in fact to research the effect organizational culture has on organizational change processes, since “there is a theoretical basis for the assumption that organizational culture is one of the factors in selecting organizational change management strategies….. Now it is necessary to empirically test this assumption.”

Martins and Martins (2003) state that organizational culture creates high levels of performance, so it is interesting to examine the concept of organizational culture, and how it affects recipient readiness for change projects. In the same vein, Detert et al., (2000) state that research of how organizational culture affects implementing organizational change projects is scarce since “there has been little effort to synthesize what dimensions of organizational culture have been studied to date, or, more important, to identify which of these culture dimensions are most related to the implementation of change programs and subsequent improvements in important human and organizational outcome.” After having shown the literature gaps that this research is aiming to fill it becomes apparent that agent-recipient interaction and the effect of organizational culture on agent-recipient readiness for a change project have both not been examined, which leads to the following main research question:

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2 Literature review

2.1 Defining the context, actors and scope

Before the concepts of the research will be explained it is important to define the actors, and to establish the context of the research to explicate the scope of the research. Organizational change is defined as “the process to rethink and renew the organizational strategic direction” (By, 2005). Balogun and Johnson (2005) define organizational change as “context dependent, linear and unpredictable process, in which intended strategies often lead to unpredictable outcomes”. What this shows is that change can produce consequences and outcomes which are not intended, so is it vital for change managers to realize that their role can have an effect on the success of change projects (Higgs & Rowland, 2005.) French and Bell (2003) state that the change agent has to initiate, drive and finally institutionalize the change and Higgs and Rowland (2011) mention that the change agent is in fact to be viewed as a leader, with the role to engage in enabling and facilitating behaviors. Therefore this paper establishes the definition that “a change agent is responsible for driving and initiating the change, a leader that engages in enabling and facilitating change.” Cawsey et al., (2012) define change recipient as “someone who is on the receiving end of change, who is asked to change his behavior. “ Kanter, Stein and Jick (1992) define a change recipient as “individuals who are responsible for adopting, adapting to change.” Therefore this research establishes that “a change recipient is an individual that is being asked to alter his behavior and who is responsible for adopting the change.” Martins (2003) define organizational culture as “a system of shared meaning held by members, distinguishing the organization from other organizations.” This research establishes that “organizational culture is collective, consisting of values, shared believes and that culture shapes the behavior of individuals.”

Change readiness is defined as “attitudes, beliefs and intentions regarding the extent to which changes are needed and the organization’s capacity to successfully undertake those changes” (Armenakis et al., 1993).

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leadership of organizational change”. Here the international relevance for organizational change becomes apparent since globalization entails that there is free movement of labor and shifting demographic trends. It is not surprising that in the business environment of today many organizations have established their presence in many different nations. Regarding the area of change management, firms such as Ernst& Young, McKinsey, the Boston Consulting Group or Accenture are operating in many different nations. This means that there is an exchange of personnel between the different countries, with change agents from one country being sent to other countries to engage in change initiatives. This is also apparent when examining the participants of this research, since these are of different nationalities and some of them operate in countries that are not their native ones. An example is the project manager responsible for the two change projects in the U.K, who is of South African origin, or the project manager of Dutch origin responsible for the projects in Germany. Therefore since it has been established that organizational change is a people issue that is neglected (Nikolaou, 2007) and the world is a global converging market place with free movement of labor and exchange or personnel, it is important to bring forward a universally applicable change readiness model that enables change agents to manage people issues in different settings that they will find themselves in. Therefore a step towards such a model is to examine countries that are similar, so this research examines change projects in similar European countries to bring forward a robust recipient readiness for change model that can be applied by change agents to manage the people issue of creating recipient readiness for change. The findings obtained from this research can be used towards creating a universally applicable recipient readiness model for change that can benefit change agents to produce recipient readiness for change.

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planned, discontinuous approach is the research focus of this research since the projects that are examined are planned endeavors that are set within a certain time frame. Research of Kotter (1992, 2007) states that organizational change is a process, and this is further strengthened by Luecke (2003), By (2005) and Armenakis (1999), who also view organizational change as a process. These researchers have developed step models for organizational change which view organizational change as having a proccesual nature, which is the stance that this research takes, building on research of Luecke (2003), Kanter (1992) and Kotter (2007) who state that planned change is best carried out if it is treated as a process. Producing planned change is most fruitful when it is done in the form of a project (Parker & Charlton, 2012), which is also stated in change management research which says projects are means to organize change (Biedenbach & Soderholm, 2008; Pellegrinelli, 1997). Apparent however is that what the exact sequence of actions to be taken, is not completely universal and can be rather abstract (Bridges, 1991). Todnem (2005) calls for a “more practical guidance to managers. Researchers in the field of change management state that projects are in fact a possibility to successfully carry out change in organizations (Biedenbach & Soederholm, 2008). One researcher who states that incorporating change management and project management is essential for engaging in successful organizational change is Jarocki (2011) who further elaborates that many change management initiatives do not make use of project management tactics and capabilities. The researcher further stresses that certain practices such as clarifying and sequencing activities, producing a time frame for those practices and also managing change teams and evaluating work carried out in projects implies that there is a need for structure in change projects, which can be combined with the social sciences practices of change management to create organizational change projects that are in fact successful (Jarocki, 2011). Partington (1996) states that in the area of project management, organizational change has come to be acknowledged as a specific and independently existing form of project. Change management therefore has generated increasing interest in the field of project management (Nieminen & Lehtonen, 2008; Pellegrinelli, 1997).

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managers and change managers, as project managers are viewed by some to be more responsible for handling change in organizations (Pellegrinelli, 1997). In project management the view exists that managers of projects are in fact change agents (Turner, 1996). Others claim that projects which need interpersonal skills and sensitivity are in fact not compatible with the rational and direct ways of project managers (Gareis, 2009; Levy and Merry, 1996). Project managers are viewed to be more concerned with tangible aspects such as schedule and budgets, whereas change managers are more concerned with altering the behavior and attitudes of employees and informing employees about the change. Despite these differences in origin of project management and change management, communication and leading change are two important components of both change management and of project management. Therefore examining agent-recipient interaction and organizational culture and how they affect creating recipient readiness for organizational change in change projects is valuable since interpersonal skills of communication and participation which make up the agent-recipient interaction are linked to the rational and direct ways of project managers, so this study aims to answer the call for integrating change management and project management put forward by Jarocki (2011).

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Organizational change projects can be linked to organizational change phases. It is established that creating recipient readiness is the initial stage that needs to be done before engaging in organizational change. Also, it is established that organizational change is a process, made evident in research of Luecke (2003), Kanter (1992) and Kotter (2007) and that this research paper is focusing on the initial “unfreezing” stage of the 3 step model created by Lewin in 1947, which involves creating cognitive precursors, emotions and beliefs in employees to accommodate and become ready for the change, hence creating readiness for change. Luecke (2003), Kanter (1992) and Kotter (2007) direct their focus on change management. Since projects are examined in this research it is important to establish a link between project management and change management. Two researchers that acknowledge that there is in fact a relation between project management and change management are Cooper and King (2007). In their research paper “The partnership between project management and organizational change: integrating change management with change leadership” they state that “the nature of project management is change” (Cooper & King, 2007), further stating that the human side of change is also not addressed in the Project Management body of knowledge (PMBOK). Most importantly, Cooper and King (2007) create a framework that is linking the particular phases of organizational change to the phases of the life cycle of projects, so they compare change phases with project phases.

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Table: 1: Linking project life cycle phases to organizational change phases

Change phases Project lifecycle

1:Determine the complexity of change Initiating 2:Prepare and create capacity Initiating 3:Create a shared mental model about the

change

Planning 4:Assess the current state and build future

state design Controlling

5:Implement Executing

6:Evaluate Closing

2.2 Organizational culture

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model can be constructed based on the international context of the change projects that are examined, and to see if the concepts which are being researched in this research can in fact hold in the similar settings. An initial step therefore is to focus on countries that are more similar, but that still have certain differences relevant to change management. Then it can be assessed whether or not the relevant concepts and their relation to each other hold in similar settings, to enable the creation of a more universally applicable recipient readiness for change framework.

Trice and Beyer (1993) highlight six important elements that are viewed by academic researchers as the most important elements of the overall concept of the term organizational culture, which are (1) Culture of organizations is collective, (2) Culture of organizations is influenced by historical aspects that make the organization what it is today, (3) Culture of organizations relies on symbols to engage and interact with members, (4) Culture of organizations is ambiguous, (5) Culture involves change on a continuous basis, and culture changes due to issues or due to individuals in the organization changing, (6) Culture of organizations involves emotions, customs and behaviors that give indications about the possible future. These points show that organizational culture is a collective concept, relies on the interaction of its members, it is an ambiguous, dynamic concept involving emotions and behaviors. This research is focusing on analyzing the organizational culture of organizations, their members and how they interact, and how emotions are producing recipient reactions, namely readiness, to organizational change. People are different in terms of character traits, preferences, values and behavioral characteristics. Firms are also different, having unique cultures which effect the day to day operations. In fact, organizations consist out of individuals, employees that all have different personal backgrounds, so culture is shaped by the individuals in the organization and it is interesting to see how the emotional concept of recipient readiness for organizational change projects can be brought about in different organizational cultures which involve agents and recipients of different backgrounds and nationalities. It is apparent that organizational culture can have an effect on individuals that make up an organization, and that organizational culture therefore must also have potential effects on organizational change, since consciously or unconsciously an individual or a group of individuals, as well as organizations undergo change (Gareis, 2012).

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organizational culture and readiness for change should not be considered without the concept of trust that employees have in their superiors. The concept of trust is a dimension that is relevant for organizational change, since it is vital to foster an environment of trust which in turn can create positive attitudes towards change in organizations, since trust is linked to intentions to cooperate and to attain goals (Vakola, 2013). Oreg, Vakola and Armenakis (2011) mention that trust has in fact the greatest impact on reactions of individuals to organizational change. Elving (2005) states that trust between management and employees creates the feeling of belonging to a community, to a collective, and that trust is clearly linked to organizational culture. This is due to the fact that trust leads to acceptance of organizational change, hence increasing intentions to cooperate in the change (Kiefer, 2005, Coyle-Shapiro & Morrow, 2003). Oreg et al. (2011) state that change recipients that show trust in management are more receptive to change, and this is in line with Coyle-Shapiro and Morrow (2003). Therefore, this research paper argues that a culture of trust, where change recipients have trust in their change agents will produce recipient readiness for organizational change projects. Rafferty and Simons (2006) furthermore add that when recipients have trust in their change management this has a positive impact on creating change readiness. It will be interesting to see therefore whether or not the concept of recipient trust in the change agents will produce recipient readiness in the international setting that this research is examining. An organizational culture where employees trust the change agents should therefore produce recipient readiness for organizational change.

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manner that is clear and that creates and exciting opportunity for employees. This shows that motivation can be useful to manage employees, and also to make employees believe in management practices and to get them ready for the changes. This leads to the first sub question that is aimed to answer the main research question of this thesis:

Sub Question 1: How does Organizational culture, in terms of motivation of employees and trust of employees in change agents, affect the degree of recipient readiness for organizational change projects?

2.3 Agent-recipient interaction

As highlighted agent-recipient interaction is not researched to a great extent in the change management literature, shown by research of (Sonenshein, 2010) which says that agent-recipient-interaction is not studied extensively. This argument is further stated by Ford and D’Amelio (2008) who point out that the agent recipient relationship is widely ignored, and rather one sided studies have been conducted directed at either the agents or at the recipients but not directed at the interaction between them. Armenakis and Harris (2009) and Oreg (2006) select a research approach that is aimed at recipients of change, whereas other authors such as Higgs and Rowland (2011) focus more on the agents, so are more leader oriented. This research aims at examining the interaction between recipients and agents and it seeks to explain how this interaction in change project management creates recipient readiness for change projects. Since there has not been much change management research of agent-recipient interaction, it is not clear what this term means. The simplest definition that can be created is that agent recipient interaction requires the two parties that are involved in organizational change, change agents and change recipients, to interact with each other in some form. Two change management practices that receive attention in change management literature are participation and communication

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employees thinking they have some degree of control and are given some power, which is helpful to get employees more willing to support change. Participation can produce strategic decisions that are of a better quality (Kim & Mauborgne, 1998), and Wanberg and Banas (2000) say that participation entails that individual employees are actively involved in reaching decisions and overcoming potential issues that could pose obstacles to organizational change. Also, when employees participate in change this is found to help them get a better understanding of the change, and it additionally helps the change agents to get a deeper insight into the views of the recipients, into their actual perspectives (Lines, 2004). Lastly, Armenakis et al., (1993) and Bouckenooghe and Devos, (2009) also state in their research that employees who participate in change, perceive themselves as having a feeling of ownership of the change, they find some options to solve issues, producing change readiness. Recurring elements of these findings regarding participation in organizational change are employees, recipients and change agents. It has been established that change agents are responsible for executing organizational change, and recipients are on the receiving end, therefore it can be said that participation in organizational change involves some form of interaction of these two parties.

When organizational change is carried out in organizations, it is vital to have a strategy

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responsible for the change, change agents. This requires some form of interaction between these parties. Therefore, since there is no clearly established definition of agent-recipient interaction since this concept is not studied extensively, this research establishes that change agent-recipient interaction is defined as

“The process of communication between agents and recipients and the process of participation of recipients in organizational change.”

It can be argued hence that it is in fact the role of the change agent to enable recipients to participate in the change, and to communicate with them so examining this agent-recipient interaction and its impact on creating readiness for change projects are good elements to examine. This is in line with Madsen, Miller and John (2005) who state that it is vital for change managers to understand how to create readiness for change, so that employees are prepared for the change and that managers know how to create readiness for change which is so vital in the initial stages of producing organizational change.

Sub Question 2: What is the effect of agent-recipient interaction on the degree of recipient readiness for organizational change projects?

2.4 Readiness for organizational change

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severe obstacle to firms, whereas others focus more on the concept or readiness for organizational change (Armenakis et al., 1993), further stating that to avoid resistance, it is essential to produce readiness for a change. Showing what factors actually produce readiness for change among the organization’s employees could help to understand how employees view change, and hence be beneficial for organizations.

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usually are not supportive of change unless there are good reasons that make them support the change (Cummings & Worley, 2001).

3 Methods

This section explains the research approach, data gathering procedures, case selection and respondent selection criteria, give the case descriptions and illustrates the change projects. Then the data gathering procedure, case selection and respondent selection criteria will be shown. After that the data overview is presented and the measures are explained. Then the data analysis follows.

3.1 Research Approach

This research uses an explorative approach because the effect of organizational culture elements and the agent-recipient interaction on producing recipient readiness for change projects is not researched extensively. This exploratory approach aims to examine this new area of research, which is supported by Saunders (2012) who states that making use of exploratory research is beneficial when there is a need to increase knowledge about a certain phenomenon but the research problem is novel and its origin is not completely known. This paper uses qualitative research since organizational change is a complex, non-linear process where certain aspects of organizations emerge, possibly involving many different individuals and organizational levels. Brown, Humphreys and Gurney (2005) state that gaining insight into this subject is impossible through usage of methods of a quantitative nature and Yin (2003) highlights that qualitative research should be best used when the one who is researching cannot control the events studied, and when a “ contemporary phenomenon within some real life context” is studied. Also Duerr (2004) highlights that using a qualitative approach is adequate when researching a complicated topic such as organizational culture, and a reflective process of inquiring is suitable instead of using rigidly established concepts used in quantitative research. Qualitative research methods are useful for examining the individual particularities of different groups and to obtain insights into culture (Hines, 1993) and another advantage of qualitative research is that it allows an analysis on different levels, not only on the organizational level but also on the team level and the individual level (Brannen & Salk, 2000).

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“why” is being inquired, however, case studies can be limited in their validity since they focus on only a small number of cases, hence it is necessary to combine the case study method with another qualitative research method. Since this research is focusing on the impact of organizational culture and the agent-recipient interaction on recipient readiness for organizational change projects, a combination of case study research with the qualitative research method of phenomenology is used. Phenomenology highlights how different individuals perceive different phenomena, phenomenology aims to obtain information through qualitative research methods such as interviews, discussions depicted from the point of view of the individuals that were interviewed (Lines, 1992). Phenomenology in essence focuses on feelings and attitudes that individuals have towards certain events, so in the context of organizational culture which consists of values and beliefs which direct the conduct of members of the organization (Hatch, 1993), Phenomenology seems very applicable to understand what effect culture of organizations has on creating recipient readiness for change projects. Also the agent-recipient interaction through communication and participation is a social process that can be subject to subjective interpretations, hence phenomenology is applicable here as well.

3.2 Data gathering procedures, case selection and respondent

selection criteria

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Table 2: Interviews, Interviewees and related change projects.

Interview Nationality Interviewee Change Project

Interview 1 Dutch Interviewee 1 Project 1 Interview 2 Dutch Interviewee 2 Project 2

Interview 3 Interviewee 2 Project 3

Interview 4 South African Interviewee 3 Project 4

Interview 4 Interviewee 3 Project 5

Interview 5 Norwegian Interviewee 4 Project 6 Interview 6 Dutch Interviewee 5 Project 7

Interview 7 Interviewee 5 Project 8

3.3 Case description

The following section provides a brief overview of the change projects that are covered in this research paper to give the reader information about the projects and about the change that was carried out in these projects.

3.3.1 The Change Projects

Project 1: was carried out at a facility services company in the Netherlands. It was a small

company with 40 employees. The activities that the company engaged in are security, cleaning and catering. The company had grown, therefore it was necessary to evaluate all the various business processes to assess their quality, and to then validate if and how these processes ensured optimum delivery of services to the customers. Then these processes were to be optimized, process optimization was the end goal of the change to ensure that the highest possible quality of services could be delivered to the customers to ensure future growth. The company wanted to obtain an iso certification, a certificate of quality management. The interviewee stated it was a radical change because the employees were required to analyze the current business practices and after project optimization they were all required to work in the same manner, where each employee had previously had some freedom in how to operate on a daily basis. The role of the interviewee was the role of the project manager.

Project 2: entailed the 12 ministries of the Netherlands, each with an own HR department and

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of the HR tasks for all the ministries, centralizing all HR of all different ministries. The goal was to create synergy. This synergy was necessary to increase effectiveness. There was the need to centralize HR activities of different ministries on one location to reduce costs as fewer people could perform the same tasks and to centralize knowledge of the different ministries in one location to increase effectiveness. The project is still ongoing, with the planned completion in 2015 approaching. The role of the interviewee was the role of project manager.

Project 3: was conducted in the Dutch banking sector, at a large Dutch bank in 2013. It

entailed implementing a new global chart of accounts for a major bank. This change was necessary because a lot of different local chart of accounts were used. The goal was to globalize the accounting systems for all different divisions, to streamline the accounting process. Developing a global accounting system was necessary to increase the ability to compare data of different business units, reducing costs as less IT systems are needed. The role of the interviewee was the role of the project manager.

Project 4: was conducted in 2014 in the English insurance sector. A medium- sized insurance

firm needed to change their IT infrastructure. There were issues in lost data and costly data centers that were not making the company competitive in comparison to the financial service industry. Therefore the company was exploring the different things that they could change in their current physical infrastructure hosting from in house colocation or outsourcing, including cloud infrastructure. Data centers were costly and there were issues in lost data. This made the insurance firm less competitive in comparison to the other firms in the financial service industry. The role of the interviewee was the role of the project manager

Project 5: was conducted between 2013 and 2014 at a medium-sized English bank that was

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Project 6: was conducted at a large company in the Norwegian industrial manufacturing

sector and it started in 2013 and ended in 2014 .The organization was multi-cultural and it operated in different countries, and was initiating a project to migrate all the different countries to the same IT platform and harmonizing their processes and ways of working across the business. The facility in Norway was aiming to install the new IT platform that would make business more efficient, by having more automated procedures and less people were needed to get the job done. The role of the employee was the project manager.

Project 7: was initiated in 2013 in order to transform a B2B sales department of a medium

sized German electronica supplies manufacturer to a more sustainable and hybrid form in which both B2B and B2C sales were undertaken. The project was necessary as the company was facing strong competition from other suppliers in the B2B market, research showed that entering the B2C market could help in keeping the company financially viable. Due to the change in sales strategy people had to refocus on a new customer segment. The role of the employee was the project manager.

Project 8: was conducted in 2013 and involved the cultural integration between two German

(technical) production companies. The project was a pure necessity because the merging entities had widely dispersed cultures. The Merging trajectory was already ongoing for 1,5 years, involving two different cultures.

3.3.2 Data overview

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Table 3: Overview respondent selection criteria, projects, country, industry, year.

Interviewe

e Project

Project experience

Role in the

project Country Industry Year

Lengt h of the intervi ew Interviewe e 1 Project 1 15 projects Project manager Netherland s Facility services 2012 55 min. Interviewe e 2 Project 2 10 projects External Consultant Netherland s Ministry of internal affairs 2013-2015 45 min. Interviewe e 2 Project 3 10 projects External Project Manager Netherland s Banking 2013 55 min. Interviewe e 3 Project 4 5 projects External Project

Manager England Insurance 2013 45 min. Interviewe e 3 Project 5 5 projects External Project Manager England Banking 2013-2014 45 min. Interviewe e 4 Project

6 5 projects Project manager Norway Manufacturing 2013-2014 45.min

Interviewe

e 5 Project 7 7 projects

Project

manager Germany Manufacturing 2013 55 min. Interviewe e 5 Project ₈ _{7 projects} External Project manager

Germany Manufacturing 2013 50 min

3.4 Measures

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3.5 Data analysis

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Table 4:Coding scheme

Code name Source Code category Example

Trust Deductive Organizational

culture

“Many employees had trust in us as change agents” Motivation Deductive Organizational

culture

“There were many employees that were motivated”

Communication Deductive Agent-recipient interaction

“After

communicating with them everyone was more ready”

Participation Deductive Agent-recipient interaction

“They were asked to actively participate

4 Results

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4.1 The effect of organizational culture dimensions on the degree

of recipient readiness for organizational change projects.

This sub-section shows how the dimensions of organizational culture, motivation of

employees and trust of employees in change agents affect the degree of recipient readiness for organizational change projects. The first sub question will be answered: How does

Organizational culture, in terms of motivation of employees and trust of employees in the change agents affect the degree of recipient readiness for organizational change projects? Motivation of employees: The data in this section illustrates the findings of how motivation

of recipients affects the recipient readiness for change projects. For project 1, “These

motivated employees were willing to start, were more ready for the project”. The interviewee

stated that for project 1, with the non-motivated employees “It was harder to work with, we

needed to identify these people” and also stated that “Motivation was key for creating recipient readiness for this project”. This shows the importance of employee motivation for

creating recipient readiness, also since the interviewee acknowledged hat for project 1 ”Motivated employees were more ready for change as was the case in this project” and the employees “Who were not motivated were not as ready for the project therefore”. In project 1 motivation was “ Important for producing more employee readiness”. From the interview it is found that motivated employees displayed a higher degree of readiness for the project and that non-motivated employees showed a lower degree of readiness for project 1 which indicates a link between motivation and recipient readiness for the project. Also it is found that

motivation produced more employee readiness since it ensured that the motivated employees “did their tasks and this resulted in more readiness”. For project 2 there was “No motivation,

so it was difficult to create recipient readiness, since the employees were not motivated” and

the interviewee acknowledged that ”More readiness would have been helpful to get everything

going quickly, more smoothly and effectively” and that “there was low motivation and there was low readiness, so I think that there is a link between motivation of employees and their readiness yes, the more motivated employees are, the more ready they are, since they show their readiness through working motivated, through pursuing their tasks, and sadly there was low motivation and therefore low employee readiness”. The change agent stated that for

project 2 there was “A low degree of motivation” and that “Only some employees showed this

motivation, helped us to get information and these employees worked well”. The interviewee

acknowledged that many employees showed “No motivation to help us and to engage in the

change. This made employees not ready for the change. Resistance and fear was there” which

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that more motivated employees were more ready, the less motivated employees were less ready, but these were only a few motivated employees, explaining the low recipient readiness for project 2. For project 3 ” There were lower level employees with low motivation, shown

by the fact that they did not actively work at first, showing they were not ready for the change project”. Again in project 3 it becomes apparent that the less motivated employees also

displayed less readiness for the project. This link between motivation and readiness for the project is also shown since the change agent stated that “We needed to increase their

motivation, so that they become more ready”. Additionally the interview said that in project 3

there were “Some motivated employees. These were ready I would say because they expressed

this in meetings” which again shows a link between motivation of employees and their

readiness for the change project. The interviewee said concerning project 3 that ”Few

employees were motivated, they were ready for the change project therefore” and that the “not so motivated and were not as ready for the change project” which shows that there again

is a link between motivation of employees and readiness for the change project which is confirmed by the interviewee who was involved in project 3 since he stated that ”Motivation

is clearly increasing recipient readiness for change projects as was visible here”.

For project 4 the change agent stated that “Motivation is always helpful, and the absence

of it, as was the case, is an obstacle since employees do not do what they have to do, employees were less ready for the change project due to lower motivation”. This was also

found since in project 5 since the interviewee stated that “When the recipient is more

motivated to facilitate the change project, to carry it out, there is greater readiness of employees for the change project, as was visible in project 5”. The link between more

motivation and more readiness was acknowledged by the interviewee in interview 4 since he said that “I certainly think that there is a link between motivation of employees and their

readiness for change projects, as was the case in project 4, low motivation, low readiness for the change project, project 5, more motivation and therefore also more readiness”. As the

interviewee said “The more motivated recipients are, the greater their readiness, see project

5” and that there was “Not much motivation, also because physical infrastructure was

outsourced” which resulted ”In the low readiness that was there for project 4”.The interview

shows that employees that lacked motivation also displayed a lower degree of readiness for the projects. For project 6 the change agent stated that “Employees in the firm very not ready,

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more cooperation and could have made the change process easier, and recipient readiness was unfortunately low in the beginning, which is difficult for starting change projects” and

that the employees “Were clearly not willing to make this change happen quickly, which

shows low motivation and therefore less readiness for the project”. The change agent also

acknowledged that “The employees thought that their old ways were still valid, and that they

did not need new changes showing there was a lack of motivation” and stated that

“Employees were not motivated at all in the beginning, also showing low readiness therefore since they were mentally not prepared”. For project 6 it becomes apparent that low motivation

of employees led to a low degree of readiness for the project, and this is confirmed by the change agent who said that “I think that motivation of employees is linked to recipient

readiness yes, this was visible since the employees were not motivated in the beginning, and also not ready for the change project” additionally saying that “Lack of readiness was visible since the employees did not try to perform as best as they could to make the change happen, generally there was low motivation and low readiness of employees for the change project”.

For project 7 the interviewee stated ”I believe motivation does link to recipient readiness yes,

more motivated employees, the younger ones, were also more ready for the change project actually” again showing that motivation of employees is linked to the degree of recipient

readiness for organizational change projects. It is apparent that in project 7 “Young managers

were far more understanding and ready” and that “Older employees within the organization were not ready for the change”. The motivated employees in project 7 “Gave us agents information that we needed, and they answered questions, which shows that there was greater readiness for the change project among the motivated younger employees and the interviewee

stated that in project 7 there were “Also older employees who did not show trust in us agents,

they avoided us” and these showed “Lack of motivation” which “Was hindering to create recipient readiness because they did not work out of their own initiative, they needed to be reminded and constantly told to give us this document”. This shows that a lack of motivation

led to less readiness of recipients for the project, and again shows that the more motivated employees showed a higher degree of readiness for the project. This was also stated by the interview since he said that “Motivation does link to recipient readiness yes, it affects

readiness, since it was visible that more motivated employees, the younger ones, were also more ready for the change project actually”. Regarding project 8 the interviewee stated that

there was a “High degree of readiness amongst employees”, and that “Many were ready I

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producing readiness among the employees. There was generally among the innovative culture that employees were motivated, they really wanted to see how this change would play out, and they did not criticize or build groups of opposition, so these were signs of readiness” and that “Generally there was high motivation”, which was identified to be “Beneficial for producing a higher readiness for the project” and the interviewee confirmed that “More motivation of employees leads to more recipient readiness for the project”. The interview said that for

project 8 that “Without motivation there is also less recipient readiness”. To summarize the findings from the 8 projects, it is found that higher motivation of employees is linked to a higher degree of recipient readiness for the projects. This was visible in all projects, it is found that more motivation of employees produced a higher degree of readiness for the 8 change projects. This was visible in all 8 projects which were conducted in the 4 countries, strengthening the validity of the findings since this relationship was present in all projects that were examined. It can be said that in order to create a higher degree of recipient readiness it is essential to foster motivation among the workforce, and to create a culture of motivation. Next, the effect of employee trust in change agents on the degree of recipient readiness for organizational change projects will be illustrated

Trust of employees in the change agents: The data in this section illustrates the findings of

how trust of employees affects the degree of recipient readiness for change projects. For project 1 it is found that there were many employees who showed trust in the change agents, and that according to the change agent “This helped for this project, a workforce that trusts us

agents is easier to work with since they are preparing for the changes, and they are more ready for the change, as was seen here”. The interviewee additionally said that “Trust was critical for employee readiness because the employees had to deliver all the input. Their trust was important because we agents gave the employees regular status updates, so they needed to trust us” and that Trust that the recipients showed in us agents was important to create recipient readiness for the change project, because we needed their input in the project and we needed them to work well so achieve the goals of consolidating and to ensure quality improvements, so their trust in us is a basic necessity since this increased their readiness for the project and this readiness ensured they work well”. This shows that trust was important

for creating recipient readiness for the project and that the “More trusting employees” were

“More ready for change” implying that more trust of employees in the change agent produced

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“There was no trust, it was difficult to create recipient readiness” and that therefore it was “Very hard to get cooperation and to create recipient readiness for the change project”. The

change agent additionally acknowledged that in project 2 “Trusting employees were more

ready, but there were not many trusting employees, which explains the low employee

readiness” and that “Only a few trusted us and these displayed readiness”. The importance of

trust was indicated by the interviewee in project 2 since he said that “Trust in us agents,

would have increased the readiness of employees, meaning that the employees would have worked quicker and also better. It would have created more efficiency, less meetings, better information that we could have obtained, get the process done quicker perhaps”. This shows

that the employees that trusted the agents displayed a higher degree of readiness for the project, and therefore that trust “Produced more readiness among the few employees but for

the most there was simply no trust which explains the low readiness”. For project 3 the

interviewee said that “Some did show trust, a few and these employees were positive and not

reluctant” which indicates readiness for project three, and the change agent additionally

stated that “Trusting employees were ready since they told us that they believed in the goal,

you do not believe in a goal and aren’t ready to achieve it”, and that “Upper management had more trust, some ICT guys too, but mostly upper management which resulted in more

readiness for this project among these employees”. What can be seen is that more trusting

employees, upper management and a few ICT employees displayed a higher degree of readiness for project 3 than the employees who did not show trust and displayed less readiness for the project.

In project 4 the change agent stated that “Upper management was ready but midlevel and lower level employees not, they though that they were still competitive”, and that the lower

degree of recipient readiness for project 4 “Was visible that they were not ready as they had

done none of the necessary preparation or implementation on their part”, and the agent

identified that ”Trust of employees was not present in project 4, among most employees, only

upper management did trust us agents so this was not helpful at all to produce readiness initially. Absence of uhm trust is less recipient readiness for change. Trust of employees in us agents is important for credibility, and produces more employee readiness”. The absence of

trust among most employees led to the fact that there was low readiness for project 4 among most employees which was acknowledged by the change agent since ”Employees were less

ready for the change project due to lower trust”. This is in line with findings from the

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interviewee stated that ”Trust was important for readiness, and this was apparent since many

employees that did trust us agents and who did their various jobs and performed their tasks, were far more ready for the change project” and that “It facilitated the project when the organization culture instills a sense of trust into the recipient”. The link between trust of

employees and the degree of recipient readiness was identified since the interviewee stated that “This was the case in project 4, low trust, low readiness. This was the case in project 5,

more trust led to more recipient readiness for the project” which shows that trust of

employees in change agents produces a higher degree of recipient readiness for the projects. The agent said that “For project 5 trust was helpful since employees had to follow directives

of, well the agents, and they did, the ones who showed trust, this created more readiness in their minds”. In project 6 the change agent stated that “Trust ins us agents was not present, which resulted in employee readiness being very low” and that “Most did not show trust, and this was visible in their negative attitudes and their questioning of the project” which shows

that the employees displayed low trust in the change agents. The change agent said that for project 6 “trust is very important to produce readiness among recipients for change projects,

employees who trust you are willing to do their job, so it would have been important for the project to make it happen quicker, smoother, less firing” and also acknowledged that ”some employees did trust us since they worked towards the change. This made them ready since they did not see us in such a bad view and they were I would say mentally ready because we were not viewed as enemies”. This shows that the employees who showed trust in the change

agents showed more readiness for the change project and that most employees did not trust the change agents which resulted in these employees showing low readiness for the change project. The interviewee said that for project 6” most employees did not show trust in the

change agents, and that employees did less, and had negative attitudes” which indicates that

for the employees that did not show trust, the readiness or the project was lower. This is in alignment with the findings from the previous projects. For project 7 the interviewee stated that “More trusting employees also showed more readiness, so there is also a link between

trusting us agents and recipient readiness for change” and he further stated that in project 7 “Some trusted us, the younger people, many but not all, I would say there was medium trust, and the older employees did not trust us at all, with very little exceptions” and also stated that “the employees were not all trusting, but the most younger employees did” What becomes

apparent in project 7 is that the younger employees showed more trust and that as the change agent said “Younger managers were more open to change than the older generation of

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employees displayed more readiness for project 7 than the older employees who were not as ready. Again it can be said that more trust led to a higher degree of recipient readiness, as was found in project 7. Concerning project 8 the change agent stated that “More trust of

employees produces a greater readiness of recipients for the change project” and that “Trust created readiness”. The interviewee further acknowledged that “Many were ready I would say, indicated by the group spirit which was good, they were not very critical or perceived unfairness” and also stated that ”Trust is the key to be willing to embrace the change simply, so without trust in us there would be no merging, it is a people process. Without trust less readiness”. What is found is that in project 8 “Both employee groups showed a high degree of trust” and that as the interview said, many employees were ready and that there was a good

group spirit. It can be concluded that the high trust of employees lead to a higher degree or readiness for the change project, as was the case in the other projects as well.

To answer the first sub question, in all 8 projects examined it was found that the employees that showed motivation and that showed trust in the change agents also showed more readiness for the change projects. This was the case in all 8 projects in the 4 countries. Therefore to answer the first sub question, organizational culture, in terms of motivation of employees and trust of employees in the change agents has a positive effect on the degree of recipient readiness for organizational change projects. More trust of employees in change agents and more motivation led to a higher degree of recipient readiness for the change

projects. Since this effect was visible in all projects in the 4 countries, it can be concluded that the organizational culture dimensions produce a greater degree of recipient readiness for the projects and that in order to produce a higher degree of recipient readiness for change

projects. Organizations and change managers need to create a culture of trust and motivation to increase the degree of recipient readiness for change proejcts. After answering the first sub question, the second sub question is going to be answered: What is the effect of

agent-recipient interaction on the degree of agent-recipient readiness for organizational change projects?

4.2 The effect of agent-recipient interaction on the degree of

recipient readiness for organizational change projects.

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Communication between agents and recipients: In project 1, the change agent stated that

concerning the employees that were not ready, “Since you ask about readiness of the

employees, uhm they were then more ready, after this talking” which shows that after

engaging in communication with the change agents, employees showed a higher degree of readiness for the change project. The interviewee said that “After communicating with them

everyone was more ready, the employees realized that we were not there to harm them and that the change was good” which shows that communication increased the degree of recipient

readiness since these employees became more ready for the project. Concerning the

employees that were not ready for project 1 “Their readiness was increased by talking to the

employees, and by explaining to the employees why we needed to achieve the project.” The

interviewee stated that these employees “Were more ready for the project through

conversations with us agents”, which shows that communication between agents and

recipient increased the degree of recipient readiness, that communication had a positive influence on recipient readiness for project 1. The interviewee stated that for project 1 through communicating the “Employees saw that there would be no negative consequences.

The communication made them more ready for the change”. For project 2 the interviewee

stated that there were “People of top management who did not communicate the story” and that this was a major mistake of top management. The interviewee acknowledged that “Communication helped, some employees were made more ready for the change due to the

communication, absolutely, but not all people, there were still some employees who were resistant and showed less readiness” and clearly stated that communication between agents

and recipients led to “Some employees who were not initially ready for the change project” becoming “More ready after communication, there was an improvement and an increase in

the amount of employees who were ready”. This shows that despite faulty communication of

top management, communication between agents and recipients did produce a higher degree of recipient readiness for project 2 among some employees that were not ready initially. The interviewee said that “The communication was not powerful enough to change the skepticism

of some of the employees, the culture was very bureaucratic and therefore hindering the creation of recipient readiness for some employees. A few were not ready even after

communication, but some were more ready for the change project after communication, some really understood the need and were mentally prepared, and were cooperative afterwards. The communication was effective, increased readiness of employees but not for all, because

“The effect of organizational culture and agent-recipient interaction on the degree of recipient readiness for change projects: Towards a more universally applicable recipient readiness framework”