HOW EMPLOYEE CHARACTERISTICS
INFLUENCE SENSE OF URGENCY
At Provinsje Fryslân
Master thesis, MSc Business Administration, specialization Change Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
December 2012 CORNELIS H. HEMMINGA Student number: 2040042 Bornego 41b 8449 EC, Terband tel: + 31 6 53224957 e-mail: c.h.hemminga@gmail.com
First supervisor University of Groningen: drs. M. Fennis-Bregman Second supervisor University of Groningen: dr. J. Rupert
Supervisor Provinsje Fryslân: H. Groenwold
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to find an explanation for the lacking sense of urgency of employees at Provinsje Fryslân. To do so, the first research question was formulated: “How do employee characteristics influence the sense of urgency?”. Preliminary interviews resulted in four potential predictors of sense of urgency; perceived job security, cynicism, affective
commitment, and perceived benefits of change. A quantitative study amongst 67 employees from three different departments, and a qualitative study including six interviews held by employees from these departments provided insight in the relationships between the four variables and sense of urgency. Pessimism, a dimension of cynicism, negatively predicted sense of urgency.
Affective commitment and job tenure positively predicted the sense of urgency. There was no significant evidence that perceived job security and perceived benefits of change predicted sense of urgency. A second research question was formulated in order to increase sense of urgency: “How can the employee characteristics be influenced?”. Suggested tactics are publicizing successful changes to reduce pessimism, continue with a participatory style, focus on non-pessimists and shorter tenured employees, personalize rewards, and reward at the spot. This study was aimed at contributing to current literature and providing direction for future research by investigating employee characteristics that influence sense of urgency.
CONTENTS ABSTRACT ... 2 CONTENTS... 3 1. INTRODUCTION... 5 1.1 Organizational background ... 5 1.2 Organizational vision ... 5 1.3 Management question ... 6 1.4 Research question ... 7 2. THEORY ... 9 2.1 Conceptual model ... 9
2.2 Justification of the variables ... 9
3. METHOD ... 15 3.1 Preliminary interviews ... 15 3.2 Sample ... 16 3.3 Research design ... 16 3.4 Data collection... 17 3.5 Measurement ... 18 3.6 Qualitative research ... 19 4. RESULTS ... 21 4.1 Correlations ... 21 4.2 Regression analysis ... 22
4.3 Conclusion quantitative research ... 24
4.4 Interview results ... 25
5. DISCUSSION ... 28
5.1 Perceived job security ... 29
5.2 Cynicism and pessimism ... 30
5.3 Affective commitment... 31
5.4 Perceived benefits of change ... 32
5.6 Limitations and future research ... 33
5.8 Conclusion ... 34
APPENDICES ... 40
Appendix I – Organizational structure ... 40
Appendix II – Questionnaire ... 41
Appendix III – Interview questions ... 45
1. INTRODUCTION
Many authors have written about the difficulties of change management, and the failure of many change initiatives (Quinn, 2004; Beer and Nohria, 2000; Bibler, 1989; Cope, 2003). The administrative organization in this study has experienced failure with change initiatives in the past. Currently a new change is about to be implemented, and to reduce the chances of failure, the aim is to increase the sense of urgency, an essential first step for all changes (Kotter, 2008).
1.1 Organizational background
Provinsje Fryslân is the administrative organization that governs the Dutch province of Fryslân, a province which currently inhabits approximately 650,000 residents. The province represents the administrative layer between the Dutch national government and the 27 Frisian municipalities. Duties of the province are on subnational or regional level; tasks too small for national government and too big for municipalities. The administrative organization is
responsible for promoting the prosperity and well-being of its inhabitants, and responsible for the implementation of certain laws and measures issued by the national government. Provinsje Fryslân employs 820 people, working on fixed or temporary contracts. The vast majority of employees is located at the province hall in the Frisian capital city Leeuwarden.
1.2 Organizational vision
A new managing director at Provinsje Fryslân, who was appointed in 2010, initiated the development of a new organizational vision. He recognized that a shared vision for all
employees, formulated as a dot on the horizon, was missing. A shared organizational vision was considered an essential instrument to improve the quality of services since Dutch politicians openly questioned the need of existence of twelve provinces. Besides, the Provincial Executive demanded more adaptive and integral advice from the administrative organization. In the spring of 2012 a plan was launched to implement the organizational values and behavior based on a new organizational vision.
and (4) results count. The vision statement describes the organization that Provinsje Fryslân wants to be, the core values, and the challenges that will come by implementing the vision. By giving a workshop to each department individually, the need for change was explained, future direction was provided, and the organizational vision was translated into actions at department level. Currently all departments have participated in one of the workshops, and each department has developed an implementation plan to put the vision into action.
In the ten years before implementing this new vision, multiple previous initiatives were undertaken to change the organizational vision, the core values, employee behavior, etcetera. The numerous vision statements, memos, and leadership profiles from the past resulted in problem statements and proposed solutions that were sometimes similar to the new vision statement. All previous plans, however, failed to deliver the proposed outcomes. The new vision was built on knowledge gathered in these past years and included input from all organizational levels.
During the workshops, the failure of previous plans was acknowledged. The management of Provinsje Fryslân identified a lacking sense of urgency as one of the main reasons of earlier failures. Several tactics, such as increased communication by giving workshops, customer surveys to explore the need and urgency, and increased management support, were used in order to increase the sense of urgency. However, the management still recognized that the sense of urgency was not high enough to bring about the necessary organizational changes. As time goes by, the focus on the organizational vision might become less apparent, employees pass on to the existing agenda, and ultimately the new vision will become another failure.
1.3 Management question
1.4 Research question
In order to explain the low sense of urgency, this study aims to identify factors that influence a sense of urgency, explain how these factors influence the sense of urgency, and to provide advice to the management how to influence these factors. One year before the
implementation of the new vision, a survey was held to measure the level of employee
satisfaction based on several topics. Management and leadership issues were addressed, which were awarded high scores. The results gave the management already a good insight in the management and leadership issues that needed further attention, also with respect to the
implementation of the new organizational vision and sense of urgency. However, more insight in the employee characteristics that potentially impact sense of urgency was needed. To get more insight in the employee characteristics, two research questions for this study were formulated:
RQ1: How do employee characteristics influence the sense of urgency? RQ2: How can the employee characteristics be influenced?
Preliminary interviews resulted in a set of four employee characteristics that potentially influenced sense of urgency the most. Two factors that seemed to have a negative influence on sense of urgency, were perceived job security and cynicism towards change. Literature suggests public sector jobs to be the most secure and isolated from labor market fluctuations (Clark and Postel-Vinay, 2005). Public sector employees might therefore miss how big the disconnection between their perceptions and the real market actually is (Heffes, 2009), which prevents creating a sense of urgency to change. Cynicism was found by Wanous, Reichers, and Austin (2000) to hinder attempts at change, potentially preventing a sense of urgency.
Two factors that seemed to have a positive influence on sense urgency were affective commitment and perceived benefits of change. Affective commitment is named to be one of the most important factors involved in employees’ support for change, effective innovation
this support (García-Cabrera and García-Barba-Hernández, 2012). In this study we will investigate whether this support through perceived benefits will increase the sense of urgency level of employees at Provinsje Fryslân.
2. THEORY
In this part of the study, the four employee characteristics that seemed to influence sense of urgency will be explored based on literature review. First the definitions of sense of urgency and of the four antecedents will be described. Then the proposed influence of these
characteristics on sense of urgency will be discussed.
2.1 Conceptual model
This research assesses the influence that employee characteristics can have on the sense of urgency. The dependent variable and the four independent variables of this research are displayed in the conceptual model below.
FIGURE 1 Conceptual model
2.2 Justification of the variables
Next, the meaning of the four independent variables and the dependent variable will be explained. Also the relation between each independent variable and the dependent variable will be elaborated upon based on existing literature.
Sense of urgency is a term that was popularized by John P. Kotter in his book ‘Leading Change’ (1996) as the first of eight steps to bring about change. A much more detailed study about the concept was presented in his book ‘Sense of Urgency’ (Kotter, 2008). The definition by Kotter (2008) states that sense of urgency is ‘a distinctive attitude and gut-level feeling that lead people to grab opportunities and avoid hazards, to make something important happen today, and constantly shed low-priority activities to move faster and smarter, now’. Creating a high
enough sense of urgency is a crucial first step to set the stage for changes. Reidenbach and Goeke (2006) stated that not creating a high enough sense of urgency accounted for 25% of the reasons change initiatives fail. However, establishing a sense of urgency is also the most difficult step to bring about any major change (Shirey, 2011). Kotter (2007) states that over 50% of all companies do not succeed in creating a high enough sense of urgency level.
The metaphor of a burning platform (Koppel, 2004; Kotter, 2008) is sometimes used to describe an urgent need for change. In the conceptualization of a sense of urgency or a burning platform, two dimensions are of importance. First there is a felt-need to change (Baarda and De Goede, 2001), or a recognition that something has to be done. Armenakis, Harris, and
Mossholder (1993) state that the need to change is established by a discrepancy between the desired end-state and the present state. Holt, Armenakis, Feild, and Harris (2007) define discrepancy as the extent to which one feels whether there are legitimate reasons, and whether there is a need for change or not. Secondly, urgency reflects the amount of time available before changes must be implemented (Armenakis et al., 1993). Billings, Milburn, and Schaalman (1980) suggest that without urgency or time pressure, a problem will be left to the future and the more distant a problem seems to someone, the less negative its consequences will seem. Linked to the definition by Kotter (2008), employees should therefore ‘move faster and smarter, now’.
In change management literature much attention is given to readiness for change as the first step in a change initiative. Kotter (2008) distinguishes sense of urgency from the readiness for change, since readiness for change only creates a rational and intellectual understanding. However, there still is a large risk of distraction, a risk that is much lower when employees perceive a sense of urgency. A sense of urgency is both an intellectual understanding and a feeling that comes from the heart which prevents distraction. Hicks and McCracken (2011) consider a sense of urgency as a necessary prerequisite in order to create readiness for change. This is due to recognition of opportunities and threats (Kotter, 2008), and a belief that the current status quo is more dangerous than launching into the unknown future (Kotter, 2007).
Perceived job security is defined as the perceived stability and continuance an employee has in his or her job (Probst, 2002) and organization (Oldham, Kulik, Stepina, and Ambrose, 1986). The definition goes further than the concern of employment with an employer, it also includes concerns over a loss of desirable job features such as promotion, working conditions, or long-term career opportunities (Gupta, Singh, and Singh, 2008). According to Probst (2002), the four main antecedents of perceived job security are worker characteristics, such as job tenure, job characteristics (permanent versus temporary), organizational changes such as layoffs, and job technology changes. Job tenure at Provinsje Fryslân is relatively long with an average of 16,3 years versus the Dutch average of 8,7 years, over 98% of all employees have permanent contracts, there have been no layoffs in the organization due to reorganizations in the past 10 years, and the continuity of the province is relatively secure. Due to these facts employees are expected to perceive high job security.
Although there is no common agreement, the majority of studies suggest the employees that perceive high job security will perform better than job insecure employees (Schreurs, Van Emmerik, Günter, and Germeys, 2012). But there is a potential downside of perceived job security that is too high, which lies in complacency. In existing literature there is a widely held assumption that job security and complacency are related (Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt, 1984). According to Kotter (1996) the level of complacency in many organizations these days is high, which makes this employee characteristic of great importance for further research. Complacency finds its roots in success that makes people content with the status quo and leads to ignorance of organizational opportunities and threats due to an inward focus. More than half a decade ago Kurt Lewin already stated the notion that successful organizations focus on the factors that brought them success and tend to ignore signals that might indicate a need for change (Burnes, 2009). To Kotter (2008), complacency therefore is the opposite of a true sense of urgency. We therefore expect to find a negative relationship between sense of urgency and job security.
Cynicism in its definition by Wanous, Reichers, and Austin (2004), is the result of an antecedent process of experiences and sense making. In the definition by Wanous et al. (2004) cynicism is a combination of two dimensions, pessimism, which represents a disbelieve in
successful future changes caused by earlier failures, and a dispositional attribution because those responsible are blamed for being unmotivated, incompetent, or both. This definition is supported by Cartwright and Holmes (2006), who mention that negative attitudes of frustration and
disillusionment or distrust towards managers characterize employee cynicism. Cynicism is easily confused with skepticism, as both the cynics and skeptics doubt the substance of communication about change. In contrast, cynics also doubt the motives behind it (Stanley, Meyer, and
Topolnytsky, 2005). Cynics experience a real loss of faith in the leaders of change, as a response to earlier unsuccessful change attempts (Reichers, Wanous, and Austin, 1997). Studying the antecedents of cynicism about organizational change in an American based manufacturing plant, Wanous et al. (2004) found that cynicism is more appropriately treated as a learned response based on experience, rather than a personality trait.
A display of cynicism lies in the BOHICA (Bend Over Here It Comes Again) effect; a counteracting attitude towards change displayed by cynical employees. These Bohicans can be described as organizational veterans, experienced with change failures, having misused and unappreciated talents, and long memories (Dunsing and Matejka, 1994). Since the average employee at Provinsje Fryslân has a long tenure, and has most likely experienced failure of one or more change initiatives in the past, it is imaginable that the cynical BOHICA effect will appear during the implementation of the vision.
Cartwright and Holmes (2006) have found that cynicism as a result of ineffective
leadership, a history of organizational changes, or long working hours will cause stress. Based on stress research they link this stress to withdrawal behavior and low job engagement. Also
Karfakis and Kokkinidis (2012) conclude after a literature review that cynicism is a form of dis-identification from the organization. As Kotter (2008) notes that managers have to ‘aim for the heart’ in order to create a sense of urgency, an employee who experiences low job engagement and dis-identification can be much more difficult to motivate or to excite. Furthermore, cynics or Bohicans can be relentless urgency-killers (Kotter, 2008), leading to the second hypothesis:
Affective commitment is the employee’s desire of remaining with the organization (Allen and Meyer, 1990). To Meyer and Allen (1991), affective commitment is one of three
components that construct organizational commitment. The other two components are
continuance commitment, which implies a need to remain, and normative commitment which implies an obligation to remain. In literature a distinction can be made between commitment to the organization and commitment to the change itself. Multiple studies (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002; Parish, Cadwallader and Busch, 2008; Harris and Lucas, 2009) showed that commitment to change is a better predictor of behavioral support and successful changes than commitment to the organization is. Harris and Lucas (2009) however, also found that the longer the tenure at the company, the less desired behaviors could be explained by commitment to the change. In these situations the positive effects of affective commitment to the organization might become of greater importance to predict supportive behavior. The employees with a long tenure at Provinsje Fryslân are expected to display a high level of affective commitment to the organization, which opens the question how this characteristic influences the employees’ behavior towards change, and the sense of urgency of employees.
A sense of urgency, caused by a discrepancy between the current and the desired organizational state (Holt et al., 2007), or caused by a recognition of potential opportunities and threats to the organization (Kotter, 2008), was described earlier as ‘a gut-level feeling to act now’ (Kotter, 2008). As affective commitment relates to an individual’s attachment to the goals and values of the organization (Buchanan II, 1974), threats to these goals and values are expected to have a greater impact on employees with a higher level of affective commitment to the organization. Therefore a positive relation between affective commitment and sense of urgency is expected and affective commitment will be the subject of the third hypothesis.
H3: Organizational commitment positively influences the sense of urgency.
The perceived benefits of change may stem from either an intrinsic or an extrinsic incentive. Hick and McCracken (2011) define extrinsic incentives as tangible rewards such as financial rewards or a promotion. Intrinsic incentives are generated by a belief that certain actions of behavior will lead to some form of psychological satisfaction, such as improved customer relationships (Hicks and McCracken, 2011). Related to a part of Kotter’s (2008) definition of sense of urgency that ‘comes from the heart and prevents distraction’, intrinsic incentives that result in some form of psychological satisfaction are expected to have a positive effect on sense of urgency.
In literature comparing the effects of intrinsic versus extrinsic incentives (Reif, 1975; Beer and Nohria, 2000), a contingency approach adjusted to the situation is argued to be the most effective in creating supportive behavior towards a change initiative. According to Kotter (2007) the sense of urgency emerges when an individual or a group starts discussing the future, which may include either threats or opportunities. Discussions about future gains or benefits derived from the change should be able to create a sense of urgency. Based on these literature findings the fourth hypothesis is formulated.
3. METHOD
This chapter will describe the research method used to answer the first research question. Quantitative data were gathered to provide evidence to either support or reject the four
hypotheses. Additionally a qualitative study was undertaken to search for explanatory mechanisms in the relationships between the employee characteristics and sense of urgency. Answers to the second research question will be included in the discussion chapter of this paper, its method will not be elaborated upon.
3.1 Preliminary interviews
To answer the first research question, first unstructured preliminary interviews were held with five employees to gather background information of the current and earlier change
initiatives. In accordance with the change agent responsible for implementing the organizational vision, five employees were selected that could provide valuable information about earlier change initiatives based on their work experience. The selected employees had at least five years of experience in the field of change management, organizational strategy and vision, or
organizational behavior. Besides they were all fully familiar with previous plans to change the organization, and shared the notion that a low sense of urgency was a key factor that led to failures in the past.
The preliminary interviews gave insight in previous change initiatives at Provinsje Fryslân and their results. Interviewees were asked which change initiatives they were familiar with and what these initiatives resulted in. The employees admitted that many attempts to change the organization failed to deliver the proposed results. Causes of these failures were reported and were summarized and later on interpreted by the interviewer. This resulted in four categories of employee characteristics that had a potential influence on a sense of urgency which provided the basis of the conceptual model.
Two factors that seemed to have a negative influence on the sense urgency were
3.2 Sample
The relevant population of this research contains all employees of Provinsje Fryslân. A tiered selection method, which means that only a selection of departments were included in the research instead of the entire population (Baarda and De Goede, 2001), was applied to draw a sample from this population. An overview of the organizational structure of Provinsje Fryslân is provided in Appendix I. Three departments, Human Resources (P&O), Infrastructure and Advice (IA), and Management Support (SOBD), from a total of 19 departments, were selected to
provide data for this research, which resulted in a sample group of 141 employees. The criterion for selecting these departments was the focus on the organizational vision, which was the reason for this research. These three departments had no other change programs running which might have caused invalid results.
3.3 Research design
All variables as mentioned in the conceptual model were measured based on
questionnaires from published studies. The items were measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” (Blumberg, Cooper, and Schindler, 2008). Since all respondents were Dutch, the items were translated from the English to the Dutch language by the author. During translation, duplicate items from the questionnaire were deleted to minimize the burden for employees. Changing some of the questionnaires did have an
influence on the internal consistency, this issue will be addressed in the discussion chapter of this paper. The authors of the original questionnaires reversely coded a number of items to enhance the respondent’s attention (Blumberg et al., 2008). No changes were made with respect to coding compared to the original questionnaires.
The items constructing the sense of urgency questionnaire are based on two dimensions; discrepancy and time pressure. Discrepancy was measured based on a questionnaire by Holt et al. (2007) which included statements like “there are legitimate reasons to make this change”. Statements to measure time pressure include “change should be implemented on short term”.
Cynicism is measured based on the definition by Wanous et al. (2004) where cynicism is a combination of pessimism about future changes and a dispositional attribution. An 8-items questionnaire from Wanous et al. (2000) was used for this study. Each dimension, pessimism and a dispositional attribution, was measured based on four items. Example statements were “most of the programs that are supposed to solve problems around here will not do much good” to
measure pessimism, and “the people responsible for making changes around here do not have the skills needed to do their jobs” to measure dispositional attribution.
Affective commitment was measured based on a scale developed by Meyer and Allen (1991). Affective Commitment scale items included “I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career with this organization”. This measurement included eight items.
Giangreco and Peccei (2005) developed a 21-items scale to measure the perceived benefits of change. This questionnaire was reduced to ten items by Cabrera and García-Barba-Hernández (2012) to reduce the burden for employees. Employees were given statements that followed “As a result of the new vision…”, for example “… I receive economic benefits”.
Before sending out the actual survey, a pre-test was set out at a fourth department that was not included in further research. A pilot group consisting of three employees answered the questionnaire to test the items, and provided feedback on clarity and understanding of these items. Based on this feedback, the questionnaire was modified. The final version of the questionnaire which was used in this study can be found in Appendix II.
3.4 Data collection
When the survey closed, 67 employees filled in the online survey completely, which represents a response rate of 48 %. It took the employees on average 10 minutes to fill in the questionnaire, which was the same amount of time as proposed in the invitation. Age, gender, and job tenure were included in the questionnaire to describe the sample characteristics, and to compare these characteristics with the population. Based on these descriptive statistics the external validity can be determined. The values of table 1 represent the characteristics of the population, of the sample that participated in the surveys, and of the sample that was included in the interviews. Comparing the distribution of age, gender, and job tenure, we can conclude that the sample used for statistical analysis has a high external validity.
TABLE 1 Sample characteristics
3.5 Measurement
All items of the five variables were measured based on a 5-point Likert scale. To assess the internal consistency of the scales being measured, a Cronbach’s alpha was conducted. For this purpose, and for further analysis, SPSS version 19.0 was used. To interpret the internal consistency, George and Mallery (2003) provide the following rules of thumb to judge the Cronbach’s alpha scores: > .9 – Excellent, > .8 – Good, > .7 – Acceptable, > .6 – Questionable, > .5 Poor, and < .5 Unacceptable. The corrected item-total correlation value of the internal consistency test shows how well each individual item’s score is consistent with the composite score from the other items. De Vaus (2002) argues that a corrected item-total correlation less
Population Sample Sample
surveys interviews Age 16 – 24 year 4 (0%) 1 (2%) 0 (0%) 25 – 34 year 68 (8%) 10 (15%) 1 (17%) 35 – 44 year 188 (23%) 11 (16%) 1 (17%) 45 – 54 year 287 (35%) 27 (40%) 2 (33%) 55 and above 273 (33%) 18 (27%) 2 (33%) Gender Male 507 (62%) 40 (60%) 4 (67%) Female 313 (38%) 27 (40%) 2 (33%)
Job tenure minimum 0 0 0
(years) maximum 47 42 38
than .30 is a weak correlation for item analysis purposes. Based on this test, some items were deleted in order to increase the Cronbach’s alpha score of the variable. Table 2 provides insight in the Cronbach’s alpha scores of each variable after the corrected item-total correlation test.
TABLE 2
Number of items and Cronbach’s alpha scores
Number of items Cronbach’s alpha
Sense of urgency 7 .85
Discrepancy 4 .83
Time pressure 3 .68
Perceived job security 6 .82
Cynicism 8 .47
Pessimism 4 .68
Dispositional attribution 4 .24
Affective commitment 6 .80
Perceived benefits of change 10 .92
Because the Cronbach’s alpha scores of cynicism and dispositional attribution were unacceptable, these variables will therefore not be further mentioned in the results of the quantitative study. The items constructing pessimism as part of cynicism was questionable (α = .68), yet not unacceptable. This variable will therefore be used in further statistical analysis.
3.6 Qualitative research
Additional insights were gained by qualitative research based on interviews which was performed to understand how employees experience a sense of urgency and how this is
influenced by the independent variables. Six employees, two of each department involved in the quantitative research, were randomly selected in a so called judgment sample (Marshall, 2006). A judgment sample implies selecting interviewees who represent a broad range of beliefs and are known to the researcher. Since participation in the research was voluntarily, the selected
The interviews were semi-structured and the open questions were based on items from the questionnaires, see Appendix III for the questions that guided the interviews. Each interview started by giving an introduction to the topic, and by explaining the purpose of the interview. Next, both the interviewer and the interviewee shared some basic personal background
information to create rapport. Each interview took approximately 45 minutes to complete. After each interview, the follow-up of the study was explained to the interviewee.
During the interviews keywords from arguments and opinions of the interviewee were listed. These keywords were converted into transcripts directly after each interview had taken place. The interview transcripts can be found in Appendix IV. After finishing all six interviews, the transcripts were analyzed by highlighting the most important statements given during the interviews. Next, the researcher compared these statements to search for similarities and
4. RESULTS
In the results chapter of this paper, the outcomes of both the quantitative and the qualitative research will be outlined. The statistical analysis will be discussed and the overall findings are summarized here. Also the explanatory statements of these findings that were gathered during the interviews are included.
4.1 Correlations
To test the conceptual model of this study, a correlation analysis was performed. Pearson’s r can be used to determine the correlation coefficient of two variables on an interval scale (Huizingh, 2008). An overview of the means, standard deviations, and correlations from the quantitative study is provided in table 3. The Pearson’s r correlations show that no correlation between sense of urgency and perceived job security was found. Pessimism shows a strong negative relationship with sense of urgency ( r = -.54, p < .01 ), and with sense of urgency’s both dimensions: discrepancy ( r = -.51, p < .01 ) and time pressure ( r = -.50, p < .01 ). Affective commitment is positively related to sense of urgency ( r = .20, p < .10 ). A significant correlation exists between sense of urgency and perceived benefits of change ( r = .30, p < .01 ).
TABLE 3
Means, standard deviations and correlations
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 Job tenure 14.24 11.75 -
2 Perceived job security 3.28 .70 .01 -
3 Pessimism 2.83 .59 .07 -.25* -
4 Affective commitment 3.63 .61 .07 .08 -.11 -
5 Perceived benefits of change 2.73 .64 -.03 .20* -.45** -.08 -
Besides the correlations that were proposed in the conceptual model, other relationships were also found. Job tenure was negatively correlated to sense of urgency ( r = -.29, p < .01 ) and to both its dimensions discrepancy ( r = -.26, p < .05 ) and time pressure ( r = -.28, p < .05 ) constructing the dependent variable. This means that a negative linear relationship exists
between sense of urgency and job tenure on a confidence level of 99% (one-tailed), although it is not a strong negative relationship. Pessimism, furthermore, showed significant negative
correlations with perceived job security ( r = -.25, p < .05 ), and with perceived benefits of change ( r = -.45, p <.01 ). Perceived benefits of change showed a significant relationship with perceived job security ( r = .20, p <.05 ). The theory chapter suggested potential correlations between job tenure and perceived job security, as well as between job tenure and affective commitment. Neither of these relations was supported in this study.
4.2 Regression analysis
The four hypotheses of this study suggested a linear relationship between each
independent variable and sense of urgency. A regression analysis is used to see if there is any evidence for these proposed relationships. In this regression analysis sense of urgency is used as the dependent variable, while affective commitment, perceived benefits of change, and job tenure are used as independent variables. Table 4 lists the regression coefficient β of each variable in relation to sense of urgency.
TABLE 4 Regression analysis
β
Pessimism -.45**
Affective commitment .18*
Perceived benefits of change .11
Job tenure -.27**
R2 .39
F (4, 62) 9.94
*
p < .05. ** p < .01
Hypothesis 1 suggested that higher perceived job security will lead to a decreased level of sense of urgency. As was already established in table 3, there is no significant correlation
between both variables. As a result, perceived job security will not be included in further research. Hypothesis 1 therefore has to be rejected.
Hypothesis 2 states that cynicism negatively influences sense of urgency. As mentioned in the methods section, the consistency of the measurement is unacceptable, and no regression analysis will be executed on the relationship between cynicism and sense of urgency. However, since cynicism is partly defined by pessimism, the regression between pessimism and sense of urgency does have implications for the regression between cynicism and sense of urgency. Pessimism is therefore used in the regression analysis. The results provided in table 4 show a significant ( p < .01 ) negative regression ( β = -.45 ). Finding a significant negative regression between one dimension of cynicism and sense of urgency provides support for hypothesis 2.
Hypothesis 3 proposes a positive relationship between the level of affective commitment to the organization and sense of urgency. Evidence for a significant relationship based on the quantitative study is provided in the regression analysis ( β = .18, p < .05 ). These results confirm hypothesis 3.
Hypothesis 4 describes the positive influence of increasing perceived benefits of change on sense of urgency. Table 4 shows that perceived benefits of change positively relates to sense of urgency ( β = .11, p < .20 ), but the regression is not significant. There is not enough evidence based on these results to support hypothesis 4.
Besides the four independent variables from the hypotheses, job tenure was included in the research as a separate variable because high job tenure might be a predictor of other
Because table 3 showed earlier that other correlations between independent variables existed, additional regression analyses were performed. A regression analysis with perceived benefits of change as the dependent variable and pessimism as the independent variable showed a regression coefficient R2 = .20 and a negative regression ( β = -.45, p < .01 ) that is statistically significant. Moreover, there might be a mediating effect of perceived benefits of change on the relationship between pessimism and sense of urgency. According to Baron and Kenny (1986), to establish a mediated relationship, first the regression between pessimism and sense of urgency must be significant, which was the case as presented in table 4. Secondly, as just established, pessimism must also be a significant predictor of perceived benefits of change. The third step is to show that the mediator affects the outcome variable by using sense of urgency as the
dependent variable and both pessimism and perceived benefits of change as independent variables. This analysis did not provide enough evidence ( β = .07, p < .30 ) for the variable perceived benefits of change to be a mediator.
Other analyses with pessimism as a predictor of perceived job security showed a negative regression ( β = -.25, p < .05 ), and the same test was performed in a reversed order ( β = -.25, p < .05 ). Perceived benefits of change regressed positively ( β = .20, p < .10 ) with perceived job security. Reversing this test by making perceived job security the independent variable also showed the same result ( β = .20, p < .10 ).
4.3 Conclusion quantitative research
4.4 Interview results
After the quantitative study, six interviews were performed in order to find explanatory mechanisms for the findings in the regression analysis, and to provide an answer for the second research question: How can the employee characteristics be influenced? Two employees of each department at Provinsje Fryslân that was included in this study participated in an in-depth interview. This small sample of six employees is not representative for all employees at these departments, which was also not the purpose. It does, however, provide additional insights that can be used to explain results of the correlation and regression analyses.
The level of sense of urgency was determined by an amount of discrepancy and
experienced time pressure. Results in table 3 indicate a higher mean value of discrepancy than time pressure, and the interviews showed similar results. Most interviewees expressed a need for change, but time pressure seemed to be less present. Employees considered the statements that define the organizational vision to be rather obvious, or sometimes vague: “Everybody can interpret ‘society in first place’ differently”. Interviewees found it difficult to identify the concrete actions that should be taken now in order to make a change. One interviewee that recognized a discrepancy between the current and the desired organizational state, and considered the statements in the vision to be useful in reducing this discrepancy. Another
interviewee recognized a need for change because some colleagues did not know who they were working for, and said: “this has to change”, however “It is difficult to determine a deadline before the change should be implemented.” These statements show that time pressure is less present in determining the level of sense of urgency than discrepancy.
Based on the literature a negative relationship was proposed between perceived job security and sense of urgency. In line with the quantitative study, the interviews did also not provide any evidence for such a relationship. Statements made by the interviewees sometimes were contradicting which might explain the fact that neither a significant negative nor a significant positive relationship was found. All interviewed employees seemed quite secure of their current job, but their expressed sense of urgency levels showed less resemblance.
major reorganization in the upcoming 10 years”. This indicates high job security, and although the interviewee recognized a need for change, he is not experiencing a high sense of urgency to change the vision of the organization.
A female employee referred to an earlier change initiative where her colleague was involuntarily transferred to another position in the organization. During this change of the organizational structure, more employees were transferred in the organization. “The manager who initiated these changes was steering in the wrong direction, a lot of harm was done to the organization and to its culture.” This reorganization led to increased job insecurity, and the interviewee experienced anxiety as a result. She said the organization is still recovering from this experience. Currently this employee is feeling much more secure in her job, but is not
experiencing a sense of urgency as the new vision is not addressing her concerns about the organization. Another interviewee stated during the interview that fear to lose one´s job will not contribute to support a change initiative.
Affective commitment represents the desire to remain with the organization. Respondents stated that they feel very much at home at Provinsje Fryslân either because of their colleagues or because of the content of their tasks. Although continuance commitment was expressed several times as an argument to start employment at Provinsje Fryslân, affective commitment proved to be the main reason to commit to the organization now. Two interviewees mentioned that they felt a desire to make an effort to serve the Frisian society: “In my spare time I am voluntarily active in several events that serve society”. Provinsje Fryslân is not the only employer the interviewees could feel committed to: “I would also fully commit myself to an organization if I would be working somewhere else”. Problems of the organization do not always affect employees
personally. Some say that “I cannot be bothered by bad publicity”, others who do feel personally affected by negative publicity mention they “have a felt need to defend my employer”. This feeling to stand up for your employer positively influences a feeling that something needs to be done to reduce the discrepancy between the current and the desired organizational state.
Employees that express higher affective commitment are also more actively involved in the change program. “In my job I am standing close to the society, it is crucial that we don’t just think about the Frisian society, but we need to work together”.
Perceived benefits of change scored rather low in the quantitative study on the 5-point Likert scale. None of the interviewed employees expected any financial rewards or benefits as a result of a successful change. The quantitative study on the same scaling showed the lowest mean score on the statement: “As a result of the new organizational vision I will receive financial benefits.” This means employees do not expect many rewards in this form. Interviews indicated on the other hand that the most important benefit of the changes perceived by employees is improved service to customers. There is a strong relation to one of the statements of the organizational vision “putting society in first place” and this perceived benefit. It shows
5. DISCUSSION
In this chapter the results analyzed in the previous section along with its implications will be discussed. The findings of this study will help to answer the first research question: How do employee characteristics influence the sense of urgency? Sense of urgency was defined by Kotter (2008) as ‘a distinctive attitude and gut-level feeling that lead people to grab opportunities and avoid hazards, to make something important happen today, and constantly shed low-priority activities to move faster and smarter, now’. Four employee characteristics were hypothesized to influence sense of urgency. The study, however, found other variables to predict sense of urgency as was hypothesized based on literature. According to the present research findings an adapted conceptual model, as displayed in figure 2, can be drawn.
FIGURE 2
Adapted conceptual model
In this chapter the theoretical implications of the findings will be discussed. The practical implications can be derived from the second research question: How can the employee
characteristics be influenced? Employee characteristics based on both the original conceptual model from figure 1 and the adapted conceptual model from figure 2 are included. The
5.1 Perceived job security
Hypothesis 1, which proposed a negative influence of perceived job security on sense of urgency, as a result of complacency and contentment with the current status quo, was not sustained. The interviews did provide some new insights in the relationship between perceived job security and sense of urgency, but without a common agreement. All interviewees said that something had to be done, which indicates a discrepancy between the current and the desired organizational state. All interviewees recognized that ‘putting society in first place’, which was an important aspect of the vision, was necessary and could help to reduce the discrepancy. But all employees also stated that they were already putting the society in first place which proves there is an amount of complacency. Contrary, the insecure feeling about one’s job caused by earlier harmful attempts to make structural changes to the organization led to anxiety, which made them less willing to participate in the change or to recognize a sense of urgency.
The current outcomes indicate neither a positive nor a negative relationship, for which two explanations arise. One explanation is that there is in fact no correlation at all. The other explanation goes back to the theory by Kotter (2008) as outlined in the theory section of the paper. A part of the respondents could have experienced a high level of job security caused by complacency and therefore did not experience a high sense of urgency level. But this correlation could be faded out by another part of the employees experiencing very low job security. One of the earliest studies on the causes, nature, effects, and organizational consequences of job
insecurity by Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt (1984) showed that anxiety, non-rational behavior and psychological withdrawal are direct effects of low job security. Kotter (2008) stated that anxiety is one of the factors that will create a false sense of urgency, which is the opposite of a real sense of urgency. With a false sense of urgency the employee activity is very high, but ‘it is more mindless running to protect themselves or attack others than purposive focus on critical problems and opportunities’ (Kotter, 2008, p.25).
Based on the quantitative and qualitative findings in this study, there might be an
of urgency, and the latter a potential negative relationship. As these both parts of the respondents are fading each other out, no significant relationship can be found. Further research could
provide more insight in this fading out effect.
5.2 Cynicism and pessimism
The negative correlation and strong regression between pessimism and sense of urgency and its two factors, discrepancy and time pressure, do support a negative relation between sense of urgency and cynicism, although dispositional attribution was not included. More pessimistic employees do experience a lower level of sense of urgency. Supported by findings from the interviews, these pessimistic employees believe the proposed changes will not close the discrepancy between the current and desired organizational state. The fact that this change is focused on culture leads to less pessimism among other interviewees. Past experiences with changes in the organizational structure are not influencing the level of pessimism. These
employees recognize that a change in the culture is more urgent. Employees lost their confidence in organizational change initiatives that propose switching people around, changing the structure of organization, and hoping that problems will disappear.
Since the negative influence of pessimism is established, the question on how to lower pessimism remains, and an answer to the second research question has to be found: How can the employee characteristics be influenced?
changes, understanding change from the employees’ perspective, and providing opportunities for employees to express their feelings.
Luthans (2002) states that although mild pessimism might be beneficial, organizations should strive to increase optimism. He mentions the role of the (department) leader in the change in relation to pessimism. ‘The most effective leaders in initiating change were less pessimistic, and the more optimistic the leader, the more optimistic the followers’ (Luthans, 2002, p.65). Still, an important lesson provided by Dunsing and Matejka (1994) to reduce pessimism, is to avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy. Managers should not be managing change as though all employees are pessimists. Moreover, they should offer the best support to the non-pessimist majority of the workforce and keep them involved.
5.3 Affective commitment
Results from the quantitative study showed that there is in fact a positive
relationship between affective commitment and sense of urgency and interviews confirmed this notion. The question remains “how can the employee characteristics be influenced?” and, more precisely, what could the management of Provinsje Fryslân do in order to increase affective commitment? To answer the second research question, important antecedents of affective commitment need to be identified in a literature study.
One antecedent that proved to have a positive influence on affective commitment in multiple studies across several countries and cultures is job satisfaction. Reid, Riemenschneider, Allen, and Armstrong (2008) showed a positive correlation between both variables in a study among IT employees working within an American state government, and job satisfaction positively influenced affective commitment among Indian IT professionals (Patrick and Sonia, 2012), Turkish manufacturing employees (Ihami, 2012), and Indonesian manufacturing
employees (Ariani, 2012). To increase the level of job satisfaction, and thereby increasing the level of affective commitment to the organization, both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards can be used (Patrick and Sonia, 2012). Though intrinsic rewards can be more powerful determinants of commitment than extrinsic rewards (Mottaz, 1988), personalization of rewards plays an
In existing literature reward systems, including monetary rewards and intrinsic incentives, are suggested as the most efficient instrument for organizational culture change (O’Reilly, 1989). Milikić (2007) showed that these reward systems only relate to narrow organizational changes, but the influence of reward systems proved to be much stronger when supported by other human resource policies and continuous communication about desired employee behavior. Provinsje Fryslân adopted such an approach by introducing competencies related to the new vision in future job performance appraisals. Opportunities occur when rewards are linked to change successes, or, as O’Reilly (1989, p.22) calls it ‘tricking someone doing something right and reward it at the spot’.
Besides rewarding employees to increase job satisfaction, and thereby increasing affective commitment, Nyhan (1999) argues that interpersonal trust plays a key role to increase affective organizational commitment in public organizations. The kind of trust an employee experiences can be divided into two types: interpersonal trust between employee and the
manager, and systems trust between the employee and the organization as a whole. For each type of trust a different intervention strategy can be used. According to Nyhan (1999), building trust from the bottom up will have the greatest likelihood of increasing affective commitment.
5.4 Perceived benefits of change
The research did not provide significant evidence that increasing the level of perceived benefits of change among employees will have a positive effect on the level of sense of urgency. The fourth hypothesis of this study had therefore to be rejected. The data showed that employees perceived the benefits of the present changes to be rather low. Still, some interviewees stated that improved customer relationship would be a benefit that increased their sense of urgency level.
5.5 Job tenure
Even though not all employees with a long tenure experience a low level of sense of urgency, it is safe to say that employees that started working at Provinsje Fryslân more recently will recognize discrepancy earlier. This could be due to a more objective view towards the organization or because of experiences at previous employers. It should be clear that long job tenure should not be considered as a negative employee characteristic per se, but to bring about changes, and to do it fast, employees with a shorter tenure are easier to manage.
5.6 Limitations and future research
This study was performed at the administrative organization of Provinsje Fryslân. Based on the selection method of the sample, which consisted of just three departments, a small part of the population was included, which had a negative influence on the external validity of the sample. The reason to do so was to increase the internal validity of the sample, and to get the most usable results about the organizational changes that are currently taking place. Multiple other departments were also undergoing other minor changes which could distract the opinion about the new organizational vision.
The sample group consisted of 67 employees, which is not a large sample. From this group 6 respondents participated in the interviews. Again, these interviews do not represent the complete spectrum of opinions, but this was not its purpose. Nevertheless did the sample
characteristics show great resemblance with the population, which increases the external validity of both the survey and the interview sample. Because the time available for this study was limited, it was not possible to conduct longitudinal research. Changes in employee responses towards the variables over time could therefore not be determined based on the data.
A mistake was made during the translation of three items measuring the dispositional attribution towards change as a part of cynicism. The goal was to gain more insight in the
The impact of perceived job security leaves room for much speculation, and additional studies are necessary to find out if the proposed ‘fading out effect’ as described earlier is actual present. In this future study two separate sample groups based on the level of perceived job security could provide additional insights in its relationship to sense of urgency.
5.8 Conclusion
Creating a sense of urgency is an important first step in bringing about change. This study aimed to provide additional insights to the body of literature about employee characteristics influencing sense of urgency. Some of these insights were as predicted, others were unexpected. This study also gave direction for further research in this field. Furthermore, this study provides interesting insights on how managers can influence employee characteristics in order to create a sense of urgency. Currently, Provinsje Fryslân attempts to create a higher sense of urgency with tactics that proved to be successful in multiple studies. Shifting the emphasis in the tactics already used based on the finding from this study, the management will be more able to increase sense of urgency and thereby increase the chances of making the implementation of this
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Appendix II – Questionnaire
Welkom
In het voorjaar is tijdens workshops de nieuwe organisatievisie gepresenteerd. Als student bedrijfskunde met een specialisatie in verandermanagement aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen voer ik een onderzoek uit omtrent deze organisatievisie in het kader van mijn afstudeerscriptie. Deze visie is bedoeld om te komen tot een verbeterde dienstverlening, maar veranderen gaat meestal pas als er een noodzaak wordt ervaren. Door Herman Groenwold ben ik gevraagd te onderzoeken in hoeverre medewerkers van de Provinsje Fryslân de noodzaak ervaren om de visie in de praktijk te brengen. Daarbij probeer ik te achterhalen welke factoren dit gevoel positief dan wel negatief beïnvloeden. Dit onderzoek zal plaatsvinden bij een drietal afdelingen: Stafbureau Ondersteuning Bestuur en Directie, Personeel & Organisatie en Infraprojecten & Advies. Uiteindelijk zullen resultaten van het onderzoek samen met de daaraan gekoppelde adviezen in een eindrapportage aan de organisatie worden aangeboden.
Na een theoretisch vooronderzoek, probeer ik via deze vragenlijst de theorie te toetsen aan de praktijk. Daarom vraag ik u hierbij om deze vragenlijst in te vullen. De vragenlijst start met enkele stellingen over de baanzekerheid en de mate waarin u zich betrokken voelt bij deze organisatie. De stellingen kunt u beantwoorden op een schaal van ‘Geheel mee oneens’ tot ‘Geheel mee eens’. Daarna volgen enkele vragen met betrekking tot de organisatievisie. Tot slot vindt u op de laatste pagina een aantal algemene vragen die mij kunnen helpen om een beeld te krijgen van de respondenten.
Een hoge respons is een belangrijke voorwaarde voor het slagen van het onderzoek. Het invullen van de vragenlijst zal ongeveer 10 minuten in beslag nemen en alle gegevens zullen anoniem worden verwerkt. Het invullen van de vragenlijst geeft u de mogelijkheid uw mening te geven over de nut en noodzaak van deze organisatievisie en u kunt mij helpen tot het doen slagen van het doen slagen van het onderzoek en mijn afstudeerscriptie.
Baanzekerheid
1. Ik ben in staat om mijn huidige functie te behouden zolang ik wil.
2. Mijn organisatie zal niet gaan snijden in het aantal uren dat ik wekelijks werk.
3. Indien deze organisatie te maken krijgt met economische problemen, is mijn baan de eerste die verdwijnt.
4. Ik ben zeker dat ik voor deze organisatie kan blijven werken zolang ik wil. 5. Mijn baan blijft bestaan zolang ik wil.
6. Indien mijn baan verdwijnt, zal ik een andere baan aangeboden krijgen binnen deze organisatie.
Betrokkenheid bij de organisatie
1. Ik zou graag de rest van mijn carrière bij de Provinsje Fryslân blijven werken. 2. Ik hou ervan om met mensen van buiten over deze organisatie te praten. 3. Een probleem in de organisatie voelt ook als een probleem voor mijzelf.
4. Ik denk dat ik bij een andere organisatie mij even betrokken kan voelen als bij de Provinsje Fryslân.
5. Ik voel me niet als ‘onderdeel van de familie’ bij de Provinsje Fryslân. 6. Ik voel me niet emotioneel gebonden aan deze organisatie.
7. Deze organisatie betekent veel voor mij persoonlijk.
8. Ik voel niet een sterke wens om mij aan deze organisatie te binden.
Bekendheid met de organisatievisie (Questions for internal research, excluded in this study)
Ik heb nog nauwelijks van de visie gehoord.
Ik weet dat er een nieuwe visie is, maar ik weet er niet veel meer van dan ‘Mienskip op 1’. Ik ken op hoofdlijnen de doelen, kernwaarden en uitdagingen van de visie.
Ik ken de inhoud van de visie vrijwel volledig en ik bekijk de visieposter regelmatig. Ik draag de organisatievisie uit naar mijn collega’s en naar buiten de organisatie.
Werken met de organisatievisie (Questions for internal research, excluded in this study)
Ik heb nog nooit bewust iets van de visie in mijn werk toegepast.
Ik probeer de visie af en toe in mijn werk toe te passen.
De visie is een vast onderdeel van mijn dagelijks werk geworden.
1. Sense of Urgency : Sense of Urgency is het gevoel dat er een noodzaak bestaat om te
veranderen op korte termijn.
1. Er zijn goede redenen om in de lijn van de organisatievisie te gaan werken. 2. Niemand heeft goed uitgelegd waarom de organisatievisie nodig is.
