Why would employees change? What motivates and enables employees to commit to change.

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Why would employees change?

What motivates and enables employees to commit to change.

Master thesis, Change management, faculty of economics and business

January, 2012

Maarten Wind

Student number: S1469150

Bankastraat 27B

1094EA Amsterdam

0614637838

maartenwind@gmail.com

/

m.wind@student.rug.nl

First supervisor / university: dr. J. Rupert

Second supervisor / university: dr. C. Reezigt

Supervisor / field of study: dr. I. Wenzler

Acknowledgement:

First I would like to thank my university supervisor Joyce Rupert for providing me with great feedback and guidance for writing my thesis. I especially appreciated the quick reactions and flexibility which allowed me to write continuously. Secondly, I would like to thank my

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Abstract

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1 INTRODUCTION

Changing an organization requires attention in a lot of different business areas. The hardest and most important part of organizational change is changing attitudes and behavior of people (Armenakis, Harris & Mossholder, 1993). This research is focused on revealing the factors that explain why and how employees (will not) commit to change. Why is it so hard to change employees‟ behavior; and what can be done about it? To get an employee to commit to an organizational change, numerous aspects can be of importance.

Research background

This research is commissioned by Accenture. Accenture is a global management

consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Accenture's clients span the full range of industries around the world – including 93 of the Fortune Global 100 and more than three quarters of the Fortune Global 500. The department in which this research is carried out is the Talent & Organization Department (T&O). The T&O Department is part of Accenture

management consulting and focuses on human capital and change management issues. Today‟s leading companies are creating their business visions hand-in-hand with the human capital strategies required to implement them. T&O supports clients in achieving their business strategy through an HR, culture and workforce lens. This department has four different areas in which it operates. These areas are learning and collaboration, organization effectiveness, HR & talent management, and change management. From the change management practice, the question arose why organizational change can be so difficult. Since every project is different and each client company has a different culture, all organizational change tends to be quite organic and to differ from each other in structure and outcome. This research was initiated to get a better understanding of what makes organizational change projects a difficult process. This research focuses on collecting stories on difficult change management projects and analyzing what makes them so difficult. Since most organizational changes include people or employees, this research will focus on their position and view within organizational change.

Why would employees change?

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that he or she feels negative about. Thus, the behavior and feelings of an employee are of great importance to get them to change (Neves, 2009). This seems kind of straightforward but resistance to change is a very common phenomenon. For an employee to be willing or ready to change it must mean that the change offers a positive outcome or at least a non-negative outcome for his or her job or his or her personal environment (Armenakis et al., 1993). An employee has to be convinced that the change on hand will mean something positive for him or her or for the organization. Neves (2009) describes how perceived appropriateness of a change influences the commitment to change and turnover intentions. Thus, the criticism or approval of an employee is very important for him or her to be committed. Another important factor for an employee to be willing to comply with change is his or her belief in the ability to cope with the change on hand, and the possible implications the change can have. (Herold, Fedor & Caldwell, 2007). Changing habits or behavior means a lot of stress for many people (Dahl, 2010). This indicates that

interfering with people‟s habits and trying to change them is a delicate issue.

The goal of this research is to get an insight in what makes organizational change so difficult. In order to get this insight, a more specific question needs to be asked. Considering organizational change, as stated in the beginning of this paper, the hardest part is changing employees. Within the literature found on organizational change many different terms are found to describe a state or an attitude employees can be in or have toward organizational change. Commonly used concepts are readiness for change (Armenakis et al., 1993; Holt & Vardaman, 2007), openness to change (Wanberg & Banas, 2000; Axtell, Wall, Stride, Pepper, Clegg, Gardner & Bolden, 2002) and change cynicism (Reichers, Wanous, & Austin, 1997). However, out of all the attitudes, the concept that is the most general and considered the most important is commitment to change (Choi, 2011). Because this research tries to get a broad insight, the concept of commitment to change is chosen to describe the attitude of employees toward organizational change. To reveal the reason why employees commit to change and why they do so, the following question is asked: What factors affect employees’ commitment to

organizational change and why?

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from the interviews taken in phase one. Phase two is meant to look into the factors that are found to be important for employees to commit to change and for this research to investigate why these factors are of importance in theory. In the third and last phase, another set of interviews are taken to see if the factors found in phase one and two are important for employees to commit to change in practice and for the research to figure out why these factors are important. On the basis of all this information a conclusion will be drawn and an answer to the research question will be formulated.

Phase one: What factors could be important?

In the first phase of this research exploratory interviews were taken with consultants of Accenture. A total of twelve consultants were interviewed. These consultants have experience in the field of change management. This experience varied from two to seven years of experience in change management consulting. The minimum amount of experience was set at three completed change projects in which the consultants had a role as change manager, project member or project leader. This minimum was set to get a broad range of information based on several different organizational changes. The purpose of these interviews was to collect information about what reasons employees could have for committing or not committing to organizational change.

During the interviews consultants were asked a few different questions, these were: What reasons do you come across for employees to change? What makes change projects successful or

unsuccessful? What do employees need in order to change? All the interviews were recorded and transcribed onto paper. All this information was then collected and clustered in a model shown in Table 1. In phase two this model was then validated with literature on commitment to change and the resulting conceptual model is shown in Figure 1. This conceptual model will function as the basis for phase three. In phase three there will be investigated if these reasons really are found to affect employees‟ commitment to change and why.

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in literature will show that this division can also be made with literature on commitment to change, which has lead to a conceptual model shown in Figure 1. Consultants indicated that they often encountered organizational change projects in which the focus was on motivating

employees to change, but they were not able to because employees did not have the skills or resources to take part in the change program. The left part of the scheme shows the practical variables, these indicate the main reasons for employees to be motivated to change or to be able to change. In the right part of the column, the collected underling reasons for the practical variables are shown.

TABLE 1

Root cause model of why employees could change

Practical variables Possible underlying reasons

I am changing I am motivated to change I am convinced of the need to change

I think the business needs improvement I believe that former changes were successful My team has convinced me of the need to change The change has

personal benefits for me

I am convinced the outcome of the change will affect my job positively A change program will not increase my workload

I do not feel coerced to change I am comfortable

with change

I can easily adjust to new situations I am comfortable within new social groups I feel capable of changing my working methods I feel supported by

my supervisor to support the change

Managers are convinced of the need to change

Managers believe that the business has room for improvement Managers lead by example

I am able to change

I am asked to participate

I am seen as someone who is positive about the change program My supervisor always involves employees

I am seen as someone who is critical about the change program I know what

knowledge is expected of me

I have received information about the change program The information I received is sufficient

I know how to obtain the needed knowledge I know what skills

are expected of me

I have developed the needed skills The training I took part in was sufficient I know how to obtain the needed skills I have the resources

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This table gives an idea of all the possible reasons employees could have to commit to change. This information was gathered by collecting the opinions of consultants with experience in organizational change projects. Keeping these reasons in mind this research will continue with searching for appropriate theory to support these reasons and to investigate their existence and importance in practice.

2 THEORY

This chapter will look into the factors that are found to be important for employees to commit to change and investigate why they are of importance in theory, by using information gathered in the interviews in phase one of this research.

Phase two: What factors found in literature are of importance and why?

The second phase of this research is a literary study. Articles are selected on the basis of their research focus, which is commitment to change. To investigate the possible relations between these factors, subsidiary questions are formulated.

Getting employees committed to an organizational change encompasses more than just convincing them of the need, rightness and their own ability to cope with it. The fact that employees are encouraged and that they get the resources they need is also of great importance (Lehman, 2002). An employee can be positive about cooperating in a change, for example, but he or she does not need to have the skills or knowledge to actually do it. Even though it seems easy to provide employees with a place to work or a computer to participate in a change, it is often not taken care of. An employee could be very positive about cooperating in a change but doesn‟t get the chance because his or her supervisor demands that his or her time is spend on regular day to day activities. A lack of communication or an ineffective training could also be the cause for an employee to be unable to take part in the organizational change (Jimmieson, 2004; Sarin, 2010).

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example has great impact on the perception of employees and subsequently on their commitment (Ungan, 2005; Taylor, 2003).

Former research on commitment to change and readiness for change mostly focuses on the positive attitudes and positive beliefs of employees toward organizational change (Armenakis et al., 1993; Neves, 2009; Lau & Woodman, 1995). Little research has been performed on factors that facilitate the change processes focusing on resources. Lehman (2009) points out that the availability of resources could definitely have a great influence on employees‟ commitment to change, for example. Armenakis et al. (2009) reflect on their former research by stating that communication and participation can be used as strategies to enforce the five key variables which lead to a positive attitude to change. By stating that these factors are enforcing strategies, they state that without these strategies, the effects might still be there; but they may have a different magnitude. This research will take some of these enforcing factors and see if they have a direct relation with the commitment of employees to organizational change. It is possible that

employees have very positive feelings toward a change and are fully convinced of the need, for example, but have no support and resources to actually commit to the change. The factors that have proven to cause a positive attitude or motivation toward change, as well as factors that enable employees to change will be discussed. A distinction between these variables will be made with the help of Herzberg‟s motivation hygiene theory. The variables will be divided into two groups, one of motivators which are predicted to cause a positive attitude toward change and the other group of enablers which are predicted to facilitate employees to change.

Employees’ commitment to change

The theoretical concept that is used in this research for describing the fact that employees are changing is employees‟ commitment to change. Much research has been conducted on

commitment to change (Cunningham, 2006; Meyer et al., 2007; Chen & Wang, 2007; Bernerth et al., 2007; Conway & Monks, 2008; Parish et al., 2008; Neves & Caetano, 2009; Foster, 2010). Herscovitch & Meyer (2002) propose the following definition of commitment to change, which is used by the researchers named above: “A force (mind-set) that binds an individual to a course of

action deemed necessary for the successful implementation of a change initiative” (p. 301). A

slightly less broader definition is given by Herold (2007), he states that: “change commitment

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(p.943). In this definition a few different states of behavioral intent can be distinguished: positive attitudes, alignment, intentions to support and a willingness to work on behalf of a successful implementation. Together, these states result in commitment to change. In chapter one a

distinction was made between being motivated to change and being able to change. Because the definition offered by Herold (2007) offers such a wide span of attitudes, this research will use it as the parent element for describing „I am changing‟ stated in Table 1 as commitment to change. How all the different attitudes enclosed in the definition are of use for distinguishing between being motivated and being able to change will be described in more detail in the next sections of this chapter.

Being motivated and being able to change

As mentioned above, the results of the exploratory interviews in phase one as shown in Table 1 suggest that there could be a difference between reasons for being motivated to change and reasons for being able to change. Herzberg suggests (1974) with the motivation hygiene theory that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are produced by different factors. What makes people satisfied at work are factors that relate to the content of their jobs and what makes people unhappy at work is not what they do but how well (or poorly) they are treated by their

organization. In phase one of this research, it was found that the willingness of employees toward change could be different from their ability to change. and that these two attitudes are the result of different underlying reasons, shown in Table 1. Thus, all the suggested reasons contribute to the commitment to change of employees, but not all lead to a motivation or positive attitude toward change which is in accordance with Herzberg (1974). To make a distinction between a motivation to change and the ability to change, the definition of commitment to change needs to be elaborated. As stated above, this definition encompasses a few different states of behavioral intent and it therefore leaves room for a broader interpretation. The attitudes that commitment to change encompasses, as described by Herold (2007), are: positive attitudes, alignment, intentions to support and a willingness to work on behalf of a successful implementation.

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will be used for describing the state of being motivated to change. The attitudes „alignment and intentions to support change‟ are used to describe the ability to change.

A concept that can explain the reasons for being motivated to change is readiness for change. Armenakis et al. (1993) describes the concept of readiness for change as:

“Organizational members’ beliefs, feelings, and intentions regarding the extent to which changes

are needed and the organization’s capacity to successfully make those changes. (p.681) Devos

(2009) states that readiness to change and employees‟ commitment to change are interrelated. Both constructs show the amount in which employees are prepared to support an organizational change. A concept that can explain the reasons for being able to change is openness to change which is defined by Wanberg & Banas (2000) and Axtell et al. (2002) as “Willingness to

accommodate and accept change.” Openness to change describes a more general state of

alignment and an intention to support change.

With this division in theoretical concepts made, this chapter will further investigate which factors can lead to employees‟ commitment to change and whether these factors overlap the reasons resulted from phase one of this research. The factors found in literature will then be divided into factors that lead to being motivated and factors that lead to being able to change. The factors that indicate employees to be motivated to change will be called motivators and factors that indicate employees to be able to change will be called enablers.

Motivators

All motivators found in literature relate to readiness for change. Since Armenakis et al. (1993) present a model of readiness for change that encompasses all the variables that are suggested in Table 1 to be reasons for employees to be motivated to change, this model will be further described and investigated. Armenakis et al. (1993) have developed a model of the factors that motivate employees to be ready for to change. It describes: discrepancy between the status quo and a desired state of affairs; perceived change appropriateness; change efficacy (can the employee and organization successfully implement the change?); support for the change from

principals; and perceived personal valence of the change for the employee. The aforementioned

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Discrepancy

Discrepancy can be described as the belief of an employee that a change is needed and that there is a gap between the desired end state and the present state (Armenakis, 1999). So employees must see the need to change in order to feel positive about a change on hand. Kotter (2008) also points out the importance of discrepancy concerning the cooperation with

organizational change of employees. Kotter (1995) describes this phenomenon as „a sense of urgency‟ and according to him it is one of the most important factors to bring about change. It is easier for employees to see the need to change when business is going bad although this situation offers little maneuvering room, and when business is going great it‟s hard to explain the need for change although more resources are generally available (Kotter, 1995). Discrepancy could be caused by many different factors, like economic crises, fierce competition or just dissatisfaction with current working methods (Armenakis et al., 1993). Armenakis et al. (1993) found that discrepancy relates to change readiness of employees and that a lack of discrepancy lowers change readiness. Holt (2007) also supports this conclusion and shows that discrepancy has a strong relation with readiness to change. To see whether discrepancy affects employees‟ commitment to change and why, the next question is formulated:

Sub question 1: Why does discrepancy affect employees’ commitment to change?

Personal valence

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individuals respond poorly to changes in which they perceive themselves to be taking a big effort to adapt to the change compared to others in their work units. This indicates that personal benefit for employees plays an important role for employees to commit to change. To see if personal valence plays affects employees‟ commitment to change and why, the following question is asked:

Sub question 2: Why does personal valence affect employees’ commitment to change?

Self efficacy

Efficacy as described by Armenakis et.al.(1993) is focused on two different areas. The first is self efficacy of a change recipient. This has to do with the belief of a change recipient that he/she is able to perform the change. The second area is organizational efficacy. This reflects the belief of a change recipient in the ability of the organization to perform the change (Armenakis et al.,1993) This research will focus on the self-efficacy part of the description of Armenakis et al.(1993). Bandura (1986) states that self efficacy is a set of beliefs about one‟s ability to meet a given set of situational demands. Herold (2009) explains in his research that individuals who feel more confident about their ability to handle a change (i.e., have high change self efficacy) should be less negatively affected by the demands placed on them by workplace changes and thus more willing or committed to support such changes than those with low change self efficacy. To see if perceived self efficacy affects employees‟ commitment to change and why, the following

question is asked:

Sub question 3: Why does perceived self efficacy affect employees’ commitment to change?

Perceived principal support

Perceived principal support is the amount in which an employee believes that his or her supervisor supports him or her (Eisenberger et al., 2002). Employees strongly respond to

indications of their supervisor‟s care and positive valuation by increasing their emotional bond to both the supervisor and the organization (Neves, 2011). Neves (2011) describes that employees who perceive a high amount of principal support, develop a strong emotional bond to

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Sharafinski, 1988). Armenakis et al. (1993) describe that principal support is the belief that the formal leaders in an organization are committed to the success of a change and that it is not going to be another passing fad program of the month, they also find a strong relation with employees‟ readiness for change. Neves (2011) states that when employees feel supported by their

supervisors, they should be more willing to embrace situations like major organizational changes. Following this reasoning the perceived support by managers should have an effect on the

commitment of employees to organizational changes. To see whether perceived supervisor support affects employees‟ commitment to change and why, the following question is asked:

Sub question 4: Why does perceived principal support affect employees’ commitment to change?

Enablers

Next to variables that motivate employees to commit to change, this research will also look into variables that make change able for employees. As described in the previous theory, being able to change is interpreted as an attitude defined by openness to change. The next section will present the factors that were described in the interviews of phase one to make change able for employees. These factors are found in literature to be antecedents of openness to change defined by Wanberg and Banas (2000) and Axtell et al. (2002) as a “Willingness to accommodate

and accept change” like participation (Ertürk, 2008), communication and training (Wanberg &

Banas, 2000). The fourth factor that will be investigated for its enabling role is the availability of organizational resources, this factor is described by Lehman (2002) to be essential for acceptance of change and was found in the explorative interviews of this research to be important to make change able for employees. Firstly these factors will be described and defined, and the rest of this research will reveal how they affect the ability to change and their effect on employees‟

commitment to change.

Participation

Participation of employees in change can be described as providing employees with the opportunity to participate in a group discussion that leads to a decision about change (Woodman, 1989; Rafferty, 2010). Bouma and Emans (2005) state that change participation is the

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let them make decisions that directly influences their working environment (Ertürk, 2008). Ertürk (2008) further states that participation of employees increases the trust in supervisors. In his research Ertürk (2008) points out that employee participation is significantly linked to openness to change, which depicts the will of employees to go along with a change. Wanberg and Banas, (2000) also found that participation is positively linked to openness to change. Wanberg and Banas (2000) explain in their research how letting employees participate in delivering input in a change, increases their will to accommodate that change. To see whether participation affects employees‟ commitment to change and why, the following question is asked:

Sub question 5: Why does participation of employees affect employees’ commitment to change?

Communication

Communication is of great essence for effective implementation of organizational change (Elving, 2005). Communication within organizational change can be described as the sharing of change specific information during an implementation of a change (Wanberg & Banas, 2000). The amount and form of communication can determine the change specific knowledge level of different employees. Allen (2007) explains in his research that employees who perceived the information they received as of high quality, reported being more open toward the change. So when an employee perceives communication to be of sufficient quality, he or she feels more able to cooperate in a change and will be more open to it. This research will also look at

communication from an employees‟ viewpoint, and investigate if employees know what is expected of them in a change. Communication can be described as an important antecedent of commitment to change (Elving, 2005). Roy et al. (1998) state that sharing information with employees is the most important factor in most large change implementations because it increases employees‟ commitment to change. Wanberg and Banas (2000) also stress the importance of information sharing during change implementation and state that when employees are well informed on what is expected of them they are more open to change. To whether communication affects employees‟ commitment to change and why, the following question is asked:

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Training

Sarin (2010) describes how perceived effectiveness of the change-related training positively relates to the ability to manage change perceived by employees. The effectiveness of training according to Sarin (2010) is predicted by the timeliness, formality and voluntariness of a training. Skill formation in the form of training is a widely used tool for employees to be

informed of and during organizational changes. This research will look at training as the activity in which change related skills are taught to employees. Training helps employees overcome knowledge assimilation and barriers and as a result, become more committed to change programs (Robey et al. 2002). In his study, Shum (2007) found that employees unanimously mentioned training as one of the most important factors in contributing to employees‟ commitment to organizational change. To see whether training affects employees‟ commitment to change and why, the following question is asked:

Sub question 7: Why does the effectiveness of training affect employees’ commitment to change?

Organizational resources

To successfully change employees it is important that they receive support from the organization, in the form of training, tools and information to develop skills that are necessary to handle an organizational change (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979; Kotter, 1995). Lehman (2002) describes five different forms of resources which are necessary for a acceptance of change. These five resources: offices, staffing, training resources, computer access. The importance of sufficient resources is further pointed out by Lehman (2002) as he says that in some instances,

organizational change might be highly desirable but unlikely due to staff workloads, clinical practice, and resources. This shows the importance of organizational resources during an

organizational change and the effect it can have. To see whether the availability of organizational resources affects employees‟ commitment to change and why, the following question is asked:

Sub question 8: Why does the availability of organizational resources affect employees’ commitment to change?

Motivators – enablers

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commitment, which were described as „being motivated‟ and „being able‟ to change. In theory a similar division was found between, and within, definitions describing a state of commitment to change. A concept that could describe „being motivated‟ to commit to change is readiness for change. And the reasons found in phase one to lead to „being motivated‟ to change were found to overlap the antecedents of readiness for change found by Armenakis et al. (1993) and Holt (2007). Discrepancy, self efficacy, personal valence and perceived principal support were labeled motivators, because of their motivating role in organizational change. Thus, according to the definition of readiness for change these factors lead to a positive attitude toward change. A concept that was indicated to describe „being able‟ to change is openness to change and

antecedents of this concepts described by Ertürk (2008), Wanberg and Banas (2000) and Lehman (2002) are participation, communication, training and the availability of resources. Thus,

according to the definition of openness to change these factors lead to a willingness to

accommodate change. These four concepts are labeled enablers, because of their facilitative or enabling role in organizational change.

On the basis of this division there could possibly be a difference in the attitudes of employees following from motivators or enablers. Herzberg (1974) in his research describes a similar division of factors affecting job satisfaction. Herzberg (1974) indicates that factors leading to satisfaction are different from the ones leading to dissatisfaction, he divides these factors into motivators and hygiene factors. This research will investigate if a similar division between factors affecting commitment can be made, and will see if these factors can be divided into motivators and enablers. To investigate if a division can be made between factors that motivate and factors that enable employees to commit to change, found in phase one and two of this research, the following sub question is asked:

Sub question 9: Can factors affecting employees’ commitment to change be divided into motivators and enablers?

Conceptual model

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mentioned in this chapter. The arrows depict the investigated relation between the factors and employees‟ commitment to change. This conceptual model also shows the division between the variables, which was suggested in phase one and further validated in this chapter. This division is displayed with a dotted line around the variables.

FIGURE 1 Conceptual model

3 METHODS

The following section will describe how phase three of this research is executed. It will go in to detail on how data is gathered and analyzed, in phase three of this research.

Procedure phase three

The structure of this research is qualitative. Qualitative research is focused on discovering the why and how of factors, and is especially suitable for use in behavioral economics (Gordon,

Enablers

Motivators

Discrepancy Valence Efficacy Perceived principal support Participation Communication Organizational resources

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2011). The reason why a qualitative research structure is chosen, is that this research is focused on finding out how employees commit to change and what behavior leads to this commitment.

In order to get an answer to the sub questions and ultimately the research questions a second interview round is held. To encompass different views on how employees commit to change not only consultants were interviewed but also employees of client organizations who experienced organizational changes. In total nineteen interviews are taken with both consultants and clients of Accenture. Table 3 presents the companies which were involved.

Consultant selection and sample

In phase three, a total of nine consultants of Accenture were being interviewed. These consultants varied in change management consulting experience levels from four to eleven years. All consultants were between the age of thirty and forty-four. Four consultants are male and five are female. All consultants have been project members, and seven had been change manager or project leader in five or more projects. Seven of them are senior managers within Accenture and have over six years of experience with organizational change related projects. The other two are a consultant and a manager both with experience between four and six years of experience with organizational change related projects. The minimum amount of change projects the consultants were involved in was five. These projects all focused on changing employees‟ behavior. This minimum was defined to gather different stories about organizational change that were as broad as possible. The impact of the changes that were described had to be considerable, the changes had to be about changing behavior and encompass at least twenty employees. A behavioral change is defined as a change that encounters more than just the launch of a new technical application employees had to use. The employees (or change subjects) in the change stories should not have a possibility to ignore or work around the change. The organizational change had to be inevitable for the involved employees‟.

Employee selection and sample

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complete understanding of a phenomenon. The interviews are completely voluntarily and were treated confidential for privacy reasons. Table 3 shows the client companies from which employees were interviewed. The employees that were interviewed were selected on their experience with at least one organizational change. This was done because a more specific opinion is needed of them. The employees were asked to talk about one organizational change and how they did, or did not commit to that. The impact of the organizational change had to be of the same magnitude as formulated for the consultants; so inevitable and more than just a new technical application which changes just a few tasks. The age of the interviewees ranged from twenty-eight to fifty-four. Five employees were male and five were female. All employees were receivers or end-users of the organizational change that was discussed. Five of the employees had an extra role as change agent or line-manager during the change.

TABLE 3

Client companies involved

Number of interviewees

KPN 1

Royal Dutch Shell 2

Ministry of Defense 4

Abn Amro 2

Rabobank 2

Interview structure

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To get familiar with interviewing and to test if the length of the interviews is proper to get enough information, two practice interviews were held. Both for phase one and phase three in all the interviews were taped and stored so they could be transcribed into text.

Measurement

The content of the interviews is based on constructs from prior research performed on readiness for change and commitment to change. To make use of the questions that are asked in these quantitative studies, these are being transformed into more open questions suitable for this research. The questions that were asked in the interviews can be found Table 4 – 7 and in

Appendix 2. The following section will present the constructs that are used to gather the data. To investigate the effect of the variables on employees‟ commitment to change the following

research constructs were used and translated into more open questions.

The research of Fedor (2006) is used to investigate employees’ commitment to change. Fedor (2006) asked the participants in his research to rank statements in order to measure their commitment to change. The statements Fedor (2006) used are transformed to more open

questions for this research. The statements by Fedor (2006) are also used to analyze the answers that are given in the interviews, there will be investigated if answers given in the interviews will overlap with statements of Fedor (2006). Table 4 presents the statements used by Fedor (2006) and the questions that are derived from the statements.

TABLE 4

Construct of Fedor (2006) Statements from Fedor (2006) Interview questions

 “I am doing whatever I can to help this change be successful,”

 “I am fully supportive of this change,”

 “I have tried (or intend to try) to convince others to support this change,”

 How bound, aligned or positive were the employees towards the change, do you think?

 How bound, aligned or positive were you towards the change?

The research of Holt (2007) is used to investigate discrepancy, valence, efficacy and

perceived management support. His statements are described and found to relate to readiness for

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each of these themes affected an employees‟ readiness for change. A selection of the statements Holt (2007) used for measuring discrepancy, efficacy and perceived management support were translated to more open questions and were asked to interviewees of this research. Table 5 presents these statements and the questions that are derived from them.

TABLE 5

Construct of Holt (2007) Statements from Holt (2007) Interview questions

 “When we implement this change, I feel I can handle it with ease.”

 “I do not anticipate any problems adjusting to the work I will have when this change is adopted.”

 “My future in this job will be limited because of this change.”

 “When we implement this change, I can envision financial benefits coming my way.”

 “There are legitimate reasons for us to make this change.”

 “There are a number of rational reasons for this change to be made.”

 “The senior leaders have served as role models for this change.”

 “Every senior manager has stressed the importance of this change.”

 To what extent did you had the feeling that you were capable of changing?

 Can you tell why the change was necessary and were you convinced of the need to change?

 Did the you had the idea that the change could bring something positive for you personally?

 To what extent did you feel that you were being supported by your supervisors?

 How committed were your managers and what message did they convey, What was the influence on you?

The research of Wanberg and Banas (2000) is used to investigate participation and

communication. Their constructs are described as contextual statements and found to relate to

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TABLE 6

Construct of Wanberg and Banas (2000) Statements from Wanberg and Banas (2000) Interview questions

 “I have been able to participate in the

implementation of the changes that have been proposed and that are occurring.”

 “I have some control over the changes that have been proposed and that are occurring.”

 “The information I have received has adequately answered my questions about the changes.”

 “I have received adequate information about the forthcoming changes.”

 How were you involved in the planning of the change and how during the change?

 Did you know what was expected of you for the organizational change?

The research of Conway (2008) is used to measure training, communication and resources. His statements are described and found to relate to employees‟ commitment to change. A

selection of these statements were transferred to open questions and used for this research. Table 7 presents these statements and the questions that are derived from them.

TABLE 7

Construct of Conway (2008) Statements of Conway (2008) Interview questions

 “The opportunities you have to engage in training and education activities that are beyond that needed in your job.”

 “The information provided to you concerning important new initiatives at work.”

 “The materials and equipment needed to perform your job.”

 What did you learn during the training

programs and what did you use that during the change?

 Could you describe how you have been supported by resources during the

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The research method of Herzberg (1974) is used to measure the difference between the motivators and enablers. A similar technique as is used by Herzberg (1974) will be used to differentiate motivators from hygiene factors. To see which variables would be motivators and which would be enablers they were translated into statements and interviewees had to rank these statements from (1) being very important to (8) being not so important. The statements that were used are: Believing in the need to change, having resources to change, perceiving a benefit of the change, feeling capable to change, training of skills during change, being participated during change, having sufficient information to change and perceiving support of management to change. The table with the results of this question is presented in Appendix 1.

Content analysis

To analyze the data, the audiotapes are transcribed and the transcriptions are used as the source of data for content analysis. Then, data were read word by word to derive codes (Morgan, 1993). From this first observation nine different codes arose. These codes were the eight

variables used in this research plus commitment to change. Next, labels for codes were defined that reflect the content of the quotes that are gathered through interviewing. These labels are the categories in which the statements will be presented and overlap the descriptions of the variables used in this research. These categories were used to organize and group quotes from interviewees into meaningful clusters (Coffey&Atkinson, 1996). For each category, or code, quotes were identified that showed a strong resemblance with each other and these were clustered in a table. These clustered quotes can be found in Appendix 3 and 4. In Appendix 3 and 4 a table is presented with a selection of the quotes that are used for this research. On the basis of the clustered data, conclusions about the sub-questions and main research question are drawn.

4 RESULTS

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commitment will be presented, then the findings on the relation of each of the eight variables with commitment and lastly the findings on the suggested difference between motivating variables and enabling variables.

Commitment to change was described with, not only positive attitudes toward the change but also alignment with the change, intentions to support it, and a willingness to work on behalf of its successful. Throughout all the interviews employees‟ commitment to change is viewed in different ways. But what is generally agreed upon was the intention of employees to work on behalf of a change project. Ten interviewees mentioned a positive attitude towards change, and almost all mention a cooperative attitude of employees as being a sign of commitment.

Seven interviewees state that they were just working in accordance with the change program and followed the instructions they were given. An employee indicated that there was no choice but to conform to the instructions employees were given: "I was assigned to the change

activities, I had no choice but to go with it. I was added to the pilot at the last minute. I thought it was interesting, at first I thought: there is a whole lot of work coming at me. "But I went along with it and did what I had to do. This depicts how employees can commit to a change because

they just have to, and just go along with it without questioning the logic of it. This situation was often described in interviews, employees describe committing to a change as doing what they are asked to do. Another employee described it this way: "It depended on the location and situation

how easily the employees went along with the change. There were some teams that did very well, these teams already participated in work-groups to contribute to the change and started thinking about the change process at an early stage. I noticed that these teams got quicker connected to the change. " This situation describes commitment as voluntarily participation of employees, in

the design process of the change program. The voluntariness of this participation is determinant for the employee to commit to the change.

Other descriptions of commitment are outlined as positive attitudes towards change. For employees who said this, it was important that the change program suited their personal

expectations. An employee said: "I think it had to do with the fact that we all understood the

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employees gave an indication of the commitment that was felt for the change program. The same employee said: “When the plug was pulled from the project I was really disappointed. I had

learned new tasks and thought it was all going well. I wanted to learn more and develop myself further. It is unfortunate that the change is not put further into action.” This positive attitudes

were found in more interviews, which in most cases was agreed upon as a state of commitment. The attitude of employees toward change is often found as a good description of commitment.

Consultants mostly use the same interpretation of commitment as employees. Consultants sometimes see commitment more as conforming and focus on goals of a change project. One consultant described it this way: "The change was successful because the milestone was achieved,

which was defined so that everyone that was on list for the training course actually accomplished that training. After the training, all employees were asked to see if they accomplished the training and to see if they had understood what was expected of them, and that test demonstrated that over 90% met the stated requirements. " This indicates the goal driven mindset of some

consultants who consider commitment as requirements met. So if employees cooperated in a given change and have participated in the activities accompanied with that they are committed to the change. Another description of high commitment is given by a consultant as: “…Employees

easily cooperated with the change program.”

Five consultants indicated to find it more important that employees act and behave on behalf of the change program, they are more interested in employees taking ownership of a change than in seeing their measurable project goals met. They describe commitment, the same as the employees above, as a positive attitude towards a change program. “Not only were the

goals of the change program met but the change lives on in the new situation. It is picked up and elaborated on. It was a substantial change where the customer was not only very happy with it but where everyone considered it a real new way of working and a real change of behavior” This

goes beyond a state of just conforming to a change but it rather describes a positive attitude towards the change, so positive that employees take ownership of the changed situation. This state of ownership wasn‟t regularly found, but instead commitment is often described as a positive attitude towards change.

For every change there were points in time where commitment was not that high. For some changes this was at the beginning, like in this description of an employee: “Considering

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beginning, the largest group waited a for some time and did so when there was no other choice.”

For other changes this happened another point in time. Again commitment is described as accepting, and cooperating with a change and in this case indicates the opposite of that. Low commitment situations are often described as periods in the change program where the methods or the execution is questioned. Employees doubt the path that is taken and refuse to work on behalf of that, indicated by the following quote:“But there was also a fairly large proportion of

employees who were subject of the change and were not participating. I noticed this because there were many questions and many issues were questioned. Will it succeed? We see things going wrong! Little things that went wrong during the project were proof for the employees to say: I told you it isn’t going well!” To sum up the findings about commitment to change it can be

said that all interviewees recognize commitment as cooperating with a change, feeling positive about a change and working.

Discrepancy

Discrepancy was defined as seeing the need to change. All interviewees acknowledged that seeing the need to change is an important factor within organizational changes. The following findings will mention how discrepancy was described to relate to commitment to change. Different reasons were mentioned for discrepancy to arise. Sometimes it can be obvious for employees to change, and discrepancy arises because of existing conditions which are not favorable for them. A consultant stated: “It were the employees that said something had to

change because they were not able to help customers as they would like. They thought it was good that something happened.” But there are also situations in which discrepancy is far from a

given, and might not even be present. Three employees describe the absence of discrepancy because of a lack of understanding of employees about the change. One employee said: “A whole

lot of people did not understand how it would work, and therefore thought that it wouldn’t work.”

Employees can‟t see how the new situation is going to look like and therefore cannot see the need for it. In some cases employees have experienced a lot of change programs and therefore assume that another change program will also fail. But this same situation could also work in favor of the change program, if employees have experienced a successful change at another company they are more likely to see the need for it in future situations. “A change approach can be seen as

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well so I’m confident this will work.” What also seems important for employees to see the need

for a change, is the influence of team members on their own opinion. Eight interviewees explained that a group can cause employees to copy an opinion of another employee within a group. It is often seen that a group forms a collectively constructed viewpoint on why a change should or should not be needed. “The employees influence each other by saying that it was a bad

system. Because employees said so, other employees picked this up and soon everyone had the same conviction.” The same influence can also be seen between groups or teams, they influence

each other in their opinion on the possible need of a change program. A consultant explained:

“The results of other teams was crucial for employees to see the benefit of a change, this gave them the belief that it would work and that it was necessary. The moment they saw that other teams increased their project performance, the teams that had not yet entered the change also wanted to join.”

About the effect of discrepancy, or a lack of discrepancy on employees‟ commitment to change, most interviewees agreed. Discrepancy was often described as one of the most important factors influencing the attitude of employees according organizational change. An employee described her attitude towards the change as following: “I was however positive about the

change, because I understood why the change had to take place. I have noticed in my previous job that responsibilities were not carried out right and that there was not enough structure in the way everyone consulted one another. This made me feel the need for the change on hand.”

Consultants also feel the importance of discrepancy and often describe the lack of discrepancy as the reason for employees to lack a positive view on the change. “They did not see that the change

could have positive effects, they felt like that they were obliged to change. They felt that their job would disappear and that in their new jobs they only had to monitor instead of executing tasks. The result of this was that they did not cooperate.”

Concluding it can be said that discrepancy can be influenced by employees‟ history with former change, understanding of the change process, group pressure and the effect of

discrepancy is that it has a strong influence employees‟ commitment to change.

Personal valence

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played a role. Personal valence can be present in different forms. It is described by nine interviewees to arise when financial benefits or tasks are being altered. Especially consultants notice personal valence as an important factor in employees‟ behavior. One consultant stated:

“Employees were uncertain about the future of their jobs, their financial situation and whether they had to move to England. What followed were months of uncertainty, with the result that the employees were very unproductive.” Employees like to grow in their functions, be more efficient

in their work or learn new tasks, but they don‟t like it when tasks or information is being taken away from them. A consultant said:“They wondered why there are new processes to come. At

that moment they had a lot of information and were afraid to lose that.”

The most common form of valence however is perceived when employees experience a lack of valence, like the fear of losing their job. In a lot of organizational changes jobs are being redesigned, or worse, being made redundant. One consultant mentioned: “During the change

opportunities arose for people to get promoted. And because of that there inevitably are also going to be victims, for example if you no longer need three people for one position but only one. So there is going to be competition for that position and it will be a disappointment for most of the employees competing.” Such a situation is described in almost every interview, and was easy

to recognize as valence. Another recognizable reason for a lack of valence was given by a

consultant who noticed that the focus of employees is often on their own targets, or at most at the targets of their department. The benefit of a change for the organization is not always at the interest of employees, because it simply doesn‟t reach them in their daily activities. A consultant explained: “The change project we carried out embodied several different departments in

different countries and regions. What I noticed was that the benefits of the program were mainly focused on a higher level than the employees were interested in. It is therefore important to align the activities and tasks on which employees are assessed on with the greater purpose of the change process, otherwise it is very difficult for people to come along.”

All interviewees agreed upon the fact that valence had an effect on the attitude or position of employees toward an organizational change. As mentioned above valence is mostly an issue when employees feel like there is none for them. Consultants indicate that employees become less positive about a change on hand and don‟t easily cooperate when they perceive no personal valence. One consultant said: “A lot of people at my department wanted to make a next career

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restless. This had an effect on the change, we wanted clarity first.” Not only employees

experience these feelings, it is also noticed amongst supervisors. A team-leader described the difference in attitude toward the change as a result of a lack of personal valence, and stated:

“Some team leaders were positive and some were negative. This was mainly due to their belief in their own future within the organization. If they thought there was going to be a future for them than they were more positive towards the change.”

To sum up personal valence plays a role when employees don‟t perceive any and are afraid to lose power over information, when they are afraid they will lose their job or tasks. But it also affect the commitment of employees when they think the change will bring financial or job enriching benefits for them personally. The eighteen interviewees that described (a lack of) personal valence all acknowledge that it affects employees‟ commitment to change.

Self efficacy

Efficacy was defined as feeling capable to cope with the tasks and responsibilities that are demanded by an organizational change. Efficacy is the feeling of an employee that he is capable to cope with change, so it is different from the actual ability to cope with the change. Seventeen interviewees described the efficacy to affect employees‟ commitment to organizational changes. Eight of these seventeen interviewees were consultants. Efficacy is encountered in different forms. Ten of the eighteen interviewees described a lack of efficacy as a reason for employees to feel incapable to cope with change. A consultant said: “It was easy noticeable that people had

problems with their new role. Employees often lacked confidence to perform their new role. It was doubted whether all the people had the right qualifications and competencies.” Insecurity

about coping with a change was described to be felt by employees if they had to learn new skills, or work in a new environment. An employee confirmed that feeling and stated:“I was also afraid

to learn new tasks, I had to gain new knowledge and that made me insecure and I therefore initially didn’t wanted to learn those new tasks.” Efficacy also was described to be caused by

other reasons next to learning new tasks or performing new activities. In a large amount of changes that were discussed, employees just felt insecure about change in general. A common phenomenon was that employees just don‟t like the idea of changing their direct habits, environment or colleagues. A consultant stated: “The employees were very attached to their

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They didn’t like this idea. Workers liked that they knew what to expect every morning and they were not eager to just change that fact. This brought a huge amount of uncertainty. We had initially had no answer to this situation.” Fourteen interviewees described a lack of efficacy to

lead to a lack of employees‟ commitment, three interviewees describe efficacy as a predictor of commitment. One employee indicated to feel very capable of performing the change activities and pointed out the resulting state of high commitment: “I was not afraid to have to learn new

tasks at all, instead I liked doing that . This provided me a new challenge in my work. I learned something new and noticed that I got to know things I otherwise would never have known. The change gave me much more understanding much more about how the rest of the process takes place.”

The results indicate that a relation between an absence of efficacy is most commonly linked to a state of low commitment to change by employees. A consultant staid:“Some people

felt quite uncertain because their new role was a lot more demanding. Because a number of processes were optimized some employees got more responsibility, and in the beginning that brought the uncertainty. As a result of that, the employees were resisting the change.” Another

clear example of employees who feel insecure is given by a consultant who saw that employees thought they couldn‟t handle the possible increased workload the change would bring them:

“There was a number of people who deliberately didn’t went along with the change because they thought they couldn’t handle the increased work load of the new situation. They didn’t want any additional responsibilities. That positive efficacy affects employees‟ commitment is also found

mentioned by an employee: “I found it to be very exciting to re-apply for a more complex

function. I had no experience with an assessment but I was definitely interested. I was confident I could fulfill the new job and that’s one of the reasons for being positive about the change.” So a

lack of efficacy is described as a source of insecurity, employees don‟t like to change their working environments and can be afraid to cope with new situations that demand learning of new tasks or working with new colleagues. Seventeen interviewees describe that efficacy or a lack of efficacy has an influence on employees‟ commitment to change.

Perceived principal support

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are dependent on their supervisors and commonly follow their lead. So you could say supervisors have great power over the attitude and behavior of their employees, a consultant described this as following: “That is the reason that management support is so important, when the managers

indicate that something is important then employees will assume that’s the right thing to do.”

Employees will check with their supervisor first before taking stance in an organizational change. The perception of an employee that his supervisor is supporting him or her is of influence on his or her attitude. An employee indicated the following situation as one in which she experienced helpful support of her manager which influenced her behavior: “I was a bit stressed by, until the

manager said that it did not matter whether the work was finished or not. He indicated that it was not our problem and that we didn’t have to bother. It was very comforting to notice he didn’t bother either.” Especially consultants acknowledge the influence of managers have on their

employees as it comes to behavior of employees during organizational change. Consultants often use sponsors or champions to spread the change message to employees. And most of the time these sponsors or champions are managers. A consultant stated: “If there would have been

another manager who would have supported the change, if employees see that their manager is not in favor of a change they also will think it is not important. Sponsorship is really important.”

Sixteen interviewees agreed that perceived management support had an influence on employees commitment to change. A consultant looked at it this way: “If the manager does not

show that he supports the change, or if he doesn’t lead by example you can notice that the employees do not easily commit to change. If a supervisor stays at a distance of his/her employees they won’t easily join a change.” Consultants demand that managers act like they

support an organizational change, whether they like it or not. That they act like they support the change is important for the perception of employees that they are supported by their managers to cooperate with the change. At the moment that employees have the feeling their manager doesn‟t support their ideas, a loss of trust can be the result. A consultant stated: “The moment the

manager ignored something that the employees found very important turmoil arose. Because of this employees lost their confidence in the change approach.” Not all managers see the

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and really took ownership of the change. He was a great pioneer and a true ambassador of the program. Shortly after the implementation of the program he left and that had a major impact on the change. His successor was less involved and wanted to give it his own twist. The substitution of the vice president had a significant negative impact on the sustainability and effectiveness of the program.” So perceived supervisor support is found to be important for employees to feel

comfortable about their position and performance. Sixteen interviewees of which 9 consultants acknowledge that perceived principal support influences employees‟ commitment to change.

Participation

Participation was defined as the opportunity for employees to participate in a group discussion that leads to a decision about change. Eighteen interviewees, of which ten employees, described participation to be of influence on employees‟ commitment to change. Every change that was discussed during the interviews embodied some form of participation of employees. One consultant stated: “The moment you don’t let employees participate in the design of the change,

the resistance against it will only grow. In that case you will need a very docile herd of sheep if you want them to just follow.” In every different change program there was mentioned a different

strategy for participation of employees. In some cases critics were taken out to get input from or to set an example, a consultant explained: “The biggest critics of the program were taken out and

were given the chance to think about the process. The result was that the group, from which the original critics came, thought that if they approve it we it’s okay and also went along.” An also

common strategy for letting employees participate is involving the positive and the expert ones. It often works both ways, as well as letting employees take part in the design so they have the feeling they also decide, it also is useful to get inside information of users to make corrections to the design. A consultant stated it this way:“In each region there was a change focal point inside

of a local change network, and there were process experts from each region that had the

confidence of the employees within that region within that region. The fact that one of their own helped thinking about the solution and design gave the rest of the employees a lot of confidence.”

About the result of letting employees participate eighteen of them agreed that it related to employees‟ commitment to change. A consultant said: “We have given the employees the chance

to be involved in the program by letting them train, and communicate to other employees. They had to convey the change message of the program themselves. The effect was that people

Why would employees change? What motivates and enables employees to commit to change.