INFLUENCING COMMITMENT TO CHANGE
The relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change.
February 6, 2008
IRMA DIEVER Student number 1334123 University of Groningen,
MscBA, Faculty of Management and Organization Specialization Change Management
ABSTRACT
This research tries to find out whether commitment to change can be influenced by communication. The main question of this research is: is there a relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change? A questionnaire was send to employees of an educational institution to find out how the change communication was perceived, and to measure commitment to change. This research makes a first attempt to develop a scale which can be used to measure satisfaction about change communication. This scale is based on literature and contains six items. The results of this research show that satisfaction about change communication only correlates significant with affective commitment to change (desire to provide support for the change). Affective commitment has
the strongest and most favourable correlations with organization-relevant and employee-relevant outcomes. It appears that affective commitment to change can be influenced by
communication. Affective commitment to change increases when employees are satisfied about: the usability (1) and clarity (2) of information, the chosen communication channels (3) and the amount of received information (4). However, two items of the scale did not correlate with affective commitment to change. It appeared that satisfaction about the opportunity to give an opinion (5) significantly influences normative commitment (a sense of obligation to provide support for the change) in positive direction, instead of affective commitment. Satisfaction about the timing (6) of information does not significantly influence any component of commitment to change.
1. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, change has become a way of life (Balogun & Hope-Hailey, 2003). “Many factors such as globalisation, technological advances, deregulation, privatisation, mergers or acquisitions coupled with a movement of labour-intensive projects to less expensive locations and changing customer demands are forcing organizations to constantly review their purpose and raison d’être” (Daly, Teague & Kitchen, 2003:153). The brutal fact is that 70 per cent of all change initiatives fail (Beer & Nohria, 2000). Companies still think they will be different and that their change program will be successful (Barrett, 2002). Change remains difficult, and few companies manage the process as well as they would like (Beer & Nohria, 2000).
1.1 Motive for research
At the moment, Landstede is in the middle of a change program. The change program which is operable is called Talented Development. The whole education system of Landstede will change. Educations, teams and teachers will be classified by landscapes and teachers have to give competence aimed education. Communication during the change program is provided by the communication, marketing and strategy department.
1.2 Research proposal
The research proposal will be split up into research objectives, a research question and a number of sub questions followed by a number of restrictions for this research. There are two research objectives which came from Landstede and there is one general research objective. Research objectives
Research objectives which came from Landstede :
Examine in which way communication as a mean can be used to create commitment to change and measure how the communication during the change program is perceived by the members of the organization.
General research objective:
Examine the relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change.
Research question
Is there a relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change?
Sub questions
The research questions led to a few sub questions. The answers to these sub questions will contribute to the answer of the research question.
• What are important aspects of communication during change programs?
• What is the role of commitment during change processes?
• What is the relationship between communication and commitment. Restrictions
The research takes into account the following restrictions:
• There are two researches at the same time. The communication, marketing and strategy department and the change managers don’t want to send two different questionnaires to the teachers. Therefore, these respondents have to be divided between the researches.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter considers relevant literature concerning communication, commitment and organizational change. In the first part of this chapter, important aspects of communication during change programs will be discussed. After that, the role of commitment during change processes and the relationship between communication and commitment will be discussed.
2.1 Communication during organizational change
Communication plays a major role in change management. According to Barrett (2002), without effective employee communication, change is impossible and change management will fail. Goodman & Truss (2004) state that the way organizations communicate with their employees during organizational change has significant effects on the success of change initiatives
In communicating change, both the content and the process of communication strategy are significant (Goodman & Truss, 2004). The way of communicating needs to be context specific in order to be effective (Goodman & Truss, 2004).
2.1.1 The communication wheel
Goodman & Truss (2004) developed the change communication wheel (figure 1), and argue that the four aspects of communication where change managers have to make active decisions are message, media, channel and approach. The specifics of change communication differ per company (Barrett, 2002).
According to Goodman & Truss (2004), communication has to be adapted to the organizational context and the change programme characteristics They also state that, the response of the employees should affect the design of the communication strategy as the change progresses, allowing the approach to change according to employee needs. According to Barret (2002), the effectiveness of the communication has to be measured frequently company wide, throughout the key stages of the change process. The four elements within the communication wheel, form the basis for the communication strategy. “Achieving an effective match between all four quadrants of the wheel, while taking account of the four contextual features, appears to be the main challenge facing those charged with designing change communication strategies” (Goodman & Truss, 2004:227).
According to Goodman & Truss (2004), selecting the appropriate method for communication, and deciding what the content of the communication should be, are two extremely important and highly complex elements of communication (Goodman & Truss, 2004). Klein (1996) argues that both the content and the media communication needs to be flexed as the change programme develops.
The method and content of communication are a combination of the quadrants media, channel and message, and will be used for measuring communication satisfaction during change. The quadrant ‘approach’ has to do with issues about how the change process is managed and concerns whether change managers choose a participative or a more directive change approach (Balogun & Hope Hailey, 2003). It is possible to ask the opinion of employees about the chosen change. However, this does not contribute to the measurement of satisfaction about change communication. Besides that, a communication department cannot directly influence the change approach, while this is possible with the quadrants media, channel and message.
Quadrant message
Message concerns what information is given to employees before, during and after the change initiative, and what information is received from employees (Goodman & Truss, 2004). Axley (2000) states that one very important decision managers have to make considers what is communicated about the change before and during the process. According to Lippitt (1997), information has to be shared fully and without delay.
Quadrant channel (Source of the message)
According to Klein (1996), the credibility of a message is directly related to the status of the source of the message. Barett (2002) states that employees have to see top-level and mid-level management as responsible for the communication. According to Postmes, Tanis, & de Wit, (2001) vertical communication should help define what the organization stands for and thereby make it easier for people to identify themselves with the organization. Klein (1996) explains that the regular use of the authority structure as a symbol of support, approval and control is helpful from the beginning.
According to Klein (1996), direct supervision is the most effective source of organizationally sanctioned information. He states that it is important to keep supervisors informed during change, because they can invoke the principles of redundancy and face to face communications when they have frequent contact with their supervisees.
Quadrant media
Managers can choose verbal, written and/or electronic media to communicate with employees. Each channel has characteristics that makes it appropriate in some situations (Lengel,1988). Whichever channels are chosen, it is important to regard communication as a two-way process (Goodman & Truss, 2004). Hutchison (2001) states that besides informing employees, organizations need to focus on whether the employees have an opportunity to participate in decision-making, to provide input and to assume ownership.
This research examines the relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change. The previous part of this chapter will be used to develop a scale which can be used to measure satisfaction about change communication. The next part of this chapter explains the concept commitment to change and his behavioural consequences. As can be seen in the conceptual model, commitment to change has three separable components. This research will only examine the relationships which are indicated with a dotted arrow.
Conceptual model
Figure 2: Conceptual model 2.2 Commitment and organizational change
“The number one reason why organization change initiatives fail is resistance to change, which is closely linked with the development of negative attitudes to change” (Vakola & Nikolaou, 2005:162). Therefore, it is important that employees don’t feel resistance to the change, but support the change. According to Herscovitch & Meyer (2002) and Vakola & Nikolaou, (2005), commitment is one of the most important factors involved in gaining support from employees for change initiatives. Narine (2003) states that to enhance acceptance of a change programme, it is important to gain commitment for the proposed change before and during implementation.
2.2.1 Organizational commitment and commitment to change
Over the years, many researchers have researched the concept of commitment. “Commitment is a force that binds an individual to a course of action of relevance to one or more targets” (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001:301). A lot of research about commitment focuses on organizational commitment, but a person can also be committed to for example a career, a goal, a strategy, a change etcetera.
Commitment to change Championing Cooperation Support for change Successful change Turnover Satisfaction about change communication Affective
Meyer & Allen (1991) developed a three component model for organizational commitment. Herschovitsch & Meyer (2002) found that an adapted form of the three component model for organizational commitment can be used to measure commitment to change. There are three components of commitment, these are affective, normative and continuance commitment. The difference between these components and the difference between organizational commitment and commitment to change will be explained in this paragraph.
Organizational commitment is “a psychological state that (a) characterizes the employee’s
relationship with the organization, and (b) has implications for the decision to continue or discontinue membership in the organization” (Meyer & Allen, 1991:67).
Commitment to change is “a force (mind-set) that binds an individual to a course of action
deemed necessary for the successful implementation of a change initiative” (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002:475).
According to Meyer & Allen (1991), commitment has at least three separable components reflecting a desire, a need and an obligation to maintain employment in an organization. Each component has different implications for on-the-job behaviour. The three forms of commitment are not mutually exclusive, one can experience all three forms of commitment to varying degrees (Meyer & Allen, 1991).
“Affective organizational commitment refers to the employee’s emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization. Employees with a strong affective commitment continue employment with the organization because they want to do so” (Meyer & Allen, 1991:67). Sinclair, Tucker, & Cullen, (2005) state that employees with strong affective commitment believe that their values match the values of the employer and feel emotionally attached to and identify with their company.
Affective commitment to change reflects a desire to provide support for the change, based on a
belief in its inherent benefits (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002).
Somers & Birnbaum, (2000) explain that individuals with high continuance commitment believe that it is better to stay with their organization, because other organizations might not match the benefits they have (economic investments), and because change is often more difficult when one has been associated with an organization for an extended period of time (psychological costs).
Continuance commitment to change reflects a recognition that there are costs associated with
failure to provide support for the change (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002). Employees with continuance commitment to change support the change because they want to avoid costs. “Normative organizational commitment reflects a feeling of obligation to continue employment. Employees with a high level of normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with the organization” (Meyer & Allen, 1991:67).
Normative commitment to change reflects a sense of obligation to provide support for the
change (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002). Behavioural consequences
One reaction to organizational change involves the extent to which individuals cope with the uncertainties that radical change introduces into their work lives (Judge, Thoresen, & Pucik, 1999). Meyer & Herscovitch (2001) argue that as long as one form of commitment is strong there is a high probability that employees will do what is expected from them. The research of Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch & Topolnytsky (2002) showed that employees with affective commitment had lower absenteeism, higher job performance and higher organizational citizen behaviour. Meyer and Herscovitch (2001), found that individuals who are committed primarily out of desire might have a stronger preference to stay committed than those who are committed primarily out of obligation or to avoid costs.
Meyer and Allen (1991) explain that employees with strong continuance commitment (avoid
costs) may do little more than is required to maintain employment. They may also attend to
work regularly, perform assigned tasks to the best of their ability and do little extra’s to help out (just like employees with strong affective commitment), but only if they see it as a part of their duty (Meyer and Allen, 1991). Employees with continuance or normative commitment
(obligation), show behaviour to which they are bound by their commitment, for example
It appears that affective commitment results in the most favourable behavioural consequences. Affective commitment has ‘‘the strongest and most favourable correlations with
organization-relevant (attendance, performance, and organizational citizenship behaviour) and employee-relevant (stress and work---family conflict) outcomes’’ (Meyer et al., 2002:20).
Herscovitch & Meyer (2002) found that only affective and normative commitment are positively correlated with cooperation and championing, so affective and normative commitment to a change are associated with higher levels of support than is continuance commitment.
2.3 Commitment and communication
While studying the literature, it appeared that the relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change has not been researched yet. Through combining the results of some related researches it is possible to formulate some hypothesis about the relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change.
Organizational commitment and commitment to change
A lot of researchers like Iverson (1996), Armenakis & Bedeian (1999), Yousef (2000), and Vakola & Nikolaou (2005,) found that organizational commitment is one of the most important determinants of successful organizational change. Herscovitch & Meyer (2001) found that both organizational commitment and commitment to change contributed to behavioural support for a change. However, Herscovitch & Meyer, (2001) found that commitment to change contributed more unique variance to the prediction of behavioural support for the change than did organizational commitment.
Organizational commitment and communication satisfaction
A few researchers examined the relationship between communication satisfaction and organizational commitment. The research of Varona (1996) shows a positive relationship between communication satisfaction and organizational commitment. Postmes et al. (2001) found that employees perception and satisfaction with aspects of communication are strongly related to organizational commitment.
Organizational commitment and organizational change
Elving & Bennebroek Gravenhorst (2005) researched the relationship between organizational commitment, uncertainty, quality of information and readiness for change and found that the quality of information and uncertainty have significant correlations with readiness for change. Lotz & Donald (2006) examined the relationship between communication satisfaction and stress during organizational change and found that communication satisfaction had an inverse relationship with sources of stress. Elving & Bennebroek Gravenhorst (2005) also found that, in times of change, the quality of information about the change is an important predictor of organizational commitment. They found that especially the quality of information predicts readiness for change, and communication plays a major role in preventing resistance to change and creating readiness for change.
2.3.1 Combining the literature
The findings which will be compared to formulate the first hypothesis are:
• The perception and satisfaction of employees about aspects of communication strongly relate to organizational commitment (Postmes et al., 2001 and Varona 1996).
• In times of change, the quality of information about the change is an important predictor of organizational commitment (Elving & Bennebroek Gravenhorst, 2005).
• Both organizational commitment and commitment to change contribute to behavioural support for a change (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2001)
The third finding indicates that both organizational commitment and commitment to change contribute to behavioural support for a change. Therefore, it seems logically to expect both forms of commitment have the same positive relationship with satisfaction about change communication.
This leads to the first hypothesis:
H1a: There exists a positive relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change.
2.3.2 Communication and affective, normative and continuance commitment
According to the literature, commitment to change has three separable components. Because the behavioural consequences differ per component, it is interesting to find out whether all components of commitment to change have a relationship with satisfaction about change communication. I expect a positive relationship between satisfaction about change communication and all separate (affective, continuance, normative) commitment to change scales. This paragraph contains the argumentation for hypothesis 1b:
H1b: There exists a positive relationship between satisfaction about change communication and the separate (affective, normative and continuance) commitment to change scales.
Van Vuuren et al. (2006) linked supervisor communication with affective organizational commitment (desire) and found that:
• “Communication strengthens affective commitment via a clear view of which values are important, which goals are to be achieved, and how efficacious the organization has been in the past” (Van Vuuren et al, 2006:124).
Therefore, a positive relationship between affective commitment to change and satisfaction about change communication is expected.
Albrecht & Travaglione researched the relationship between organizational commitment, trust, affective commitment (desire), continuance commitment (avoid costs), cynicism towards change and turnover intention. Their research showed that:
• Trust in senior management influences affective commitment, continuance commitment, cynicism towards change and turnover intention.
This means that, according to Albrecht & Travaglione (2003), effective organizational communication has an indirect effect (via trust) on affective and continuance commitment. Therefore, the research of Albrecht & Travaglione (2003), leads to the expectation of an indirect positive relationship between satisfaction about change communication and continuance commitment. Besides that, this research strengthens the expectation of the positive relationship between affective commitment and satisfaction about change communication.
The relationship between normative commitment (obligation) and communication has not been studied, but I expect also a positive relationship between normative commitment and communication. The following discussion in the literature leads to this expectation:
• There is some disagreement about whether affective (desire) and normative commitment are truly distinguishable forms of commitment, because correlations between affective and normative commitment are generally quite high (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001).
Some investigators have questioned the utility of retaining normative commitment as a separate scale. Ko, Price, & Mueller (1997) found that the three scales had acceptable convergent validity, but the affective commitment scale and the normative commitment scale lacked discriminant validity.
3. METHOD
Participants
The participants of this study are members of Landstede, an educational institution. A questionnaire was send to 788 employees, by email. Respondents could click on the hyperlink in the email message which led them to the questionnaire. Participation was voluntary and anonymity was guaranteed. 164 employees (20,8%) returned usable surveys.
Measures
Participants received a questionnaire which contained items concerning commitment to change and items asking for their opinion about the communication during the present change initiative.
Commitment to change. Commitment to change was measured with the 18-item scale from
Herscovitch and Meyer (2002). Affective commitment (desire):
1. I believe in the value of this change
2. This change is a good strategy for this organization
3. I think that the management is making a mistake by introducing this change (R) 4. This change serves an important purpose
5. Things would be better without this change (R) 6. This change is not necessary (R)
Continuance commitment (avoid costs):
1. I have no choice but to go along with this change 2. I feel pressure to go along with this change 3. I have too much at stake to resist this change 4. It would be too costly for me to resist this change 5. It would be risky to speak out against this change 6. Resisting this change is not a viable option for me
Normative commitment (obligation):
1. I feel a sense of duty to work towards this change
2. I do not think it would be right of me to oppose this change 3. I would not feel badly about opposing this change (R) 4. It would be irresponsible of me to resist this change 5. I would feel guilty about opposing this change 6. I do not feel any obligation to support this change (R)
Figure 3. Commitment items
This means that affective (α =.9177), continuance (α =.8079) and normative (α=0.7196) commitment to change scales demonstrated acceptable levels of reliability.
Satisfaction about change communication. The well established Downs-Hazen
communication satisfaction questionnaire (Downs & Adrian, 2004) was used as a basis for the developed scale. Downs-Hazens questionnaire uses a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (“very satisfied”) to 7 (“very dissatisfied”), and asks employees to rate their satisfaction about several communication aspects. In this research, a 7-point Likert scale is also used. A 7-point Likert scale gives more detailed information than a 5 point-scale. A 9-point scale was also possible, but I think it is too extended to rate satisfaction on a 9-point scale. The six propositions which are used to measure satisfaction about change communication are about usability, clarity, and timing of information, the amount of information, the chosen communication channels and the opportunity to give an opinion. This scale is based on literature about communication during change. Factor analysis showed that all items belong to one factor. The reliability analysis (α =.7200) demonstrated an acceptable level of reliability for the scale which measures satisfaction about change communication.
Data analysis
4. RESULTS
The first part of this chapter considers the development of a research instrument to measure communication satisfaction during change. After that, the results for Landstede will be discussed. Finally, the relationship between communication satisfaction and commitment to change will be examined.
4.1 The research instrument
The research instrument is based on literature, qualitative research, and adapted to the situation of Landstede. At the end of the questionnaire, employees can give comments on the questionnaire and write down other comments. These comments were used to adapt the first version of the research instrument. The final version can be seen in appendix 1. The adaptations can be found in appendix 2. Question 4b, 4c, 4d, 4e, 4f and 4i are used to measure satisfaction about change communication.
The items which are used to measure satisfaction about change communication are based on the literature research. Some of the argumentation will be repeated here, to explain why these six items are chosen.
! Messages have to be targeted to make sure information is relevant and meaningful for employees (Barrett, 2002). Personally relevant information is better retained (Klein, 1996). A manager has to ensure that messages are clear and consistent (Barett, 2002). Employees have to rate their satisfaction about the usability (4b) and clarity (4c) of the information.
! What is communicated about the change before and during the process is very important (Axley, 2000). Lippitt (1997) states that information about the change has to be on time. Employees have to rate their satisfaction about the timing of the information (4d) and have to indicate whether the information comes too early or too late (5).
! Media can be divided in verbal, written and electronic (Lengel, 1988). Lengel & Daft (1988) explain that the used communication medium affects the meaning of the message. According to Barett (2002) and Klein (1996), effective communication uses all channels. Employees have to rate their satisfaction about the chosen communication channels (4f). Question 9 tries to find out whether employees receive enough information through all three channels.
! Communication has to be a two way process (Goodman & Truss, 2004). Besides informing employees, organizations need to focus on whether the employees have an opportunity to provide input (Hutchison, 2001). Therefore, employees have to rate their satisfaction about the opportunity to give their opinion (4i). Question 10 asks whether employees want to be consulted more often. Furthermore, employees have to rate their satisfaction about their involvement in the change process (4j). Question 21 asks whether their input is used in the change program. Question 18 asks whether employees like to spend time on the development of the change program.
Most of the other questions in the questionnaire are also based on literature. Landstede wants to create commitment to change. According to the literature, communication creates the conditions for commitment and should be seen as one of its important antecedents (Postmes, 2001). Question 4a and 15 consider the satisfaction about the communication around the change program in general. Besides that, question 20 asks whether employees feel resistance. According to Vakola & Nikolau (2005), effective communication reduces fear and uncertainty and, therefore, resistance to change. Question 13 tries to find out whether employees feel uncertain about the change. Question 3 tries to find out whether employees know what the change program expects from them. Question 17 is included to find out whether employees think the change managers know how they feel.
When the change program starts, it is important to give feedback to the employees. Organizational members need to know they are on the right track achieving the new strategic direction of the organization (Narine, 2003). Therefore, question 22 is about the amount of feedback. Question 19 asks whether employees know the results of the change program. There are also some questions included because Landstede wants information about these aspects. These are satisfaction about the intranet and the digital newsletter (4f and 4h). They also want to know how much of the sent information has been read by the employees (1 and 2). Question 27 asks for the function of the employees. Question 28 asks whether employees participated in “development groups”. These two questions try to find out whether these aspects influence the opinions.
The qualitative research pointed out that employees are dissatisfied about the vocabulary used during the change program. According to these employees, people mean different things when they use the same word. Therefore, question 14 and 16 are about the consistency and clarity of the vocabulary. Furthermore, during the interviews, employees explained that they don’t have enough time to work on the development of the change process. Question 24 is about time pressure.
4.2 Representativity
Landstede, an educational institution, has 1213 employees. There are 714 teachers, who had to be divided between the two researches. Landstede has 22 teams of teachers, divided over seven establishments and thirteen “landscapes”. A landscape is a study direction, for example beauty & fashion. 425 teachers participated in a psychology research, the other 788 employees received the questionnaire of this research by mail. The psychology research needed complete teams of teachers and a response of approximately 200 teachers. Therefore, we decided to let about 300 teachers participate in this research and about 400 teachers in the psychology research.
Employees of the communication, marketing and strategy department of Landstede expected more variation in the opinion of employees between establishments than between landscapes, because landscapes exist only since the beginning of Talented development. Besides that, they experienced differences between the establishments in the past. We tried to split the teams of teachers in a way that approximately 40 percent of the teachers in an establishment participated in this research. We made sure that at least one team of every landscape received a invitation for this research. We had to divide complete teams between the researches and at least one team of every landscape had to participate in this research. Therefore, the percentage of invited teams per landscape varies between 15 and 100 percent. The percentage of teachers per establishment that received an invitation for this research varies between 34.8 and 50 percent. Participation was voluntary and 164 employees (20,8%) returned usable surveys. When calculating the minimum sample size, it appears that this research is representative with a level of confidence of 90 percent and a margin of error of six percent.
4.3 Results for Landstede
There are also some aspects where most employees are dissatisfied about. Most employees don’t agree with the statement “I think that there is good communication during the change process”. Employees stated that information comes too late and they receive too much information. They answered that they receive too little information through the verbal channel, from supervisors and too much through the electronic channel. A lot of employees feel uncertain about some aspects of the change, and have the opinion that the words which are used during the change are unclear and used inconsistently. Furthermore, employees like to be consulted more about subjects concerning the change and answered that the change managers don’t know how they feel. Finally, most employees answered they receive too little information about whether they work according to the requirements of the change.
There are also some aspects with an inconclusive result. These aspects are satisfaction about the communication in general, usability of the information, opportunity to give an opinion, reference meetings, the way employees are involved with the change, quality of information received from direct supervisors and the amount of information received on paper. Furthermore, there was no significant result about whether employees know the results of Talented development so far and whether they feel resistance to the proposed changes. The result of the statement “they really do something with my comments and advice about this change” was also inconclusive.
4.4 Commitment to change and communication satisfaction.
This section reports the results of the statistical analyses. At first, the results on the internal reliability for the research instrument used in this study is reported. After that, results of the relationship between communication satisfaction and commitment to change are presented.
4.4.1 Internal reliability of the research instrument
KMO and Bartlett's Test
,744 180,828 15 ,000 Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling
Adequacy. Approx. Chi-Square df Sig. Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Figure 4, KMO
The KMO and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was run and the KMO was 0.744. A KMO score above 0.5 means that a factor analysis is appropriate (Hair, et al., 1998). The factor analysis performed on the items that were used to measure communication satisfaction during change, confirmed the scale. The eigenvalues were lower than one in case of two or more factors. This means that all items belonged to the same factor. The Cronbach’s Alpha was α = 0.7200, therefore it can be concluded that the commitment to change items have enough internal reliability. The factor loadings can be seen in figure 5. If the factor loadings are .50 or higher, they are considered practically significant (Hair, et al., 1998).
Component Usability .738 Clarity .788 Timing .634 Amount .654 Communication channels .555
Opportunity to give an opinion .507
Figure 5. Factor loadings of the Principal component Analysis 4.4.2 Communication satisfaction and commitment to change
* correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) Figure 7. Correlation coefficients ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
4.4.3 Commitment to change and the different aspects of communication satisfaction
Figure 7 reports the Pearson correlation coefficients between commitment to change and the separate items of the communication satisfaction scale. The correlation between affective commitment and usability of information (r =.272), clarity of information (r =.221) and satisfaction about the chosen communication channels (r =.260) is significant with p<0.01 and positive in direction. Besides that, the correlation between affective commitment and the amount of information was significant with p<0.05 and positive in direction (r =.161) Despite the fact that the literature states that information without delay is important during change, it appears that timing of information does not significantly correlate with any component of commitment to change.
Goodman & Truss (2004) stress the importance of two way communication. Employees have to have the opportunity to give their opinion about change initiatives. In figure 7 can be seen that the opportunity to give an opinion doesn’t significantly correlate with affective commitment or continuance commitment, but does significantly correlate (p<0.05) with normative commitment in positive direction (r =.181).
* correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) Figure 7: Correlation coefficients separate constructs
Mean St.dev 1. 1a. 1b. 1c.
1. Overall commitment to change 3.4816 .74936
1a. Affective commitment 2.9831 1.22723 . 521**
5. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Conclusion
Landstede wants to know how communication as an instrument can be used to create commitment to change. The main question of this research is: is there a relationship between
communication satisfaction and commitment to change?
The literature review resulted in the following hypotheses:
H1a: There exists a positive relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change.
H1b: There exists a positive relationship between satisfaction about change communication and the separate (affective, normative and continuance) commitment to change scales.
This research confirmed H1a, there exists a positive relationship between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change. However, when investigating H1b, it appeared that communication satisfaction only influences affective commitment (desire) to change. Therefore, only affective commitment to change can be influenced by communication.
Affective commitment hast the most favourable behavioural organization-relevant and employee-relevant consequences (Meyer et al., 2002). Herscovitch & Meyer (2002) found that affective and normative commitment to change are associated with higher levels of support than continuance commitment.
Affective commitment to change increases when employees are satisfied about: ! The usability of information
! The clarity of information
! The chosen communication channels ! The amount of received information
5.2 Recommendations
This research shows that employees of Landstede were unsatisfied about one of the aspects which influence affective commitment to change. Employees were unsatisfied about the amount of received information. Satisfaction about the usability of the information gives an insignificant result. Overall, employees were satisfied about the clarity of information and the chosen communication channels. According to this research, there are a few aspects which Landstede should give more attention in the future. The management summary contains all recommendations but the most important recommendations are mentioned below.
! Landstede should send targeted messages to the employees and use the verbal channel more often.
Employees of Landstede indicated that they receive too much information in general and too little information through the verbal channel. Besides that, they want to be consulted more often about subjects considering the change. Furthermore, the result of the usability of information is inconclusive. According to Klein (1996), it is important to develop a means of rectifying problems through feedback and adjustment. Landstede has to use communication as a two way process, give and receive feedback. ! When Landstede tries to find out what makes employees uncertain, they may be able
to take this uncertainty away.
An important goal of change communication is minimizing uncertainty, this will lead to higher affective commitment. It appeared that 49,4% of the employees are uncertain about some aspects of the change. At the moment, Landstede is in the changing stage. According to Klein (1996), a communication strategy during the changing stage should have three primary objectives. These are:
1. Provide those who are initially not directly involved with the change with information of what is happening.
2. Those who are not currently involved should be aware of how they will become engaged in the future
5.3 Discussion
This discussion is separated in two parts. The first part discusses the method, the second part discusses the relations. In this paragraph, literature and practice will be compared.
5.3.1 Method
When calculating the minimum sample size, it appears that this research is representative with a level of confidence of 90 percent and a margin of error of six percent. About 35 percent of the population was not invited for this research, they participated in the psychology research. Because this 35 percent is a specific part of the employees (425 of the 714 teachers), it is theoretically not possible to claim representativity. It is tricky to assume that all teachers have the same opinion as the teachers in this research. However, there is no reason to assume that the group teachers who were not invited for this research differs from the sample. Besides that, some questions of this research were (by accident) also in the psychology research and gave the same results. This strengthens the expectation that the selected group does not differ from the group of teachers who participated in the psychology research.
This research and the psychology research partly contain the same questions. In first instance, the psychology student and I tried to make one questionnaire which could be send to all employees in the organization. In this case, the chance at representative results would have increased. Because the psychology research had 112 question, adding the two questionnaires together would result in a questionnaire with more than 150 questions. In this case, the questionnaire would be too long and the response of the questionnaire would probably be very low.
The timing of this research could have been better. This research was conducted between 25 June and 13 July 2007. The alternative was delaying the research till after the summer break, this would have solved the problem with the teachers. However, this was not a good option because employees had to rate their satisfaction of the communication before the summer break. Landstede knows that teachers “close” the school year before summer break to start fresh in September. Asking employees about the communication in September would probably influence the results because the summer break will “colour” the opinions. Before this research, a research of the Human resource department was conducted. This research was not appreciated by the employees. The communication, marketing and strategy department expect that this research has influenced the response of this research in a negative way. Furthermore, because the questionnaire was send to employees about three weeks before summer break, probably a lot of employees didn’t have time or didn’t want to fill in the questionnaire.
The computer program which was used for this research (Question Mark) appeared to have a limitation. It appeared that some employees couldn’t open the questionnaire on their computer and the ICT department did not know how to fix this. Because of this limitation, some employees couldn’t fill in the questionnaire. Another program probably would have resulted in a higher response rate.
The communication, marketing, and strategy department of Landstede wrote in their project plan that they wanted to create commitment to change. To be able to answer the research question: is there a relationship between satisfaction about change communication and
commitment to change, I wanted to include the 18 commitment to change items in the
This option resulted in a lot of comments, employees of the communication, marketing and strategy department thought it was a negative end of the questionnaire and there were too much of the same kind of questions in a row. We found a compromise, I spread the items through the questionnaire. This resulted in a less negative feeling and employees saw the added value of these items. I know that there is a possibility that mixing the commitment to change items with the other question of the questionnaire might have influenced the results of this research (most likely in a negative way).
Finally, this questionnaire tries to find out what employees think about the timing and amount of information by using two questions. The first question asks “how satisfied are you about the amount of the information”. The second question asks: “I think the amount of information about the change” and employees can choose an answer on a Likert scale ranging from 1=very little to 5= very much. It would be better to ask three questions. The second question could better be replaced by the questions: “This is the amount of information I receive now” and “This is the amount of information I need to receive”, and than using the same Likert scale. In this case, one would be able to see the different needs of the employees. Maybe it appears that one group of employees has a higher need for information than another. In that case, the communication strategy can be adapted to this need in the future.
5.3.2 Relations
It appeared that communication satisfaction only correlates significant with affective commitment (desire) to change. Probably, communication satisfaction does not correlate with continuance commitment (avoid costs) to change because this is an indirect relationship. It might be that the relationship between communication-trust-continuance organizational commitment is too weak to result in an significant correlation between satisfaction about change communication and commitment to change. However, this does not mean that there is also no indirect relationship.
If it is true that normative and affective commitment cannot be distinguished, both scales should have a positive relation with commitment. I think the relationship between normative commitment (obligation) to change and satisfaction about change communication doesn’t exist because affective and normative commitment are indeed distinguishable forms of commitment. Meyer et al. (1999), found that affective (desire) and normative commitment are highly correlated, but that this correlation between the constructs is not unity. They explain that “even if there is a strong natural link between affective and normative commitment, it does not rule out the possibility that employees can experience an obligation to pursue a course of action in the absence of a desire to do so” (Meyer et al. 1999:40). Hersovitch and Meyer (2002) found that normative commitment to change contributed uniquely to the prediction of change relevant behaviour.
According to Postmes et al. (2001), communication may have its impact on affective commitment (desire) because communication reduces uncertainty and helps employees define and comprehend what their organization is about. Minimizing uncertainty is an important goal of change communication because it reduces resistance (Vakola, & Nikolaou, 2005). In this research, uncertainty was only measured with one statement. This statement negatively correlated with affective (desire) and continuance commitment (costs). This statement also negatively correlates with satisfaction about change communication. These findings support the statement of Postmes et al. (2002). Thus, an important goal of change communication is minimizing uncertainty, which will lead to higher affective commitment.
The sequential approach might slow down the information flow, resulting in employees who are unsatisfied about the timing of the information. But the interaction of attitudes might result in positive attitudes of a particular part of the employees.
The opportunity to give an opinion significantly correlates with normative commitment
(obligation) in positive direction. The opportunity to give an opinion is the only aspect which
measures an aspect of two way communication. The other items in the scale measure satisfaction about one way (top-down) communication. Maybe satisfaction about top down communication relates with affective commitment (desire), while satisfaction about bottom-up communication relates with normative commitment. A possible explanation for this is that employees with affective commitment to change have a desire to provide support for the change and are positive about the change. Employees with normative commitment feel obliged to support the change and are less positive about the change. Therefore, employees with strong normative commitment may have a greater need to give their opinion and provide input than employees with strong affective commitment. This would declare the correlation between normative commitment to change and satisfaction about the opportunity to give an opinion. Further research is needed to study this relationship.
This research showed that communication satisfaction correlated significant with affective commitment to change and was positive in direction. I have to make a few critical notes about this conclusion. First of all, the research was conducted in an educational institution. In general, teachers are known as risk averse people. “Most of us are pretty positive about change until somebody suggest that we’re the ones who need to change. Teachers are classic examples” (Hartzell, 2003:4). The fact that this research was conducted in an educational institution may have influenced the results. Therefore, the results are not generalizable. Research into the relationship between communication satisfaction during change and commitment to change should be extended to other occupational groups to be able to draw a generalizable conclusion.
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