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ROLE THEORY PERSPECTIVE ON RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Research Master Thesis, RMScE&B, specialization Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior
Master Thesis MScBA, specialization Change Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Human Resource Management
2 Acknowledgment:
I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor, Professor Onne Janssen, for his motivation, enthusiasm and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me enormously in writing this thesis. Besides my supervisor, I want to thank Professor Hans Wortmann and Dr. Cees Reezigt for their insightful comments and constructive feedback during the research phase. My sincere thanks also go to my fellow research master student Edin Smailhodzic, who helped me with the theoretical rationale and data analysis, during our endless talks while cycling trough the Groningen landscape.
Furthermore, I want to thank Ton Sluiter, for his patience and perseverance during my research project. Only because of him I managed to gather the required data for my thesis. In this light, my special thanks also go to Gerrit Helmholt, who carefully managed the contacts with the research site.
I also want to give special thanks to my following friends, for providing the support and friendship that I needed: Redmar Bosma, Marco Bouma, Joey Witte, Amber Witte, Tim Noordman, Arjan Hooijsma, Hidde Veltman, Ewout Jansma, Thomas Kat, Albert Kinderman, Angelique Reinders, Juliette Lessing, Wenjing Li, Sebastian Sadowski, Rowan Leerentveld, Mara Helmholt, Joep de Zwerver, Tic-Tac Papi, Graziano Pelle, Kamo Moko, Hank Moody, Ari Gold, Tupac Shakur, Ed Edd en Etnies, Lambor Ginies and Roy Aerts. Furthermore, I want to thank all my muses (too many to list here but you know who you are!) for providing inspiration and energy.
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Role Theory Perspective on Resistance to Change: Self-control Demands linking Role Stressors to Resistance to Change: A Mediation Study
Abstract
4 INTRODUCTION
D
ue to increasing uncertainty and turbu-lence in the organizational environment, organizational members` capacity for change has become critical to the survival of the organization (Kotter & Schelsinger, 1979; Peccei, Giangreco & Sebastiano, 2011). Transformations within the broad spectrum of private, public and non-profit organizations are occurring at an unprece-dented pace (Self, Armenakis & Schraeder, 2007), and this severity has had a major influence on the effectiveness of employ-ees and organizations (Caldwell & Liu, 2011). This makes the investigation of the change phenomenon an important topic in the organizational and management litera-ture. Although many transformations or changes are justifiable, the organizational outcomes often fail to meet the anticipated objectives (Gilmore, 1997). Research showed that more than half to two-thirds of change initiatives fail (Beer & Nohria, 2000; Kotter, 1995; and Quinn, 2004). In his extensive literature review, Burnes (2004) suggested that this figure may be even higher.Various researchers have suggested varied obstacles to change, among them the isomorphic forces generated by the organizational environment (Greenwood & Higgins, 1996), politics between
compet-ing groups (Pettigrew, 1973), and poor change leadership and support (Quinn, 2004). However, most researchers empha-size that the main obstacle to organization-al change achievement is human resistance (Giangreco & Peccei, 2005; Self et al., 2007; Szabla, 2007; Waddell & Sohal, 1998).
Human resistance, or resistance to
change (RTC) is frequently used in the
research and practitioner literature on or-ganizational change, as an explanation for why efforts to introduce large-scale chang-es in technology, production methods, pro-cedures, management practices or compen-sation systems, fail or fall short of expecta-tions (Oreg, 2007). RTC is primarily por-trayed as an “unwarranted and detrimental response residing in the change recipients and which arises spontaneously as a reac-tion to change, independent of the interac-tions and relainterac-tionships between the change agents and change recipients” (Ford, Ford & D`Amelio, 2008:362).
5 Earlier research on RTC addressed some of the following antecedents: age and gender (Davis & Songer, 2009), benefits of change and involvement in change (Giangreco & Peccei, 2005), role of infor-mation and self-efficacy (Jimmieson, Ter-ry, & Callan, 2004), social support (Law-rence & Callan, 2011), and leader-member exchange (Van Dam, Oreg, & Schyns, 2008). Surprisingly, no research has ad-dressed the influence of role stressors on RTC, although some research on stress and coping (Baillien & De Witte, 2009; Jimmieson et al., 2004; Tiong, 2005) sug-gest that role stressors take a potentially important place in the change context.
Therefore, in the current study I will use role theory (Kahn et al., 1964) to address potential antecedents of RTC. Spe-cifically, I will focus on the concepts of role conflict, role ambiguity and role over-load as sources of role stress, to explain the occurrence of RTC. Tiong (2005) suggest-ed that change and stress are closely relat-ed to each other. When change occurs, employees can often experience role stress. Individuals can be stressed by role conflict (being caught between conflicting job de-mands), role ambiguity (not knowing what the expectations for the job are), and role overload (too many tasks given).
To clarify the relationship between role stressors and RTC, I introduce the concept of self-control demands as the
underlying mechanism between the two constructs. Self-control theory (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000) posits that role stressors are related to self-control processes, and that subsequent use of self-control reduces future self-control activities (Diestel & Schmidt, 2012). The lack of self-control resources impairs cognitive, emotional, and behavioral actions, which potentially can clarify why individuals have spontane-ous negative reactions towards change programs. I will try to expand our under-standing around how role stressors, caused by the change content, influence self-control, and ultimately RTC. I therefore want to address the following research questions: To what extent do role stressors,
caused by a change, influence subsequent reactions towards the change (i.e. re-sistance to change)? And how do self-control demands explain the relationship between role stressors and resistance to change?
In this study I investigated a change program at an intermediary agency organi-zation in the Netherlands, where the front line agency function underwent fundamen-tal changes in the procedures, target system and work content. The aim was to investi-gate why certain aspects of this change program failed, and to provide an explana-tion for the occurrence of RTC.
6 ways. First, this current study is the first of its kind to address RTC from a role theory perspective. Role theory, used as the pre-dominant theoretical lens can provide us a comprehensive explanation for why indi-viduals have difficulties with changes in the work context. Second, studies on RTC are typically focused on the investigation of antecedents of employee reactions (Van Dam et al., 2008). I, on the other hand, propose that the process of self-control relates to employees` reactions to change (i.e. RTC), implying a mediation process. Third, this study extends knowledge by studying RTC among employees within a large Dutch organization, whereas studies on RTC have been conducted primarily in the United States context.
With the current study I contribute to the practice as well, because the result-ing findresult-ings will show the importance of how characteristics of work roles impact employees’ reactions to change. The antic-ipated insights are plausible in helping organizations to better prepare their em-ployees for future changes, especially changes in the work content. Organizations that consider implementing changes, should address difficulties with role stress-ors and self-control demands, and ap-proach their detrimental influence on RTC, with caution.
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES
Role Stressors and Resistance to Change
Role stressors
Work-related role stressors are one of the most studied constructs in organizational behavior literature (Eatough et al., 2011). Role stressors include role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload. Role conflict refers to contradictory expectations from and between colleagues that interfere with one another, which makes it difficult to complete work assignments (Eatough et al., 2011). Occupying multiple work roles within a function has the potential to result in opposing role requirements. Role con-flict for example occurs when the interme-diary agent in the current study believes that the demands and expectations of his or her boss, and the customer are incompati-ble.
Role ambiguity refers to unclear
7 (e.g., senior manager, intermediary agents, and clients).
Individuals experience role
over-load, when role demands create the
percep-tion that available resources are inadequate to deal with them, and therefore result in distraction and stress (Brown, Jones & Leigh, 2005). Role overload is about hav-ing not enough time to complete too many role tasks (Michel et al., 2011). Role over-load thus describes situations where the intermediary agents feel that the available time, their abilities and other constraints are not sufficient to perform all the ex-pected responsibilities and activities (Riz-zo, House & Lirtzman, 1970).
There are research findings in abundance that suggest that role stressors have detrimental effects on job satisfac-tion, organizational commitment, emotion-al exhaustion, tension and anxiety (e.g. Eatough et al., 2011; Fried et al., 2008; Ortqvist & Wincent, 2006). Noteworthy is that research often concluded that role overload has the weakest relationship with the above mentioned employee reactions, compared to role conflict and role ambi-guity. Gilboa et al. (2008) suggested that this relationship magnitude difference can be attributed to how these role stressors are appraised by employees. They suggested that employees evaluate each stressor on two dimensions. First, hindrance, address-es the extent to which role straddress-essors are
conceived as threatening to individuals achievements in the work context. Second,
challenge, addresses the extent to which
role stressors are approached as potential opportunities for learning and achievement of goals.
Role conflict has been suggested to have a slightly higher challenge component compared to role ambiguity, because em-ployees have to bargain their way out be-tween contradictory expectations in order to satisfy the demands (Eatough et al., 2011). Further, role ambiguity is seen as a pure hindrance, with a small amount of challenge component (Gilboa et al., 2008). Lastly, role overload has been suggested to have both strong hindrance and challenge components, because the overwhelming demands on employees exceed their abili-ties or coping resources, but it also asks from employees to take more responsibili-ties in order to develop themselves (Eatough et al., 2011; Gilboa et al., 2008).
Resistance to change
8 & Banas, 2000), ‘’readiness for change’’ (Armenakis & Harris, 2002), ‘’resistance to change’’ (Oreg, 2003), ‘’cynicism to-wards the change’’ (Wanous, Reichers & Austin, 2000), and ‘’ambivalence towards the change’’ (Piderit, 2000).
The focus in the present study is on employee resistance to change (RTC). Traditionally RTC has been viewed in rela-tively negative terms: a sign of failure (Armenakis & Harris, 2002) or a problem that has to be eliminated (Nadler, 1993). Recently, a more positive approach to RTC has become common in the literature, where RTC is seen as a natural, acceptable phenomenon (Giangreco & Peccei, 2005). RTC, can for example, like pain, be seen as an alarm signal, and serve as a warning to failure of the change process. Others argue that resistance is a prerequisite of success-ful change, and can provide constructive feedback to the change process, if managed appropriately (King & Anderson, 1995).
According to Dent and Goldberg (1999b), members of organizations resist not necessarily the change itself, but the negative consequences. Others suggest that the term is used as a means to over-shadow employees` legitimate reasons for resisting change (Nord & Jermier, 1994).
I follow the suggestions made by Piderit (2000) and Oreg (2003; 2007), and view therefore the RTC construct as a mul-tidimensional attitude towards change,
comprising affective, cognitive and behav-ioral components. The idea is that some sources of resistance may have their strongest impact on employees’ behaviors, others may more directly influence their emotions, and yet others, may most influ-ence what employees rationally think about the change. These three components reflect the three different manifestations of peo-ple’s evaluations of an object or situation (McGuire, 1985). The behavioral compo-nent involves actions to act in response to the change (e.g. complaining about the change, don`t championing the change, don’t engage in new required activities); the affective component is concerned with how one feels about the change (e.g. anx-ious, angry); and the cognitive component regards what one thinks about the change (e.g. Will it be beneficial? Is it necessary?). These three are not independent of one another, but should nevertheless be seen as distinct components, which highlight dif-ferent aspects of the resistance phenome-non (Oreg, 2007).
9 Relationship between role stressors and resistance to change
In summary, I propose that the implemen-tation of change causes role stressors to occur (Thiong, 2005), and ultimately insti-gating RTC. The exposure to these role stressors may cause employees to adverse-ly evaluate their current working condi-tions (Glazer & Beehr, 2005), implying that individuals could perceive incompati-ble demands, incompatiincompati-ble expectations, and inadequate resources in their daily work, due to a specific change. The experi-encing of role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload can, on behalf of the em-ployees, be linked to the implemented change, and encourage the formation of resistant cognitions, emotions and behav-iors, as an answer to these role stressors, a sort of coping mechanism. In line with the abovementioned, I propose the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Role Conflict is positively related to Resistance to Change.
Hypothesis 2: Role Ambiguity is positively related to Resistance to Change.
Hypothesis 3: Role Overload is positively related to Resistance to Change.
Self-control demands as a mediator
Role stressors and self-control demands Employees are confronted with work that is characterized by volatile and dynamic environments, where flexibility, adaptabil-ity, and self-management have become an imperative in the work context (Schmidt, Neubach & Heuer, 2007). Further, these dynamic and novel situations require the individual to solve unfamiliar problems that involve high levels of ambiguity and uncertainty. Planned organizational change is a particular situation which requires the-se imperatives from employees. When em-ployees are confronted with changes in their work, and more specifically in their function, role stressors can come to the fore (Tiong, 2005).
de-10 sires that have the potential to interfere with purposeful planned behavior (Baumeister, Heatherton & Tice, 1994; Schmidt et al., 2007). Due to changing work environments in organizational set-tings and the experiencing of role stressors, employees are expected and required to exert self-control to regulate emotional reactions, to adjust goal-directed behavior, and to motivate themselves to perform highly demanding and unattractive tasks (Diestel & Schmidt, 2012; Vohs & Baumeister, 2010).
Neubach, Schmidt and Heuer (2007) identified three dimensions of self-control demands at work. First, impulse
control refers to the extent in which
indi-viduals must inhibit spontaneous, impul-sive response tendencies and affect states. This dimension manifests itself in bitter-ness, impatience and impoliteness. Second,
resisting distractions is the necessity to
resist distractions provoked by task-irrelevant stimuli, which interfere with the successful accomplishment of work-related activities. Third, overcoming inner
re-sistance, relates to overcoming inner
dis-likes, motivational inhibitions or aversions, required to effectively complete unattrac-tive tasks that cannot be avoided. Alt-hough these three dimensions of self-control have been shown to be factorially distinct, following Diestel and Schmidt (2012), I will combine them as one
over-arching variable, because these dimensions draw on one single resource.
In line with the abovementioned, I propose the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 4: Role Conflict is positively related to Self-Control Demands.
Hypothesis 5: Role Ambiguity is positively related to Self-Control Demands.
Hypothesis 6: Role Overload is positively related to Self-Control Demands.
Self-control demands and resistance to change
11 idea is in line with the research conducted on self-control strength (Muraven &Baumeister, 2000) and self-control de-mands (Schmidt, Neubach & Heuer, 2007).
Experimental research on SCD`s showed that exercising self-control can be very stressful and has the potential to lead to impairments of cognitive, emotional and behavioral control (Schmidt et al., 2012). Also, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that high SCD`s can lead to impaired well-being and different forms of job strain. Further, recent studies showed that these self-control demands lead to increases in health complaints, elevated levels of burnout, low levels of job satis-faction, absenteeism, and depression (Diestel & Schmidt, 2012). Muraven and Baumeister (2000) suggested that these observations can be explained by ego
de-pletion. Ego depletion is the state of
dimin-ished self-control strength. The idea is that different forms of self-control, use a com-mon resource (self-control strength), which becomes limited in the process of exerting self-control. As a consequence, performing acts of self-control reduces the self-control strength available for subsequent self-control efforts. Furthermore, role stressors, in most research used as proxies for work-load, have been suggested to be causally related to organizational and behavioral outcomes, such as bullying at work, low work engagement, drug abuse,
counterpro-ductive work behavior, reduced job per-formance and absenteeism (Diestel & Schmidt, 2009).
dimin-12 ished self-control resources, which are influenced by coping with role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload. I there-fore propose the following mediating hy-potheses:
Hypothesis 7: Self-control demands medi-ate the positive relationship between role conflict and resistance to change.
Hypothesis 8: Self-control demands medi-ate the positive relationship between role ambiguity and resistance to change.
Hypotheses 9: Self-control demands medi-ate the positive relationship between role overload and resistance to change.
FIGURE 1
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
METHOD Research Setting
The present study was conducted in an organi-zation in the Dutch intermediary agency indus-try. This organization contains 15 brands, all specialized in different segments of the Dutch labor market. The focus of this study was the intermediary agency function, which under-went a change in the used target systems, cedures and processes concerned with the pro-cessing of solicitations of job applicants. Be-fore the change, the intermediary agents were occupied separately with commercial activi-ties, such as visiting firms and positioning job applicants or non-commercial activities, such
as calling firms or job applicants, updating data bases, calling for references and adminis-trative tasks. After the change, rather than fo-cusing on one specific aspect, the intermediary agents were expected to perform commercial and non-commercial activities, resulting in role problems throughout their daily work.
Sample and procedures
The primary data in this study were collected via surveys. Before designing these surveys, I conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with business managers, senior intermediary agents and junior intermediary agents (see APPEN-DIX A for interview descriptions), in order to get familiar with the organization, the
inter-ROLE STRESSORS SELF-CONTROL
DEMANDS
13 mediary agency function and the particular change context. Further, these interviews re-vealed the antecedents in the study`s theoreti-cal framework, and helped me design the con-text-specific survey items. The interviews were conducted two years after the change was introduced in the organization, and although the change was already commenced two years earlier, the impact of the change was still strongly experienced. The interviewees were eager to discuss their experiences, feelings and fears regarding this change.
After I conducted these interviews, I designed the survey with adapted, validated measures, using Qualtrics software. I further-more used Hinkin’s article (1995) in the de-sign and administration of the survey. The Hinkin principles are used to establish validity and to account for issues in scale development.
The survey website link was sent to the marketing director, the informant, for a final check and he administered it to the intermedi-ary agents via the corporate intranet. The data from the survey were collected and analyzed anonymously. A total of 97 out of 346 em-ployees participated in the study (response rate = 28%). The demographics showed that 57% of the participants were female. The mean age was 31.3 years (SD = 5.5), ranging from 21 to 53 years. Mean tenure was 4.98 years (SD = 1.85), with a range from 3 to 11 years. Further, 10.3% had a graduate degree, 75.3% had an undergraduate degree, 11.3% had a lower de-gree, and 3.1% chose differently.
Measures
A 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) was used for all scales, such that higher scores re-flected higher values on the variable. For each scale I computed the Cronbach`s alpha (α), as an estimate of the internal consistency reliabil-ity.
Role Stressors. Role stressors were as-sessed by using a combination of validated measures for role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload. Role conflict and role ambiguity were measured by using 18 items, derived from Rizzo et al. (1970). A sample item for role conflict was “I work under incompatible policies and guidelines”, and for role ambigui-ty “I feel certain about how much authoriambigui-ty I have”. The Cronbach’s α were respectively .88 and .86. Role overload was measured by using five items, derived from Emmerik (2008). A sample item was “My job requires me to work hard”. The Cronbach’s α was .84.
Self-Control Demands. Self-control demands were assessed by using the three sub-scales developed by Diestel and Schmidt (2009). The overall Cronbach’s α was .83. The first, six-item subscale, impulse control, as-sesses the extent to which jobs require partici-pants to suppress and inhibit spontaneous, im-pulsive response tendencies. A sample item was “My job requires me never to lose my temper”. The second, four-item subscale,
14 giving in to any distractions while performing work tasks. A sample item was “In order to achieve my performance goals, I must not let myself be distracted”. The third, five-item sub-scale, overcoming inner resistances, assesses the extent to which participants overcome in-ner aversions in dealing with unattractive tasks. A sample item was “Some of my tasks are such that I really need to force myself to get them dome”. Following Diestel and Schmidt (2012), items were joined from each of the three subscales, because they draw on one single resource. Hence, I used a composed measure of SCD`s.
Resistance to Change. Resistance to change was assessed by using the RTC meas-urement scale developed by Oreg (2007). The scale consists of 15 items that included affec-tive, cognitive and behavioral reactions to change. Sample items were “I had a bad feel-ing about the change”, “I believed that the change would make my job harder”, and “I complained about the change to my col-leagues”. The Cronbach’s α was .93. In line with Van Dam et al. (2008), all three dimen-sions are combined to provide an inclusive assessment of resistance.
Control Variables. In addition, I in-cluded a number of control variables in the survey and analysis, because these variables are expected to be related to self-control de-mands and resistance to change (Diestel & Schmidt, 2012; Peccei et al., 2008). The con-trols covered respondents’ age (in years),
or-ganizational tenure (in years), gender (1 = fe-male, 2 = male), and level of education (1 = lower degree, 2= undergraduate degree, 3 = graduate degree, 4 = other).
Data Analysis
Hypotheses 1, 2 and 3 were tested using hier-archical linear regressions, in which role stressors were the independent variables and resistance to change the dependent variable. Hierarchical regression is a sequential process involving the entry of predictor variables into the analysis in steps. The order of variable entry into the analysis is based on theory and past research. Hierarchical regression is an appropriate tool for analysis, when variance on a criterion variable is being explained by pre-dictor variables that are correlated with each other, which is commonly seen in social sci-ences research (Pedhazur, 1997). Also, hierar-chical regression is used to analyze the effect of a predictor variable after controlling for other variables. It is therefore sufficient to use hierarchical linear regression to test my hy-potheses.
Mediation analysis
regres-15 sion analyses, recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986). However, some errors have been found in this stepwise procedure. For example, MacKinnon, Lockwood and Wil-liams (2004) suggested that a statistically sig-nificant outcome in the first step is not a re-quirement before going on to subsequent steps (Baron & Kenny initially recommended that the direct effect from the independent variable to the outcome variable must be significant). Also, Kenny, Kashy, and Bolger (1998) pub-lished an updated account of Baron and Ken-ny, and suggested that step 1 is no longer es-sential in establishing mediation.
Accordingly, it is recommended that analyses of mediation should be based on for-mal significance tests of the indirect effect of paths ab, such as the Sobel (1982) test. Alt-hough Preacher and Hayes (2008) suggested that this approach is more powerful than Baron and Kenny (1986), the Sobel test rests on the assumption that the indirect effect ab is nor-mally distributed. This assumption, however, is indistinct, because the product ab is known to be non-normal distributed, even when the constituting variables of product ab are nor-mally distributed (Cole, Walter & Bruch, 2008).
I have therefore chosen to conduct a more powerful procedure, the SPSS macro, to more directly address mediation and to calcu-late the indirect effects between role stressors and resistance to change. This macro uses the bootstrap method to calculate the confidence
intervals in which the indirect effect can be tested. The bootstrap method was suggested to be reliable for small and moderate sample siz-es, and is therefore appropriate for this current study (Preacher & Hayes, 2008).
RESULTS
Exploratory Factor Analysis
I first tested if the measures of role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, self-control de-mandsand resistance to change can empirical-ly be distinguished. I conducted a Principal Components Analysis with varimax rotation (see APPENDIX B), which initially resulted in six factors with eigenvalues larger than one. Scree plots indicated that a five factor solution described the data best. The factor analysis shows that five factors emerged with eigenval-ues greater than 1, accounting for 61.94 per-cent of the variance. Each item loaded on the appropriate factor with factor loadings exceed-ing .50, and cross-loadexceed-ings were lower than the .40 threshold.
16 .01). The same holds for role ambiguity (r = .34, p < .05) and role overload (r = .51, p < .01). Furthermore, as expected, all three role stressors correlated positively with the mediat-ing variable of self-control demands. Role conflict correlated positively with self-control demands (r = .67, p < .01). The same holds for role ambiguity (r = .24, p < .05) and role over-load (r = .45, p < .01), which is consistent with hypothesis 4-6. Self-control demands correlat-ed positively with resistance to change (r = .54, p < .01). Finally, age was negatively cor-related with resistance to change (r = -.36, p < .01). Therefore, age is used as control variable throughout. Using Becker`s (2005) recom-mendations, I excluded the control variables gender, education level and tenure from fur-ther analyses, because they could potentially reduce statistical power and yield biased esti-mates.
Test of the Hypothesized Model
Hierarchical regression analyses that consisted of two steps were conducted to test Hypothe-ses 1-3. In the first step, age was entered as covariate to control for the relationship with role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, and resistance to change. In the second step, I included the role stressors to test their hypoth-esized effects on the outcome variable. As is shown in Table 2, role conflict (B = .32, p <.001), role ambiguity (B = .25, p < .05) and role overload (B = .51, p < .001) were
posi-tively associated with resistance to change (see step 2 of the regression equations). The role stressors with inclusion of the control variable age, explained 43% of the variance in re-sistance to change (R2=.43, p < .001). Thus, Hypotheses 1-3 received support.
Tests of Mediation
17 TABLE 1
Univariate Statistics and Pearson Correlations among the variables (n = 97)
* p < .05, ** p <.01
TABLE 2
Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis (n = 97)a
a
Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported for the respective regression steps, including age (step 1), age and role stressors (step 2)
* p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001 Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1.Age 2.Gender 3.Education Level 4.Tenure 5. Role Conflict 6. Role Ambiguity 7. Role Overload 8. Self-control Demands 9.Resistance to Change 31.26 1.46 2.05 4.98 4.71 3.14 5.00 4.56 4.04 5.47 .50 .58 1.85 1.29 .94 .74 .84 .80 - .10 -.07 .38** -.39** -.10 -.37** -.18 -.35** - -.08 -.08 .17 .16 -.06 .13 .06 - -.24* .14 .22* .18 -.05 .03 - -.09 -.03 -.13 -.08 -.08 - .33** .44** .67** .58** - .05 .24* .34* - .45** .51** - .54** -
Steps and variables
Direct effect between Role Stressors and Resistance to Change
18 TABLE 3
Results of Mediation Analysis (n = 97)
Mediation Variable Model: Self-control Demands
Predictor B SE t p Age .02 .01 1.82 .07 Role Conflict .40 .06 6.74 .00 Role Ambiguity .04 .07 .55 .58 Role Overload .27 .09 2.79 .01 R2 .50
Dependent Variable Model: Resistance to Change
Predictor B SE t p Age -.02 .02 -1.19 .24 Role Conflict .21 .10 2.00 .05 Role Ambiguity .24 .10 2.38 .02 Role Overload .43 .15 2.96 .00 Self-control De-mands .28 .15 1.87 .06 R2 .48
Indirect effect between Role stressors and Resistance to Change through
Self-control Demands
Indirect effect Boot SE 90% Confidence
intervala
Role Conflict .11 .07 .02, .24
Role Ambiguity .01 .03 -.02, .08
Role Overload .08 .07 .07, .23
a
Based on 1000 bootstrap samples
Discussion
The primary objective for this study was to understand to what extent role stressors influ-ence subsequent employee reactions towards change. Using role theory perspective and self-control theory as predominant theoretical lenses, I proposed and tested the idea that role stressors influence an employee’s level of re-sistance to change, through the mechanism of self-control demands. The results, based on survey data from an actual work setting
impair-19 ment in employee reactions, such as resistance to change.
Theoretical Implications
The abovementioned results provide new in-sights for the change management literature, where a role theory perspective was largely neglected. The implementations of changes bring role stressors to the fore, especially when these changes are concerned with the work content. The current study provides empirical evidence that employees perceive role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload in a change context, and that these stressors ultimately lead to resistant thoughts, emotions and behaviors towards the change itself. Therefore, role stressors should be seen as important anteced-ents of the resistance to change construct. Al-so, these results provide clear support to long-established arguments in the change manage-ment literature, that individuals’ reactions to change are influenced by their perceptions of the actual content and consequences of the change itself (Giangreco and Peccei, 2005).
Furthermore, the results shed new light on the relationship between role stressors and self-control demands. In accordance with re-search done by Diestel and Schmidt (2012), I found a positive relationship between work-load and self-control demands. Furthermore, following from the present study, role conflict can be added to the list of antecedents of self-control demands. Both these findings are con-sistent with Robinson, Schmeichel and Inzlicht
(2010), who suggested that job-related re-quirements (e.g. role conflict and role over-load) encourage employees to engage in voli-tional self-control at work, and deplete their limited resource of self-control.
Finally, the results contribute to the demand for a systematic search to antecedents and mediation processes, concerned with re-sistance to change (Oreg, 2003; Piderit, 2000). By combining role theory with self-control theory, I developed an idea, and found evi-dence, that role conflict and role overload have an indirect effect on resistance to change, via self-control demands. This approach is the first of its kind to address such a mediational pro-cess in the resistance to change literature, and opens new research avenues for this change phenomenon.
Managerial Implications
The results of this study have also important implications for the management practice. Managers should be alert to their employees’ current work conditions and conditions after a change, and monitor for signs of role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload. Employees who perceive these role stressors may experi-ence ego depletion, or become unmotivated. Here, managers should step in and address these issues, by shifting job conditions to bet-ter fit the employee (Rubino et al., 2009).
em-20 ployees will be exposed to self-control de-mands, especially in the service sector. Con-sidering the detrimental effects on resistance to change, it is crucial for organizations to ad-dress how to cope effectively with role stress-ors and self-control demands. Following Diestel and Schmidt (2012), organizations should think about the development of training programs for strengthening the individual self-control resource, especially for those employ-ees having low self-control strength. This way, organizations can tackle the difficulties with role stressors that come to the fore in a change context.
Finally, organizations should think about improving the fit between job demands and personal characteristics of employees, by using recruitment strategies preventing vulner-able employees (low on self-control strength) from entering into jobs that demand high self-control.
Limitations
There are also some limitations of this re-search study to consider. First, I used a cross-sectional research design, which did not allow me to determine the causality direction among the study variables. This means that the study results are vulnerable to bidirectional and to opposite relationships because of the possibil-ity that an employees’ level of resistance to change might influence the level of self-control, which in turn also could influence the experiencing of role conflict, role ambiguity
and role overload (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004). However, theory and previous research suggest that stressors in the work context should be seen as potential causes of self-control, and resistance to change (e.g. Diestel & Schmidt, 2012; Eathough et al., 2011; Tiong, 2005). Nevertheless, future research should use experimental or longitudinal de-signs to cross-validate the results of this study.
Second, all variables were provided by intermediary agents, which could give room for false correlations and incorrect research results, due to common-source bias (Podsa-koff, MacKenzie, Lee & Podsa(Podsa-koff, 2003). Although Podsakoff, MacKenzie and Podsa-koff (2011) suggest obtaining measures of predictor and criterion variables from different sources: they give a few exceptional cases where this is not required or appropriate. Namely, when the predictor and criterion vari-ables are capturing individual’s perceptions, beliefs, judgments or feelings. The current research model can be grouped under this ex-ception, and therefore counters the difficulties with common source bias.
21 minimized the effects of spurious responses (Podsakoff et al., 2011) Nevertheless, future studies should explore the option of non-self-report measures of resistance to change, by for example letting supervisors rate employees’ behavior, emotions and thoughts with regards to change programs (Oreg, 2007).
Fourth, I obtained responses from in-termediary agents from a service organization in the labor market sector. However, employ-ees’ perceptions of role stressors might vary due to hierarchical level differences. This means that generalizing to employees on high-er hihigh-erarchical levels needs furthhigh-er empirical investigation (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004).
Finally, although based on an actual work context sample, the study was restricted to a single organization, thereby limiting the generalizability and robustness of the present study findings. Hence, future research should be conducted in a variety of organizational contexts to cross-validate the results of this study.
Future research
A number of avenues exist for future research on role stressors and resistance to change. Firstly, an interactionist perspective (Mischel & Shoda, 1995) could be fruitful in capturing a more concise picture of resistance to change in the organizational reality. It could be interest-ing to investigate the moderatinterest-ing influence of personality on the identified relationships in the present study. This way we could get more
insights in which employees are more prone to role stressors, and resistant cognitions, emo-tions and behaviors. By identifying these indi-viduals, organizations could change their re-cruitment strategies and adapt their training programs.
Secondly, future research should pro-vide alternative mechanisms through which role stressors lead to resistance to change. Alt-hough this current study provided evidence that self-control demands mediated the effects on RTC for two of the three role stressors, the small indirect effects give playground for in-vestigating alternative explanations for the occurrence of resistance to change from cop-ing with role stressors. An interestcop-ing mediat-ing mechanism to investigate is the level of employees’ motivation. Experiencing role stress might have detrimental consequences for the motivation of the employee, and subse-quently inhibit the motivational capacity to accept the change. This approach is in line with the research done by Rubino et al. (2009), who investigated the influence of role stressors on intrinsic motivation, and its influence on several behavioral outcomes.
22 Conclusion
Implementing changes in organizations de-pends to a large extent on the adaptability and flexibility of employees. Resistant thoughts, emotions and behaviors towards a change are rather rule than the exception, making it an interesting research topic. The current study showed that role stressors have a detrimental influence on resistance to change, via the mechanism of self-control demands. By inte-grating role theory with self-control theory, I offered an alternative explanation for the oc-currence of resistance to change. Ultimately, this present study provides organizations valu-able information when considering implement-ing changes.
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28 APPENDIX A
Informant and Interview/Survey description
Phase Job Title Interview Summary
Phase 1: introduction meeting/interview
1- Business Consultant 1- Account manager 1- Marketing Director
Interview length: ranging from 60 – 90 minutes/ Transcription: 12 pages
Phase 2:unstructured interviews in Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe
- Brand A
Phase 3: semi-structured interviews in Utrecht, Zuid-Holland and Noord-Holland - Brand A - Brand B Brand A: 4- Intermediary agents 1- Account manager Brand A:
1- Junior intermediary agent 3- Senior intermediary
agents Brand B:
1- Junior intermediary agent 3- Senior intermediary
agents
Interview length: ranging from 30 – 60 minutes / Transcription: 27 pages
Interview length: ranging from 35 – 68 minutes/ Transcription: 43 pages
29
APPENDIX B
Results of EFA of Role Overload, Role Conflict, Role Ambiguity, Self-Control Demands, and Resistance to Change a
Factors
Items 1 2 3 4 5
Role Overload
My job requires me to work fast. My job requires me to work hard.
My job does not ask too much work given the amount of time. b I have enough time to finish my work .b
My work is a madhouse given the amount of time.
.77 .84 -.53 -.59 .74 Role Conflict
I had to do things that should be done differently. I worked under incompatible policies and guidelines.
I had to buck a rule or policy in order to carry out an assignment. I received incompatible requests from two or more people.
I did things that were apt to be accepted by one person and not accepted by others.
I worked on unnecessary things.
.56 .66 .70 .55 .52 .71 Role Ambiguityb
I felt certain about how much authority I had. I had clear, planned goals and objectives for my job. I knew that I divided my time properly.
I knew what my responsibilities were. I knew exactly what was expected of me.
I knew exactly what should be done to do the job.
.70 .79 .61 .79 .78 .77 Self-Control Demands
My job requires me never to lose my temper.
Even if I sometimes feel very irritated, I am not allowed to show that by any means.
At work, I am under no circumstances allowed to give way to any spontane-ous reactions.
I am never allowed to lose my self-control at work. I am never allowed to become impatient at work.
If I want to get my work done successfully, I must not give in to any distrac-tions.
In order to cope with my workload, I must force myself not to waste my time on unimportant things.
My work requires me to resist distractions.
Some of my tasks are such that I really need to force myself to get them done. Starting off with certain tasks sometimes costs me a considerable amount of will power.
In terms of some of my tasks, I really need to restrain myself from leaving them undone in favor of more attractive tasks.
Dealing with unattractive tasks requires me a high amount of willpower. Some of my tasks I can only get done against inner obstacles.
.70 .72 .57 .71 .63 .83 .56 .65 .70 .82 .81 .84 .85 Resistance to Change
I was afraid of the change.
I had a bad feeling about the change. I was quite excited about the change. b The change made me upset.
.56 .85 -.70
30 I was stressed by the change.
I looked for ways to prevent the change from taking place. I protested against the change.
I complained about the change to my colleagues.
I presented my objections regarding the change to management. I spoke rather highly of the change to others. b
I believed that the change would harm the way things are done in the organi-zation.
I thought that it’s a negative thing that we were going through this change. I believed that the change would make my job harder.
I believed that the change would benefit the organization. b I believed that I could personally benefit from the change. b
.64 -.50 .66 .74 .61 -.70 .78 .79 .58 -.60 -.66 EigenValue 16 4.43 3.37 2.23 1.83 Explained Variance (%) 35.57 9.84 7.48 4.95 4.10
a Items are quoted from the survey b
