icap2010 presentation on 16.07.10 (tony machin)

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A structural model linking commitment A structural model linking commitment to organizational change and change to organizational change and change successsuccess

M. Anthony Machin, Associate Professor

Gerard J. Fogarty, Professorial Research Fellow

University of Southern Queensland

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What changes do we expect in our What changes do we expect in our workplaces?workplaces?

Heraclitus of Ephesus (c.535 BC - 475 BC) stated that “Nothing endures but change”.

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Previous findingsPrevious findings

Machin and Albion (2007) focused on the role of one component of commitment to organisational change (affective commitment) in mediating the relationships between two aspect of organisational climate, perceptions of change management and change success.

Machin, M. A., & Albion, M. A. (2007). Testing a model of the predictors of change success. In M. Dollard, A. Winefield, M. Tuckey, & P. Winwood (Eds.) Proceedings of the 7th Industrial and Organisational Psychology Conference/ 1st Asia Pacific Congress on Work and Organisational Psychology (pp.185-189). Melbourne, Victoria: Australian Psychological Society.

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We found that positive organisational climate contributes to higher affective commitment to change and greater change success.

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Machin, Fogarty and Bannon (2009) found that positive work climate was a significant contributor to the prediction of behavioural support for change even after controlling for affective, normative, and continuance commitment to organisational change.

Machin, M. A., Fogarty, G. J., & Bannon, S. F. (2009). Predicting employees’ commitment to and support for organisational change. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Organisational Psychology, 2, 10-18.

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Aim of the current studyAim of the current study

This study reexamines the linkages between three components of employees’ commitment to organizational change and their perceptions of change success and job satisfaction whilst controlling for their tenure in the organization. We did this by selecting a subsample from each data set.

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BackgroundBackground

The organisation involved had undergone significant structural reform over a number of consecutive years involving thousands of staff. The nature of the change involved a large number of employees moving into new roles so we expected that their perceptions of change success may change across time.

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Who were the participants?Who were the participants?

Sample 1 includes data collected during 2005 from a Queensland government agency (N = 2549). Only those who were in their current role “More than 12 months” were included leaving 1585.

Sample 2 includes data collected during 2006 (N = 2737). Only those who were in their current role “More than 2 years” were included leaving 1238.

Sample 3 includes data collected during 2007 (N = 2595). Only those who were in their current role “More than 3 years” were included leaving 786.

The overall response rates were 53.0%, 57.4% and 53.6%.

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What measures were used?What measures were used?

10 item-version of the Commitment to Organisational Change Scale (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002) which measures three components: Affective Commitment to Change (4 items) - the extent to

which people believe in the usefulness of the change Continuance Commitment to Change (3 items) - the extent to

which people feel they have no choice but to go along with the change

Normative Commitment to Change (3 items) measured the level of perceived obligation to go along with the change

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Change Success which captured the degree to which they rated the success of seven aspects of the change process that had occurred over the previous 12 months.

Job satisfaction – 3 items assessing satisfaction with their job, the work they performed, and their organisation.

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ResultsResults

The strongest predictor of change success across all three years was job satisfaction (.41 to .47) followed by affective commitment to change (.29 to .36).

Continuance commitment to change and normative commitment to change were only very weakly related or not related to change success.

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Affective commitment to change was a significant predictor of Job satisfaction (.28).

Therefore, Job satisfaction partially mediated the link between affective commitment to change and change success.

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2005 structural model (N = 1585)2005 structural model (N = 1585)

χ2 = 20.478, df = 16, p = .199, CFI = .999, RMSEA = .009.

.42

ChangeSuccess

e1

.11

JobSatisfaction

.41

AffectiveCommitment

to Change

ContinuanceCommitment

to Change

NormativeCommitment

to Change

-.25

.43

.11

.36

-.07

.04

.28

-.08

.11e2

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2006 structural model (N = 1238)2006 structural model (N = 1238)

.42

ChangeSuccess

e1

.10

JobSatisfaction

.47

AffectiveCommitment

to Change

ContinuanceCommitment

to Change

NormativeCommitment

to Change

-.25

.45

.11

.29

-.07

.04

.28

-.08

.10e2

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2007 structural model (N = 786)2007 structural model (N = 786)

.37

ChangeSuccess

e1

.10

JobSatisfaction

.43

AffectiveCommitment

to Change

ContinuanceCommitment

to Change

NormativeCommitment

to Change

-.23

.42

.10

.31

-.01

.01

.28

-.08

.10e2

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ConclusionsConclusions

The model was a good fit to the data and stable across the three years. This highlights the important role that job satisfaction plays in the process of implementing large-scale organizational change.

Job satisfaction may in fact be capturing a sense of satisfaction with the change process.

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Successful organisational change involves reinforcing to employees the usefulness of the change. It is not adequate to just expect that employees will accept constant change (or that the only constant is change!).

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Contact me if you have any questionsContact me if you have any questions

Associate Professor Tony Machin, Department of Psychology, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, 4350. Australia. Telephone +61 7 46312587. Fax +61 7 46312721. Email: machin@usq.edu.au