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Selecting Change Agents: ExploringTraits and Skills in a SimulatedEnvironment

IOANNIS NIKOLAOU�, ATHANASIOS GOURAS�, MARIA VAKOLA�� &DIMITRIS BOURANTAS�

�Department of Management Science & Technology, Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece,� �Department of Marketing and Management, Athens University of Economics & Business, Greece

ABSTRACT In the new organizational environment, when business and even political leadersdeclare their dedication to change, it is a very important need for organizations to recruit andselect people capable not only to bring or initiate but, also, handle change effectively. However,only a few attempts have been made to identify the personality profile of a person, able to fulfillthe requirements of this position. The current study tries to shed light on this issue by examiningif dispositional characteristics and competencies are related to attitudes to change, adopting anexperimental business game scenario simulating a real business change context. Participantscompleted self-report questionnaires assessing their dispositional traits whereas theirperformance and change management skills were assessed by independent observers. Resultsdisplayed that resilient employees consider themselves as more ready to accept and applychange, as opposed to change-related skills which seemed to predict only task performance andnot acceptance of change. The study concludes with a discussion of the findings, managerialimplications and possible limitations.

KEY WORDS: Change agents, dispositional characteristics, competencies, attitudes to change, taskperformance

Introduction

As organizations try to survive and remain competitive, they are reorganizing,re-engineering, downsizing and implementing new technology. In other words,they constantly try to change. The American Management Association reported

Journal of Change Management

Vol. 7, Nos 3–4, 291–313, September–December 2007

�Correspondence Address: Dr Ioannis Nikolaou, Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens

University of Economics and Business, 76, Patission Ave., 104 34, Athens, Greece. Email: inikol@aueb.gr

1469-7017 Print/1479-1811 Online/07/3–40291–23 # 2007 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14697010701779173

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that 84% of US companies were in the process of at least one major change initiativeand 46% said that they had three or more change initiatives/programmes in pro-gress (Peak, 1996). Also, a study conducted by the US Bureau of National Affairs(1996) reported that organizational change was a major concern for more than athird of the 396 participating organizations. These ongoing and seeminglyendless efforts can put a lot of strain not only on organizations but also on individ-uals. Beer and Nohria (2000) argue that 70% of change programmes fail becauseof lack of strategy and vision, lack of communication and trust, lack of top man-agement commitment, lack of resources, lack of change management skills, resist-ance to change and so on. However, research dealing with organizational changehas mainly focused on organizational factors neglecting the person-orientedissues. Could this be one of the reasons why change management programmesoften fail? We believe that a one-sided approach in preparing for change, suchas the emphasis on the macro-level aspects of organizational change, misses outsignificant pieces of the change puzzle. Although some researchers have calledfor more focus on micro-level aspects of organizational change, this researchstill remains quite limited, with only a few exceptions (see Bray, 1994; Judgeet al., 1999; Wanberg and Banas, 2000). Our aim in the current study is toexplore and identify the necessary personality characteristics and skills of themost important people involved in change; the change agents.

Therefore, a very significant stage of an organizational change effort is theselection of the individuals who will design and execute the change withsuccess. These individuals, often referred in the literature as the ‘changeagents’, will be called upon to evangelize on behalf of the changes (Jick andPeiperl, 2003). They will be the facilitators of planned processes of change(Beckhard, 1969; Tichy, 1974), enable and empower individual employees andself-managed teams to take responsibility for a number of decisions (Walton,1985; Lawler, 1986) and act as consultants in the coordination and project man-agement of the change effort (Sadler, 2001). Therefore, an organization in orderto struggle a winner out of change must achieve in selecting the right people aschange agents to help promote change throughout the organization. Ideally,every employee of the organization involved in the change management effortshould be able to act as a change agent. The focus of the current study is toexplore and identify the major personality characteristics along with the most sig-nificant skills and competencies required to the effective change agent, using asimulation change-management business game.

Personality, Personnel Selection and Organizational Change

Earlier research on organizational change has generally focused on a systems andstructural approach to effective organizational change, thus neglecting the fact thatindividuals are the ones that make it happen. An organization seeking to success-fully implement change must understand that it requires encouraging individualsto enact new behaviours so that desired change outcomes are achieved. Accordingto Judge et al. (1999), people-oriented research in organizational change exploredissues of charismatic or transformational leadership, the role of top management inorganizational change and the phenomenon of resistance to change, without

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considering the psychological traits or predispositions of individuals experiencingthe change, which are equally crucial for its success. Nevertheless, they arguedthat individual difference variables, such as locus of control, positive affectivity,openness to experience and tolerance for ambiguity play an important role inemployees’ work attitudes (for example organizational commitment, satisfaction),as well as predicting self and supervisory assessments of coping with change. Kingand Anderson (1995) also indicated the role of individual differences, along withprevious bad experiences of change, as responsible for high levels of negative atti-tudes and resistance to change.

Dispositional traits and the respective personality measures are increasinglybeing used by managers and human resource professionals to evaluate the suit-ability of job applicants for various positions within organizations. Rothsteinand Goffin (2006) in the most recent review of the subject, provided quite an opti-mistic viewpoint. They suggested that a few meta-analytic studies have clearlydemonstrated that a number of personality dispositions, such as those expressedby the widely used taxonomy of the Five-Factor of personality, may contributeto the successful prediction of job performance criteria. Similar findings were pre-sented in earlier studies exploring the same topic. However, it is remarkable thatwe identified only a few studies exploring the role of personality dispositions andpersonality assessment for personnel selection as applied in organizational changesettings.

Lau and Woodman (1995) argued that attitudes toward organizational changedepend on an individual’s change schemata which are defined as ‘mental mapsrepresenting knowledge structures of change attributes, and relationships amongdifferent change events’ (Lau and Woodman, 1995, p. 538). These researcherssuggested that there are significant relationships between such schemata and thereactions of individuals to change. Bandura (1977), quite early on, noted thatemployees with high levels of change-related self-efficacy (the perceived abilityto function well on the job despite the demands of the changing working environ-ment), are unlikely to be distressed by feelings of inadequacy and, for this reason,are expected to persist in their efforts to manage the organizational changeprocess. Moreover, they perceive the changing environment as less stressful,thereby experiencing less psychological strain (Ashford, 1988)

Personality variables have also been researched as to their effect on coping withchange by Judge et al. (1999), who argue that success of change efforts lies in theabilities and motivation of the individuals within the organization, helping them tocope adequately with the change process (Judge et al., 1999). Seven personalityvariables have been identified in their study: locus-of-control, generalized self-efficacy, self-esteem, positive affectivity, openness to experience, tolerance forambiguity and risk aversion.

Dispositional Characteristics of the Effective Change Agent

A detailed review of the individual differences literature identified a number ofpersonality traits as having direct relevance with the requirements of the success-ful organizational, career and/or life change. These traits are described in thefollowing sections.

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Self-Efficacy

Bandura (1977) defines self-efficacy as ‘the convictions that one can successfullyexecute the behavior require producing the outcomes’. Judge et al. (1999) definedgeneralized self-efficacy as one’s estimates of one’s capabilities to mobilize themotivation, cognitive resources and courses of action needed to exercise generalcontrol over events in one’s life. Self-efficacy is particularly salient in situationsthat the individual may regard as unpredictable or stressful. Other research(Chwalisz et al., 1992) demonstrated that self-efficacy is correlated with majorcareer events, such as career change, and other research correlates low self-efficacy with job withdrawal and situations, such as resistance to change(McDonald and Siegall, 1992). Thus, all these results converge to the point thatself-efficacy is a precursor for positive attitudes towards critical career events,especially those which involve job and organizational change. A substantialbody of research indicates that self- efficacy is related to task effort and perform-ance, persistence, resilience in the face of failure, effective problem solving andself-control (Bandura, 1986; Gist and Mitchell, 1992). Moreover, self-efficacyexerts a mediating effect on readiness for individual (Prochaska et al., 1997)and organizational change (Pond et al., 1984; Armenakis et al., 1993; Prochaskaet al., 1994). The positive relationship between self-efficacy and readiness forchange is also confirmed by Cunningham et al. (2002).

Further, employees with confidence in their ability to cope with change shouldbe more likely to contribute to organizational redesign, whereas workers mayresist changes that they believe exceed their coping capabilities (Armenakiset al., 1993). It is predicted that staff who were confident in their ability to copewith job change and who adopted an active approach to job problem solvingwould have a higher readiness for change scores and participate in a greaternumber of organizational redesign activities. Readiness for change researchsuggests that a demonstrable need for change, a sense of one’s ability to success-fully accomplish change (self-efficacy) and an opportunity to participate in thechange process, contribute to readiness for organizational change (Armenakiset al., 1993). Therefore:

H1: Self-efficacy is expected to demonstrate positive correlations with attitudes to

change and overall team performance in a change management situation.

Locus of Control

Rotter (1966) proposed the concept of locus of control as the individual’s percep-tion of his or her ability to exercise control over the environment. Those charac-terized by internal locus of control believe they have control over theirenvironment and their personal successes, whereas those with an external locusof control view their lives as controlled by external factors such as chance, fateor powerful others. Locus of control is one of the most widely researched topicsin Organizational Behaviour literature identifying links with, amongst otherthings, job performance, job satisfaction and change attitudes.

A great extent of research has suggested the existence of a link between locus ofcontrol and coping with organizational change. Several studies have shown that

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internal locus of control is associated with problem-focused coping strategies(Anderson, 1977; Callan et al., 1994) and individuals with an internal locus ofcontrol are likely to suffer the ill effects of stressors (Kobasa, 1979). Similarly,it is found (Nelson et al., 1995) that employees with internal locus of controlreported more positive attitudes in their organizations experiencing changesthan employees with external locus of control. Given the general pattern of associ-ations between locus of control and major life and work-related events, one wouldexpect similar relationships between this construct and individual differences incoping with organizational change. Finally, there is evidence (Callan et al.,1994) for the robust relationship between internal locus of control and individuals’adaptation to change within work organizations and significant support to the factthat locus of control is associated with the concept of resistance to change (Oreg,2003). Therefore:

H2: Locus of control is expected to demonstrate positive correlations with attitudes

to change and overall team performance in a change management situation.

Core Self-Evaluations

The core self-evaluations are defined as basic conclusions or bottom-line evalu-ations that individuals hold about themselves (Judge et al., 1997). In otherwords, it is a basic, fundamental appraisal of one’s worthiness, effectivenessand capability as a person (Judge et al., 2003). This, recently investigated, person-ality trait represents the underlying broad common core of more specific person-ality traits that meet three criteria: (a) evaluation focus; (b) fundamentality; and (c)breadth/scope (Judge et al., 1997; Judge and Bono, 2001). Judge et al.’s (1997)review identified four traits that met those criteria: self-esteem; neuroticism;locus of control; and generalized self-efficacy.

As core self-evaluation is a broad, latent trait that is the common source of thefour specific traits, it is the psychological mechanism that causes these individualtraits to be correlated (Judge et al., 2003). According to Judge et al. (2003), highself-esteem, high generalized self-efficacy, internal locus of control and low neuroti-cism result from a broad, general, positive self concept, in other words, from highcore self-evaluations. Latent constructs exist at a deeper level than their indicatorsand causally influence the indicators or dimensions (Bollen and Lennox, 1991).Thus, when an individual has a positive self-concept, measures of the four coretraits – self-esteem, neuroticism, locus of control and generalized self-efficacy –are manifestations or indicators of this inner self-concept or core self-evaluations,and this explains why the four traits are conceptually and empirically related(Judge et al., 2003). So, according to Law et al. (1998) and Judge et al. (2003),core self-evaluations (CSE) are not just a multidimensional aggregate constructcomprised of dimensions that may or may not be related, but it is a latent psycho-logical construct that measures the ‘latent commonality underlying the dimensions’.

Very few studies have explored the relationship between CSE and attitudestowards change. One of the most significant studies in the field was carried outby Judge et al. (1999). In this study, three of the four facets of CSE constitute aseparate high construct with high internal validity. This construct was called

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positive self concept and it was identified to have significant positive correlationsto coping with change. Thus, indirectly, considering the fact that the two con-structs are almost similar and the fact that the relationship exists regardless ofthe source of coping assessment, CSE should exhibit the same correlation aswell. Employees who are confident about their abilities and are able to copewith stressful events, such as change, tend to perceive change as positive and asa result they experience higher levels of readiness to change. Therefore:

H3: Core-self evaluation is expected to demonstrate positive correlations with atti-

tudes to change and overall team performance in a change management situation.

Openness to Experience

Openness to Experience remains the most controversial and debatable of the BigFive factors (Digman, 1990). However, it is a very important construct, especiallyin a world characterized by diversity and rapid change. Goldberg (1992) definesOpenness to Experience as intelligence, perceptiveness, creativity, imagination,tolerance and inquisitiveness. McCrae and Costa (1997) indicated a positiverelationship between Openness to Experience and utilization of effective copingmechanisms in order to deal with stressful events in life and to effective copingand adjustment. Therefore, Openness to Experience is a dimension that can berelated to positive attitudes toward change, since it describes employees whocan demonstrate effective coping mechanisms, are open to new ideas and sugges-tions and, are tolerant and perceptive. These findings provide indications that highopenness to experience individuals tend to perceive change as less stressful andcope more effectively with it (Judge et al., 1999). Similar findings were obtainedby Vakola et al. (2004) who also identified that attitudes to change were positivelyassociated with Openness to Experience. Therefore:

H4: Openness to experience is expected to demonstrate positive correlations with

attitudes to change and overall team performance in a change management

situation.

Personal Resilience and Dispositional Resistance to Change

Another dispositional trait that seems to gather the research interest consideringthe relationship with change behaviours is personal or psychological resilienceconsisting of, according to Major et al. (1998), self-esteem, optimism, and per-ceived control as highly correlated variables. Psychologically-resilient peopleare characterized by the ability to bounce back from negative emotional experi-ences and by flexible adaptation to the changing demands of stressful experiences(Lazarus, 1993; Block and Kremen, 1996). A convergence across several researchmethodologies indicates that resilient individuals have optimistic, zestful andenergetic approaches to life, are curious and open to new experiences and, arecharacterized by high positive emotionality (Block and Kremen, 1996). This con-struct has its origins behind cognitive adaptation theory (Taylor & Brown, 1988;Aspinwall and Taylor, 1992) according to which individuals with the highestlevels of well-being during stressful life events are those who have high levels

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of self-esteem (for example, a high sense of self-worth), optimism (a highly positiveoutlook on life) and perceived control (a view of life and situations as being underpersonal control). Therefore, it is expected that individuals with high levels ofresilience will be most likely to benefit from participation in change processes.

A more recent term justified and used by Oreg (2003, 2006) should be intro-duced here because it represents a dispositional factor in relation to organizationalchange. The concept is dispositional resistance to change and it was designed tomeasure the personality component of resistance to change (Oreg, 2003). Accord-ing to Oreg, people differ in their internal inclination to resist or adopt changes.These differences can predict people’s attitudes towards specific changes – bothvoluntary and imposed. A strong component in the definition of the resistance tochange personality trait (Oreg, 2003) involves individuals’ emotional predisposi-tions towards change. In the study of employees’ reactions to an office move (Oreg,2003), dispositional resistance to change had its strongest impact on employees’emotional responses. Another significant, yet weaker, relationship that wasfound in Oreg’s (2003) study was between dispositional resistance and employees’behavioural reactions (that is, avoiding coming to the office, taking action againstthe move) to the change. The same attempt has been conducted more recently(Oreg, 2006), where it was expected that dispositional resistance to changewould correlate with employees’ affective resistance to change. Indeed, the resist-ance to change personality trait, which is conceptualized as a stable personalitytrait, showed a strong association with the affective component and a weaker,yet still significant, association with behavioural intention to resist. This suggeststhat some employees are more likely to experience negative emotions and to actagainst organizational changes because of their dispositional inclination, indepen-dently of the particular nature of the change at hand. Therefore:

H5: Personal resilience is expected to demonstrate positive correlations with

attitudes to change and overall team performance in a change management

situation, and

H6: Dispositional resistance to change is expected to demonstrate negative

correlations with attitudes to change and overall team performance in a change

management situation.

Skills and Competencies of Change Agents

The research covering the issue of the appropriate skills and competencies of theeffective change manager is also quite limited, consisting mainly from theoreticalor practice-oriented papers. Early evidence, considering the implementation of atechnological change, identified several qualities for effective change champions(Beatty and Gordon, 1988; Beatty and Lee, 1992). The same group of researchersalso argued that the change agent must combine problem-solving, vision, determi-nation, technical expertise and interpersonal and political skills.

The role of change agents as facilitators is extensively discussed within arational framework. For example, Buchanan and Boddy (1992) list competenciesof effective change agents as clarity of specifying goals, team building activities,

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communication skills, negotiation skills and ‘influencing skills’ to gain commitmentto goals. It can be deduced from these arguments that limitations in change man-agement are associated with the managerial perceptions of the need for change, theopportunity to change and about the way to change. This renders perceptions,beliefs and assumptions of change agents as vital aspects to be understood. Bucha-nan and Boddy’s study, The Expertise of the Change Agent (1992) was a sustainedattempt to apply the managerial concept of competency to change agency.

Bennis (1993) defined four competencies for change agents to be successful inhelping organizations to achieve effectiveness, improvement, development, andenhancement. In his view, the four essential competencies for success includethe following: (1) broad knowledge of the intelligence from the behaviouralsciences and theories and methods of change; (2) operational and relationalskills, such as the ability to listen, observe, identify and report, and to formrelationships based on trust; (3) sensitivity and maturity, including self-recognition of motivators and the perceptions that others have of these motivators;and (4) authenticity in living and acting in accordance to humanistic values.

In addition to the change agent competencies described above, Bennis (1993)also found that change agents intervene at different levels of an organization atdifferent times, while working with people and building relationships within thetarget organization. To be effective at these different levels, a change agentmust rely on skills from both project management and organizational development(OD) – including planning, managing tasks, leading project teams, and interfacingwith the users in the organization – and on general knowledge of IT, business andhuman behaviour (Johnson and Fredian, 1986; Koehler, 1987; Bloom, 1989).

A set of common principles exists between the OD practitioner and the projectmanager according to Adams et al. (1997). These include communication, team-work, process management, leadership, training and continuous learning. Clarkeand Meldrum (1999) identified five aspects for the successful creation of thecapacity of change management: vision, ambition and personal risk, positioning,subversion and political awareness. Some authors have also stressed the meaningof leadership of change (Hooper and Potter, 2000) in identifying the appropriatechange agents. They demonstrate that leadership of change, means ‘developinga vision of the future, crafting strategies to bring that vision into reality and ensur-ing that everybody in the organization is mobilizing their energies towards thesame goals . . . the process called emotional alignment’. Heifetz & Laurie(1997) argued that the most difficult challenges facing leaders today, aremaking sure that people in the organization can adapt to change and thatleaders can envisage where the organization is currently placed in the marketand where it should be in the future.

Motivated by the above, Gill (2003) displayed two competencies significant forthe leader acting in the change context: alignment and adaptability. Alignment isdisplayed by a shared understanding, common orientation, values and shared pri-orities. Adaptability is displayed by environmental sensitivity, tolerance for con-trary views, a willingness to experiment, tolerate failure and learn from it, and theability to respond quickly to change – organizational agility. In the role of thechange agent, somebody seeks to act as an unbiased facilitator, positively involvedin consultative or consensus-seeking interventions based on open dialogue,

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feedback and group ownership (Tichy, 1974). This requires change agents’attributes that are broadly synonymous with process consultation: listening, pro-viding feedback, counselling, coaching, and inter-group dynamics (Schein,1988). However, the OD practitioner must also be able to demonstrate generalconsultancy skills and an instrumental knowledge of OD tools and techniques(Lacey, 1995; Cummings and Worley, 1997). Various traits and skills were associ-ated with the change masters-leaders and their impact on employees: self-identi-fication, courage and outspokenness, belief in people, openness to lifelonglearning, ability to deal with complexity and uncertainty and, their powerful stra-tegic vision (Caldwell, 2003). Other characteristics include flexibility, personaldrive, desire to lead, honesty and integrity, cognitive ability, self-confidence,knowledge of the business (Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1991) and risk-taking (Dule-witcz and Herbert, 2000). Change agent competencies are not founded on codifiedexpertise, knowledge or techniques that can be instrumentally applied or learntthrough conventional educational or training interventions (Benett and Leducho-wicz, 1983). Rather, they are learning processes involving experimentation andpersonal practices that translate explicit and tacit organizational knowledge intocollective understanding of the need for change. Therefore:

H7: Change-related skills and competencies are expected to demonstrate positive

correlations with attitudes to change and overall team performance in a change

management situation.

Attitudes to Change

According to Elizur and Guttman (1976), attitudes toward change, in general,consist of a person’s cognitions about change, affective reactions to change, andbehavioural tendency toward change. Affective responses are feelings of beinglinked to, satisfied with, or anxious about change. Cognitive responses are theoptions one has about the advantages and the disadvantages, usefulness and neces-sity, and about the knowledge required to handle the change. Finally, instrumentalresponses are the actions already taken or which will be taken in the future for oragainst change. Similarly, early attitude theorists (Katz, 1960; Rosenberg andHovland, 1960) argued that attitudes are structured along three dimensions thatroughly correspond with the three definitions that have dominated research onresistance to change. These three dimensions of attitudes are the cognitive,emotional and intentional ones. This conception is known as the tripartite viewof attitudes (Ajzen, 1984). Additional evidence for the multidimensional viewof attitudes stems from Dunham et al. (1989) who concluded that attitudestoward change are general components of a person’s cognitions about change,affective reactions to change and behavioural tendency toward change.

Dunham et al. (1989) constructed a scale measuring the tripartite view of atti-tudes. High score indicates willingness to support change across issues andtime. The cognitive dimension of attitude towards change focuses on the degreeto which a person believes that change tends to produce positive effects for theorganization, for co-workers and for him/herself. Those with high scores on thecognitive aspect of attitude towards change generally believe that change produces

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positive results. The affective dimension of attitude towards change deals with thefeelings people have about change. A person with high scores on the affectivedimension is a person who looks forward to change, who enjoys change. This isa person who, when faced with significant change in the organization, expectsan enjoyable – perhaps challenging – situation. The third dimension is the beha-vioural tendency dimension. This is the degree to which the person is likely tosupport change and is likely to initiate change. A person with high scores onthe behavioural tendency dimension is the kind of person we tend to refer to asa change agent: the person who initiates change, who supports change.

Change can be received with excitement and happiness or anger and fear whileemployees’ response to it may range from positive intentions to support the changeto negative intentions to oppose it. Gilmore and Barnett (1992), Kotter (1996) andEby et al. (2000) have shown that positive attitudes to change were found to bevital in achieving organizational goals and in succeeding in change programmes.Also, Schweiger and DeNisi (1991) suggested that uncertainty attached to organ-izational and personal changes, that usually follow mergers and acquisitions,creates negative attitudes to change which lead to some dysfunctional outcomes,such as low job satisfaction, stress, low organizational commitment and low trustin the organization. Iverson (1996) noted that employees with high organizationalcommitment are more supportive of the goals and values of the organization,willing to expend considerably more effort on behalf of the organization, andthus more likely to accept organizational change.

Taken together, the above evidence suggests that both personality dispositionsand skills/competencies should be important for the successful implementation ofa change management programme. In order to substantiate this argument, weinvestigated the interaction between a set of significant change-related disposi-tions and skills on participants’ attitudes towards change in a simulated environ-ment. We were also interested in examining whether change-related skills andcompetencies will explain additional variance above and beyond the effect ofdispositions, as we were expecting (H8). Finally, we explored whetherparticipants’ attitudes towards change mediate the relationship between individ-uals’ dispositions, change-related skills and competencies and overall team per-formance, based on the belief that even when the individuals possess thenecessary dispositional characteristics and change management skills to facilitatechange, if their attitudes towards change are not supportive, then their perform-ance during organizational change will decrease (H9).

Method

Participants and Procedure

The sample used for this study comprised 105 executive MBA students, studyingin Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece, who partici-pated in exchange of course credit (52 men, 53 women; age (mean): 26.84, SD(standard deviation): 3.68). Their work experience ranged from a few monthsup to 15 years with an average of 3.71 years. Data collection took place in twowaves, before and after the execution of a change-related business game,

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described below. First, participants completed a booklet, which included thedispositional measures described in the following section, which took place twoweeks before the second wave, and subsequently, immediately after the end ofthe business game, they completed the attitudes to change measure.

The simulation is based on a business game scenario provided by Elite TrainingEuropean Ltd# under the name of ‘The We Can Do Company’. This business gameis specifically designed to assess participants’ reactions to change. It incorporatesthe assessment of team, communication and leadership skills. In brief, during thebusiness game participants are required to prepare and propose the developmentplan of a new product, working in small groups of four to six people. From timeto time the researchers introduced major changes to the teams’ activities, leadingthem to redesign or even suggest new ideas and proposals. In order to imitate asmuch as possible a real-life selection paradigm and to avoid common method var-iance problems, we decided to ask observers to assess participants’ change-relatedskills/competencies. Therefore, each team was independently monitored by anobserver (graduate Human Resources students who were informed in detail aboutthe scope of the study and their role) who was silently attending the course ofaction and, at the end of the game, was asked to assess the participants’ change-related skills and competencies, described in the measures section. We also assessedeach team’s overall performance on the tasks they were required to accomplish. Themain purpose of the activity was to identify and score the performance and the beha-viour of participants when change occurred.

Measures

Dispositional Measures

Core self evaluations

This construct is measured using a well-established and validated scale developedby Judge et al. (2003). It is a 12-item measure asking the participants to rate theextent to which they agree with each item on a five-point scale ranging fromstrongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Sample items include ‘I am confidentI get the success I deserve in life’ and ‘I determine what will happen in my life’. Ofthe 12 items, half of them were positively worded (for example, ‘I am confident Iget the success I deserve in life’) and the other half was reverse-scored (forexample, ‘Sometimes I feel depressed’). The alpha reliability in the currentstudy was 0.78. A high score indicates high core self evaluations.

Openness to experience

Openness is measured with a 15-item scale extracted from a questionnaire devel-oped to measure the Five-Factor model of personality in Greece (Tsaousis andKerpelis, 2004). The participants were asked to rate the extent to which theyagree with each item on a five-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) tostrongly agree (5). Sample items include ‘I believe I am a person who appreciatesart’ and ‘I am certain there is only one true religion (reversed)’. The alphareliability in the current study was 0.61. A high score indicates high opennessto experience.

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Psychological resilience

The Ego-Resiliency Scale (Block and Kremen, 1996) was administered to assesspsychological resilience, defined as ‘the capacity to modify responses to changingsituational demands, especially frustrating or stressful encounters’ (Block andKremen, 1996, p. 359). This scale consists of 14 items, each responded to on afive-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (does not apply at all) to 5 (applies verystrongly). Sample items include ‘I quickly get over and recover from beingstartled,’ and ‘I enjoy dealing with new and unusual situations.’ The alphareliability was 0.602 for this sample. A high score indicates high psychologicalresilience.

Generalized self-efficacy

Using the Judge et al. (1998) scale, respondents used a 1 (strongly disagree) to 5(strongly agree) scale to indicate their level of agreement with statements such as‘I am strong enough to overcome life’s struggles,’ and ‘I often feel that there isnothing that I can do well’ (reverse scored). Example items include, ‘When Imake plans, I am certain I can make them work’ and ‘If something looks too com-plicated, I will not even bother to try it.’ The alpha reliability was 0.73 for thissample.

Locus of control

Locus of control was measured with the internality subscale of Levenson’s (1981)Internal, Powerful Others, and Chance (IPC) Scale, in which respondents used ascale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to indicate their level of agree-ment with statements such as, ‘Whether or not I get to be a leader depends mostlyon my ability’ and ‘My life is determined by my own actions’. The alphareliability was 0.68 for this sample.

Dispositional resistance to change

This was measured using a 17-item scale developed by Oreg (2003). The scale hasbeen validated in a variety of contexts and has consistently demonstrated highstructural stability and reliability and asks from the participants to rate theextent to which they agree with each item on a six-point scale ranging fromstrongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6). Sample items include: ‘When I wasinformed that there’s going to be a significant change regarding the way thingsare done at the teamwork activity, I felt stressed’, and ‘When someone pressuredme to change something, I tended to resist it even if I thought the change may ulti-mately benefit me’. An individual with a high score in this scale has the dispositionto resist the change proposed whatever the context of change is. The alphareliability was 0.74 for this sample.

Competencies-Skills

Following discussions with experienced human resource managers and a detailedreview of the literature, we came up with the identification of a set of significantcompetencies and skills which are appropriate for the effective change agent.These were: negotiation skills, conflict skills, communication skills, team building

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skills, leadership skills, and project management skills. In order to avoid commonmethod variance problems, we asked the observers to assess participants perform-ance on each of these skills. Observers received a sheet incorporating the defi-nitions of these skills, as extracted by mainstream change managementliterature and assessed, using single-item measures of these skills, each partici-pants performance on these skills for the group they were monitoring, using aseven-point response scale, ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (to a large extent).An exploratory factor analysis suggested the existence one factor explaining79% of the total variance, with an alpha reliability of 0.93. Therefore, anoverall score was also calculated.

Reactions to Change

Attitudes toward organizational change

It was measured with a scale based on Dunham et al.’s (1989) 18-item instrument.Minor amendments were necessary in order to adopt the measure to the presentneeds of the experimental task. This instrument consists of three subscales,namely cognitive, affective and behavioural tendency. Each subscale consists ofsix items. Examples of the items included in the cognitive subscale are:‘I didn’t like change’, ‘I usually resisted new ideas’. Examples of the itemsincluded in the affective subscale are: ‘Change usually benefited the teamworkactivity’, ‘Most of my team mates benefited from change’. Examples of theitems included in the behavioural tendency subscale are: ‘I was looking forwardto changes at the teamwork activity’, ‘I was inclined to try new ideas’. Aseven-point response scale was employed, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to7 (strongly agree). Moreover, an overall score measuring the general attitudesto change is identified, too. This scale is based on the definition of attitudestoward change in general, which consists of a person’s cognitions about change,affective reactions to change, and behavioural tendency toward change and atti-tudes toward a specific change, which consists of a person’s cognitions aboutthat change, affective reactions to that change and behavioural tendency towardthat change. High score indicates willingness to support change across issuesand time. The internal consistency for overall attitudes toward organizationalchange and for cognitive, affective and behavioural tendency subscales in thisstudy is 0.84, 0.61, 0.70 and 0.75, respectively.

Team Performance

The first two researchers jointly assessed each team’s task performance on aseven-point scale ranging from 1 (poor performance) to 7 (exceptionalperformance).

Results

Table 1 presents the intercorrelation matrix along with the descriptive statistics ofthe study’s variables. In accordance with our expectations, most dispositionaltraits, with the exception of openness to experience, were correlated with the

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Table 1. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelation matrix of the study’s variables

Mean SD 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

1. CSE 43.92 5.62 0.17 0.41�� 0.67�� 0.42�� 20.26� 0.18 0.29�� 0.31�� 0.32�� 20.20 20.21� 20.13 20.15 20.23� 20.21� 20.162. Openness to

experience54.43 6.73 0.38�� 0.15 0.23� 20.40�� 20.00 0.25� 0.18 0.18 0.25� 0.18 0.08 0.08 0.12 0.16 0.17

3. Resilience 53.23 4.94 0.39�� 0.45�� 20.51�� 0.24� 0.36�� 0.42�� 0.42�� 0.09 0.10 0.06 0.12 0.06 0.10 0.004. Self efficacy 33.73 3.48 0.51�� 20.34�� 0.17 0.31�� 0.26� 0.30�� 0.03 20.07 20.07 20.01 20.15 20.07 20.015. Locus of

control31.39 3.26 20.38�� 0.04 0.32�� 0.34�� 0.29�� 0.07 20.01 0.01 20.01 20.14 20.02 0.04

6. Resistance tochange

44.36 7.68 20.19 20.61�� 20.40�� 20.50�� 20.08 20.10 20.07 20.05 0.05 20.05 0.04

7. Cognitiveattitudes

25.85 4.10 0.48�� 0.47�� 0.77�� 20.03 20.04 20.14 20.03 20.10 20.07 0.01

8. Affectiveattitudes

31.47 4.59 0.57�� 0.84�� 20.06 20.05 20.14 20.06 20.10 20.09 0.00

9. Behavioraltendency

32.27 4.69 0.84�� 0.07 0.05 20.01 0.01 20.04 20.02 20.14

10. Attitudesoverall score

89.59 10.99 20.01 20.01 20.12 20.03 20.10 20.06 20.06

11. Negotiation/conflictresolution

3.59 1.78 0.83�� 0.77�� 0.82�� 0.63�� 0.91�� 0.08

12. Communication 3.85 1.79 0.78�� 0.78�� 0.70�� 0.92�� 0.1713. Teamwork 3.66 1.78 0.84�� 0.58�� 0.89�� 0.0514. Leadership 3.42 1.84 0.68�� 0.92�� 0.0415. Project

management3.31 1.87 0.81�� 0.29��

16. Overall changemanagementskills

17.83 8.06 0.14

17. Overall teamperformance

5.13 0.55

Notes: � Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).�� Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

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attitudes towards change in the expected direction. Openness to experiencedemonstrated statistically significant correlation only with the affective com-ponent of attitudes toward change. Nevertheless, the change-related competenciesand skills did not demonstrate any statistically significant correlations with atti-tudes towards change.

In order to explore the first seven research questions, a series of hierarchicalregression analyses were carried out, controlling for tenure (see Table 2)because of the high range of the participants tenure. The results of these analysesshowed that resilience is the only disposition demonstrating statisticallysignificant relationships with attitudes towards change. Further, not one of the

Table 2. Hierarchical regression analyses of dispositional traits and work-related skills on attitudestowards change and overall team performance

Criterion

Attitudes towards change Overall team performance

Predictors R2 R2 change F change b R2 R2 change F change b

Step 1Tenure 0.02 0.02 0.92 20.13 0.02 0.02 0.81 20.11Step 2CSE 0.06 20.14Openness 20.02 0.21Resilience 0.38 0.36 3.99�� 0.40� 0.10 0.08 0.56 20.13Self efficacy 20.12 0.19Locus of control 0.13 20.19Resistance to change 20.26 20.02Step 1Tenure 0.02 0.02 0.92 20.17 0.02 0.02 0.81 20.14Step 2Negotiation/conflict 20.11 20.04Communication 0.07 0.41Teamwork 0.09 0.07 0.69 20.37 0.20 0.18 1.91 0.01Leadership 0.20 20.52Project management 0.15 0.38Step 1Tenure 0.02 0.02 0.92 20.12 0.02 0.02 0.81 20.11Step 2CSE 0.05 20.07Openness 20.01 0.16Resilience 0.28 20.22Self efficacy 0.38 0.36 3.99�� 20.14 0.09 0.07 0.56 0.23Locus of control 0.20 20.17Resistance to change 20.35 20.13Step 3Negotiation/conflict 20.07 20.14Communication 20.03 0.36Teamwork 0.45 0.07 0.92 20.51 0.27 0.18 1.78 0.01Leadership 0.31 20.47Project management 0.22 0.48�

Notes: ‘bs’ are taken from the last equation. � p , 0.05; �� p , 0.01.

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change-related competencies/skills reached a statistically significant level andsimilar results were obtained when we explored their additive effects above andbeyond the effect of the dispositional traits. As far as the prediction of theoverall team performance is concerned, only project management skills demon-strated a statistically significant positive correlation, maintaining to a statisticallysignificant level, even when the effect of dispositional characteristics was takeninto account. Therefore, only H5, H7, H8 and H9 are partially accepted.

Our final set of results explored the mediating effect of attitudes towards changeon the relationship between dispositions, skills and overall team performance. Thishypothesis was tested following the procedures outlined by Baron and Kenny(1986) and Frazier et al. (2004). They suggested that three conditions must bemet in order to demonstrate mediation. First, the independent variable (disposi-tions and change-related skills and competencies) and the proposed mediator (atti-tudes towards change) must each be significantly related to the dependent variable(overall team performance), when considered separately. An examination of thecorrelation matrix (cf. Table 1) reveals that the independent variables and themediator are not correlated with the dependent variable and, thereafter, the firstrequirement for mediation is not satisfied. As a result, a mediating analysiscould not be carried out and hypothesis H9 is rejected.

Discussion

The objective of this study was to explore which are the appropriate personalitycharacteristics and skills constituting the ‘recipe of success’ for a person to be achange agent in an organization. Since the success of change efforts lies in theskills and dispositional motivation of individuals within an organization, an indi-vidual level approach to correlate dispositions and skills to attitudes and willing-ness to change was employed, combining both self report (questionnaires) andobservation of individual performance to an experimental scenario (change man-agement business game). Several interesting relationships have arisen, represent-ing an important step in understanding change agency as an individualphenomenon by either confirming or rejecting the established hypotheses.

The findings suggest that resilient persons can be proved to be more ready toaccept and apply change. This is supported by the available literature and morespecifically by Judge et al. (1998), who claimed that ‘individuals with highlevels of resilience, as opposed to individuals with low levels of resilience, willbe most likely to benefit from participation in change processes’. The above men-tioned result came as peculiar enough, due to the fact that the rest of dispositionaltraits are also characterized in the literature as important in promoting organiz-ational change. Specifically, Callan et al. (1994) and Lau and Woodman (1995)research proved that locus of control completely predicts readiness to change;Pond et al. (1984), Armenakis et al. (1993), Prochaska et al. (1994), (1997) andCunningham et al. (2002) argued for self efficacy; and, McCrae and Costa(1987) and Costa and McCrae (1992) for openness to experience. A reasoncould be that some other factors in their working environment, such as job com-plexity, working characteristics and previous experience with changes, add signifi-cance to the model but are not examined in the current study. In other words, when

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work context variables are examined in combination with dispositions, somedispositions may be proved sufficient in the regressed model to explain more ofthe attitudes to change criterion variable. When change comes, it is most probablethat they will be ready to change demonstrating a positive attitude towards changes.Yet, in future studies, factors such as those mentioned in McNabb and Sepic (1995),Cunningham et al. (2002) and Hanpachern et al. (1998) should be carefully exam-ined in conjunction with dispositional traits, in order to assess how a person affectedby his/her working environment can be ready toward changes.

It should be also mentioned that the existing literature in examining the effect ofdispositions to change attitudes, examines only a general construct of attitudes tochange and not to the tripartite view of attitudes to change. This study focuses onboth the general construct of attitudes to change and the three aspects of it, firstlyintroduced by Dunham et al. (1989). Thus, it would be easier to examine the will-ingness to change and the dimensions constituting the general receptivity tochange and extract useful conclusions. What seems a very interesting result ofthe analysis is the relation between behavioural tendency attitudes to changeand resilience trait. This indicates that a person should have as a prerequisitethe resilience trait so as to initiate change and be a change agent. Resilienceshould not be considered as the only personality factor that a person shouldhave to be nominated as a change agent but just a sign for change agency.

The majority of research conducted in the field of organizational change con-centrates on the examination of relations between dispositional characteristicsand change reactions. This study went a step further to the existing literatureand tried to insert as a second set of predictors some skills and competenciesrevealing change agent’s role in the organization. It also tried to combine theeffects of both dispositions and skills to find a model satisfying the criterianeeded for change agents.

The analysis concerning the skills as predictors showed that none of the skillssignificantly predict either the attitudes to change or the overall team performancewith the exception of project management skills. These findings have great interestconcerning the fact that scores in each skill for the participants were placed byobservers. Further research should consider this important issue and the interven-ing effect of skills. A great amount of researchers have been occupied with skillsof the change agent (Cripe, 1993; Hartley et al., 1997; Clarke and Meldrum, 1999;Doyle, 2002; Buchanan, 2003; Caldwell, 2003; Gill, 2003; Kendra and Taplin,2004) but, very few provide research connection with dispositional traits and atti-tudes to change. Specifically, only Howell & Higgins (1990) made an attempt toinvestigate the personality characteristics, leadership behaviours and influencetactics of champions of change, based on questionnaires and interviewing inorganizations and not in experimental design and observations as the currentstudy employed. In another study, Scurrah et al. (1971) findings implied that per-ceptions of competence and legitimacy are crucial for the role of change agent.This study employed a similar methodology to the current type of methodologyand found competencies to be fundamental to the role of change agents, contraryto current study’s results. Thus, we can say that the findings of the current studyare not consistent with the conclusions of the provided literature, although skillsin previous research are faced as independently assessed variables and not in

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conjunction with dispositions. In other words, we can not say whether the findingsare inconsistent because of the nature of the methodology used in the currentstudy. As a conclusion, although the research design and the nature of the studydo not allow generalizations, skills are not placed in the list of priorities for achange agent to have but only dispositions are significantly contributing to thisdirection, at least according to the findings of the current study.

This study also explored the effect of both dispositions and skills on actual taskperformance. Task performance represents the performance of participants in ateam activity (business game scenario). This analysis was performed because itshould be ensured that apart from the appropriate behaviours for a changeagent, change agents should also accomplish the task and the project assignedto them, as well. We expected that both dispositional characteristics and skillsrelated to a change agent’s role should establish a positive relationship withtask performance. The performance–dispositional traits relationship was pre-viously established for locus of control by Spector (1982); core self evaluationsby Erez and Judge (2001) and Judge et al. (1998); openness to experience byDeNeve and Cooper (1998) and Barrick and Mount (1991); and, finally, the resi-lience trait by Judge et al. (1998). The findings of the study are not consistent withprevious research, as only project management skills are related to overall teamperformance. This probably may be explained by the fact that if someone wantsto bring a project to an end successfully, she should at least possess the appropriateorganizational and management competencies and technical expertise in the fieldof change.

The results of the current research can have some obvious implications and addvalue to business practices. Assessing the dispositional aspects of individual readi-ness to change and attitudes to change, contributes by creating profiles in order toselect employees for those positions or assignments that inherently entail changesor employees who will become responsible for change implementation, such aschange agents or OD managers. The most obvious way to improve selection isto implement the above results in a selection process. This means that using thisset of criteria in a selection process context, improves the possibility of hiringan appropriate change agent, able to participate in a process of change in an organ-ization. We also have to mention that, apart from personality traits, competenciesand skills seem to have great contribution to business related affairs. Skills, such asproject management, for instance, presented significant and positive relationshipwith overall team performance. Although skills were not significantly related toattitudes to change, they seemed to be prerequisites in order that the task beachieved successfully. This imposes a serious implication for those who aresearching to select change agents. Although the basic dispositional traits may beused as an initial or a further criterion in order for a change agent to be selected,skills could be used as meta-criterion in order to select people who are not onlygathering fundamental characteristics but are supposed to accomplish results tofuture change projects.

It is worth mentioning that although the study brought some encouraging resultsand methodological strengths (that is, experimental design in conjunction withself-report questionnaires and observers’ ratings), it is still subject to several limit-ations. The limitations are referring to both the design of the study’s content and

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the methodological issues rising. The first limitation worth mentioning is that onlya subset of the possible dispositional traits that may be characteristic of changeagents were included. As a subset, it was chosen on the basis of the mostpopular and the most referred by the academic literature traits concerningchange attitudes and readiness to change. Thus, it is impossible to be sure thatonly this subset of traits is enough to test the character and behaviour of potentialchange agents and further research should expand the dispositions studied to deter-mine whether they add incremental variance beyond those used in the currentstudy.

Another possible limitation of the experimental activity design was that inde-pendent observers were chosen to score the change management skills of the par-ticipants. Although this type of data collection seems to be an ideal situation forthis type of studies (Judge et al., 1998; Wanberg and Banas, 2000; Yousef,2000), it may present some sort of biases, especially in our case where each obser-ver assessed the skills of his/her assigned group independently of the other obser-vers. This strategy, although very effective for avoiding problems with commonmethod variance, implied subjective biases regarding the way observers under-stood the meaning of the elements to be scored. For example, although the defi-nition of teamwork was already provided to the observers, they might have usedpersonal considerations of this term. Finally, the sample size constitutes byitself a limitation, since it is relatively small for comparisons but it was keptsmall due to time limitations. As a result, the majority of the analyses performedshowed no significance and even the ones that did, can not be trusted in advance.Future research should ensure that the sample is adequately large so as to be repre-sentative and allow better comparisons.

Concluding, the current study attempted to explore the individual dispositionsand skills required for effective change management, employing a businessgame scenario. The results were generally unsupportive for the significance of dis-positional traits and work-related skills and competencies, for the selection ofchange agents, suggesting that we turn our focus of attention to other character-istics that affect change agents’ successful performance.

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