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Is job crafting relevant for adaptive performance in the absence of managers’ effective influence tactics and the presence of ineffective tactics? Based on job demands-resources and conservation of resources theories, we examined whether employee daily job crafting behaviors (i.e., resources seeking, challenges seeking, demands reducing) interact with overall managers’ influence tactics during times of organizational change in explaining change outcomes. Twenty-nine hotel employees completed a questionnaire to evaluate their managers’ influence tactics, and then a diary for five consecutive workdays to assess daily job crafting behaviors and daily adaptive performance during a large-scale change. Multilevel analyses revealed that daily seeking resources related positively to adaptive performance particularly when specific managers’ influence tactics were low. These findings imply that employees compensate for the absence of managers’ influence tactics by seeking resources in order to facilitate their own adaptation to organizational changes.

Despite what we know about how organizations and their members respond to change, organizations continue to spend an inordinate amount of time confronting, mitigating, and dealing with failure during change. This special issue focuses on what happens when organizational change fails. Its goal is to enhance knowledge and advance theory regarding the processes and mechanisms that underlie the emergence of organizational change failure. In this editorial, we first take stock of the established perspectives on failure, and introduce an integrative approach to offer a more holistic account of the process of change failure. The framework constitutes a multilevel, interlocking strategy for future scholarship. It highlights how the evolving experience defines, creates, and enacts failure during change across three structures: the surface (i.e., context), intermediate (i.e., building block dimensions), and deep (i.e., enduring aspects) structures of failure. With this frame as its basis, the articles in the special issue prompt discussion of what exactly failure means for organizations and their members dealing with different accounts of change failure.

Daily exchanges between employees and their organisation pertain mainly to socio-emotional resources. We investigate how daily employee-organizational resource exchanges relate to daily strain and ...

The current study in a blue-collar context investigates whether a job crafting intervention may facilitate employee adaptation to organizational change, while decreasing exhaustion and increasing positive attitudes towards change and safety behaviour. It was hypothesized that the intervention would increase job crafting behaviours (i.e., seeking resources, seeking challenges, and optimizing demands) resulting in decreased employee exhaustion, and improved change attitudes and employee safety behaviour (i.e., adherence to organization’s standard operating procedures). The quasi-experimental study revealed that, after the intervention (consisting of a workshop, four weeks of job crafting implementation, and an evaluative session), employees reported an increase in two of the three trained job crafting strategies (i.e., seeking challenges, optimizing demands). Moreover, those who participated in the intervention reported lower levels of exhaustion, improved cognitive and behavioural attitudes towards change, and increased safety behaviour. The intervention was found to improve the affective, cognitive, and behavioural components of a change attitude due to increases in seeking challenges. Results were similar after controlling for quality information and leadership behaviour during the change. It is concluded that a job crafting intervention and resulting job crafting behaviour can be an effective way to achieve successful adaptation to organizational change.

This work focuses on how mixed feelings serve adaptive functions in organizational change. Failing to recognize that attitudes to change may involve both positive and negative evaluations of the change at the same time may affect change implementation. This article explored the relationship between ambivalence to change and adaptive performance in the context of an acquisition using a diary study. We also examined work engagement and job crafting as specific conditions under which ambivalence can lead to adaptive or nonadaptive courses of action. Our results showed that the relationship between ambivalence to change and adaptive performance is positive but not robust. We uncovered two conditions that increase ambivalent employees’ chances to adapt to organizational change: (1) either employees display high work engagement or (2) they display high reducing demands and low seeking resources. Analyses of change recipients’ reactions beyond dichotomous ones and their mechanisms will better inform practitioners and researchers.

In this longitudinal field study, we examine reciprocal relationships between within-person changes in work engagement and cognitive appraisals of change (threat and challenge) across an organizational merger. Examination of these cyclical relationships provides a more accurate understanding of the complexity of employees' experience of change and a new test of spiraling work engagement and cognitive appraisals. Latent change score modeling is used to analyze 3 waves of longitudinal survey data (N = 623). Our findings showed that engagement mitigated threat appraisals and enhanced challenge appraisals through pre- and postmerger phases. A reciprocal relationship between threat appraisal and engagement was also observed, such that threat fueled decreases in engagement throughout the merger. Challenge appraisal was associated with enhanced work engagement during the first merger phase. This examination advocates managers of change to foster employees' work engagement already prior to change endeavors, along with mitigating threat appraisals throughout organizational change events. Fostering positive challenge appraisals appears to be particularly important for employees' work engagement during times of major changes. Findings suggest that upward spiral of work engagement, as postulated on the basis of the broaden-and-build theory, may be more likely to occur through engagement mitigating negative cognitions (threat) than promoting positive cognitions (challenge). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

During times of crises, employees turn to their managers for information and guidance. Human resource (HR) research highlights the pivotal role of HR strength, which refers to distinctive, consiste...

Organizational change is seen as an integral part of organizational life and as a critical driver of organizational success (Beer & Nohria, 2000). Recent studies reveal that there is a high rate of failure of organizational change (Beer & Nohria, 2000) which in some cases reaches the pessimistic 80% to 90% (Burnes, 2011; Cartwright & Schoenberg, 2006). The potential impact of change on both organizations and individuals is significant. On the positive side, change can challenge the status quo and provide opportunities for growth, learning and development; but, on the negative side, it can create major problems in organizational life with impact on how people think, feel and behave (Cartwright & Cooper, 1993; Kotter, 2007).

This chapter presents the four phases of the development of the change recipients’ reactions scale (CRRE). The four phases are development of the items and the extraction of the factor solution; verification of the obtained factor solution; examination of the reliability of the scale; and justification of the concurrent, convergent, divergent and incremental validity of the scale. The chapter presents the CRRE scale in various change contexts to address the specificity issue and examines the stability of its psychometric properties across different change programs. Six different samples were used during the various developmental stages of the CRRE scale. All participants were asked to complete either the initial (first sample) or the final (all other samples) version of the CRRE scale. One of the main advantages of the CRRE scale over existing psychometric instruments for organizational change is that the CRRE measures reactions toward a specific organizational change.

Intended to bridge the gap between the latest methodological developments and cross-cultural research, this interdisciplinary resource presents the latest strategies for analyzing cross-cultural data. Techniques are demonstrated through the use of applications that employ cross national data sets such as the latest European Social Survey. With an emphasis on the generalized latent variable approach, internationally–prominent researchers from a variety of fields explain how the methods work, how to apply them, and how they relate to other methods presented in the book. Syntax and graphical and verbal explanations of the techniques are included. [from publisher's website]

Change recipients' ambivalence to organizational change suggests that rather than equating positive evaluation with desirable outcomes and negative evaluation with undesirable outcomes, researchers...

One area of emerging research focuses on readiness to change, which has a strong impact on many decisions in a change process such as planning, implementation, communication and institutionalization. However, the term 'readiness' still creates confusion as it is presented in a simplistic way. This conceptual article aims at increasing our understating of readiness impact on change success by examining various levels of this concept, namely, micro-individual readiness, meso-group readiness and macro-organizational readiness, and their dynamics. This article ends with a discussion of how to create multilevel readiness to change for both planning and implementing organizational change.

We examine antecedents and outcomes of psychological contract violation in parallel with perceptions of psychological contract fulfilment in the Greek banking sector. We demonstrated that violation mediated the relation between breach and attitudinal outcomes. Trust in the employer partially mediated the relationship of breach and violation with employee attitudes. Finally, careerism moderated the relationship of perceived breach and organizational commitment. Our results are discussed in light of the major organizational changes occurring in the financial sector, and the consequences of these changes on employees’ attitudes and psychological contract breach and violation, along with research and practical implications.

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the role of organizational silence and trust on employees' attitudes in a post‐merger stage.Design/methodology/approachThe results of two independent studies are presented; participants completed measures of organizational trust, organizational silence and merger attitudes (organizational commitment and employee satisfaction) a few months following the announcement of the merger. Hierarchical regression analyzes were used to explore the hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that organizational trust is negatively related to organizational silence and positively to merger attitudes. Further, the significant role of organizational silence in a post‐merger state was also identified through the negative relationships with merger attitudes, but mainly through the significant mediating effect of silence between organizational trust and merger attitudes.Research limitations/implicationsThe study used self‐report measures, but necessary actions were taken in order to reduce the effect of common method variance. Therefore, it should be cross‐validated with different research designs (e.g. longitudinal research) in other countries.Practical implicationsThe findings provide further support on the significance of organizational silence in work settings, especially at major organizational turnarounds.Originality/valueThe most significant contribution of the study is that it explores for the first time the role of organizational silence in a post‐merger stage and its relationship to organizational trust.

This study reviews quantitative empirical studies of change recipients’ reactions to organizational change. The authors reviewed studies published between 1948 and 2007, out of which 79 met the criteria of being quantitative studies of change recipients’ reactions to an organizational change. Through an inductive review, the authors unravel a model of (a) explicit reactions to change, in which these reactions are conceptualized as tridimensional attitudes; (b) reaction antecedents that comprise prechange antecedents (viz., change recipient characteristics and internal context) and change antecedents (viz., change process, perceived benefit/harm, and change content); and (c) change consequences, including work-related and personal consequences. On the basis of their review the authors conclude by proposing directions for future research and practical managerial implications.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the five‐factor model of personality (FFM) and employees' voice behavior in Greece.Design/methodology/approachEmployees' personality characteristics were assessed along with their voice behavior towards their supervisor and the top management of their company. Data were collected from a cross‐sectional sample of 334 professionals.FindingsThe findings demonstrate the relationship between personality and voice behavior towards the immediate supervisor, but not towards the top management of the company, and show that conscientiousness and emotional stability are the strongest predictors of employees' voice behavior.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of the study should be interpreted with caution, since they are based on self‐report measures. However, the findings suggest that two personality dimensions (emotional stability and conscientiousness) are significantly related with employees' voice behavior towards their supervisor.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest important practical implications for HR practices, such as employee communication and personnel selection, since at least two personality dimensions are related with employees' voice behavior. The study also emphasizes the significance of first line supervisors' communication style in enhancing employees' voice behavior.Originality/valueThis is the first study exploring the relationship between the FFM and employees' voice behavior carried out in a EU‐country, such as Greece.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore and identify relationships between psychological contract inducements and the five‐factor model of personality (FFM) in Greece.Design/methodology/approachA survey questionnaire that incorporated measures of intrinsic and extrinsic psychological contract inducements and a Greek personality measure of the FFM was completed by 299 respondents. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to explore the hypotheses.FindingsThe paper finds that extroversion and conscientiousness are associated with intrinsic but not extrinsic psychological contract inducements and that neuroticism is associated with extrinsic but not intrinsic inducements. The hypothesis pertaining to openness to experience was rejected, because it was not associated with intrinsic psychological contract inducements, as expected.Research limitations/implicationsThe study design was cross‐sectional and used only self‐report measures. Therefore, it should be cross‐validated with different research designs (e.g. longitudinal research) and in other countries.Practical implicationsThe findings provide further support on the significance of personality measures for the selection, development and motivation of employees.Originality/valueThe most significant contribution of the study is that it explores the relationship between personality and psychological contract inducements rather than psychological contract types. Another contributing factor is that the study is carried out in Greece.

In the new organizational environment, when business and even political leaders declare their dedication to change, it is a very important need for organizations to recruit and select 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 fulfill the requirements of this position. The current study tries to shed light on this issue by examining if dispositional characteristics and competencies are related to attitudes to change, adopting an experimental business game scenario simulating a real business change context. Participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing their dispositional traits whereas their performance and change management skills were assessed by independent observers. Results displayed that resilient employees consider themselves as more ready to accept and apply change, as opposed to change-related skills which seemed to predict only task p...

PurposeCompetitive advantage depends largely on the ability to activate and use organisational resources. As a result, the focus in the strategic management, organisational behaviour and human resource management literature has turned to the internal capabilities of organisations including a particular focus on employees' competencies. This paper seeks to analyse and discuss a forward‐looking, dynamic and proactive approach to competency modelling explicitly aligned with strategic business needs and oriented to long‐term future success.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a longitudinal research project sponsored by a leading Greek bank, currently undergoing fundamental corporate restructuring. This paper describes how the competency model was developed and how it facilitated strategy implementation and change by supporting communication, employee understanding of business goals, and the incorporation of new behaviours, roles and competencies in operations.FindingsA forward‐looking and proactive approach to competency modelling is presented and discussed in the context of a large‐scale organisational change. The organisational core competencies required for a business to compete successfully in the banking sector are defined and discussed. The right mix of skills and behaviours that the individuals would need to possess in order to produce and support those core competencies is also analysed and discussed.Originality/valueTraditional approach to competency management, which is analogous to job analysis, focuses on competencies of successful individuals, rather than on competencies that are needed to support an organisation to meet its short‐ or long‐term objectives. It is important to realise that there is a need to shift toward a forward‐looking and proactive approach to competency modelling and present a competency methodology that supports this need.

Purpose – This paper attempts to investigate the transformation in the role of the HR function in Greek firms, as a result of the use of internet and technology.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on both quantitative and qualitative methodology. A survey and focus groups took place in order to meet research objectives.Findings – This paper examines and discusses the development of e‐HR use in Greece and the reasons for adoption of e‐HR practices focusing on strategy, process and HRM issues. Findings show that e‐HR facilitates the transformation of HRM role into a more strategic one. Driving forces and critical success factors of e‐HR adoption and implementation are identified and discussed.Research limitations/implications – Limits its usefulness to countries that experience a stage of HRM professionalisation and technological development similar to that of Greece.Practical implications – Identifies critical success factors in e‐HR adoption as well as main problems associated with it.Origina...

PurposeThis research sets out to examine how the process for developing a training needs analysis tool could influence organisational change.Design/methodology/approachThe organisation that is the subject of this research is a large, complex health system which is in transition from a traditional bureaucratic, hierarchy with a command and control management style to a more participative, people centred approach. A processual, organisation development, action research‐based approach to the development of a training needs analysis process was taken in the study so that the changes desired in the organisation could be modelled in the first instance and secondly, in order to learn and understand more about what works and does not in order to continuously develop and progress the change agenda. In order to do this a parallel structure was established through which to progress the process which was tracked in an action research process. In addition, a series of interviews were conducted with top and senior management in order to ascertain their views about the process, its necessity, roles in relation to it, its potential benefits and how to introduce the process across the organisation.FindingsA number of key points emerged from the research: first, the culture and change issues arising during the development of the learning and development needs analysis process were very significant. Second, the development and piloting of the needs analysis process needed to be approached as a change management process. Third, linking the needs analysis process with existing organisational processes was a key factor in the success of the process and created a strategic dimension. Finally, in a large, complex organisation a balance must be struck between standardisation and customisation of the needs analysis process to allow for the different structures, subcultures and levels of readiness in the organisation.Originality/valueThis research highlighted the significant impact the dynamics of hierarchy and the legacy of a bureaucratic, autocratic system has on the way a system operates and how people react to change and participation.

PurposeAlthough the phenomenon of organisational silence is widely seen in organisations, there is little empirical evidence regarding its nature and main components. This paper aims at investigating the dimensions of silence climate as they are perceived by individuals and exploring the effects of these dimensions on job attitudes.Design/methodology/approachIn a sample of 677 employees, three dimensions of silence climate are constructed and measured in order to examine their effects on employee silence behaviour, organisational commitment and job satisfaction.FindingsResults indicate that supervisors’ attitudes to silence, top management attitudes to silence and communication opportunities are associated and predict employees’ silence behaviour. These three dimensions are also associated with organisational commitment and job satisfaction.Originality/valueAlthough the phenomenon of organisational silence is expected in organisations, there is little empirical evidence in the literature aimed at defining it, analysing it and coping with it. Silence climate has an impact on organizations’ ability to detect errors and learn and, therefore, organizational effectiveness is negatively affected. This exploratory study aims to measure organisational silence as a continuum between silence and voice explain silence behaviour through organisational climate dimensions. Based on the findings of this study, there are some important implications that are discussed.

PurposeOccupational stress and organizational change are now widely accepted as two major issues in organizational life. The current study explores the linkage between employees’ attitudes towards organizational change and two of the most significant constructs in organizational behaviour; occupational stress and organizational commitment.Design/methodology/approachA total of 292 participants completed ASSET, a new “Organizational Screening Tool”, which, among other things, measures workplace stress and organizational commitment and a measure assessing attitudes towards organizational change.FindingsThe results were in the expected direction showing negative correlations between occupational stressors and attitudes to change, indicating that highly stressed individuals demonstrate decreased commitment and increased reluctance to accept organizational change interventions. The most significant impact on attitudes to change was coming from bad work relationships emphasizing the importance of that occupational stressor on employees’ attitudes towards change. The results did not support the role of organizational commitment as a moderator in the relationship between occupational stress and attitudes to change.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation of the research design could be that all measures originated from the same source resulting in possible contamination from common method variance. Further, the cross‐sectional research design adopted in the present study, as opposed to a longitudinal or experimental methodology, does not allow affirmative causal explanations.Originality/valueThe present study showed that good and effective work relationships are very important in organizational change. Handling conflicts, building supportive work relationships and communicating effectively all contribute to the formulation of positive attitudes to change and, therefore, to the success of a change programme. In addition, organizations need to examine the extra workload which organizational change may create. Increase in workload is not only easily attributable to the change but it also makes change unattractive and problematic leading to non‐supportive attitudes.

The shift towards virtual organisation is related with a fundamental change in organising and managing daily operations. The success of collaborative work therefore relies not merely on the introduction of different technologies, but also on critically analysing the “human” aspects of organisation. Virtual teams bring people together across disciplines, departments, functions, and geographical locations. This paper draws on the literature with respect to organisational change, and particularly results from human and organisational research carried out in the OSMOS (IST‐1999‐10491) project. Within the context of the OSMOS project, interviews with senior managers of each of the participating industrial organisations were conducted. From the analysis of these interviews four major organisational issues emerged, which virtual teams or e‐businesses need to address before moving forward. These are: information sharing, organisational culture and teamworking, acceptance of change and training. The paper investigates the above issues and explores potential solutions in order to support virtual organisations and e‐businesses in dealing with continuous change. From this investigation the paper proposes critical success factors that the authors believe to be necessary in dealing with such change.

Although the role of organisational characteristics in the change process has been extensively analysed and discussed in the literature, individual characteristics, which are equally crucial for the success of change, have been neglected. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to add a different way of looking and working with organisational change by focusing on individuals’ emotions and personality traits. This paper explores how emotional intelligence and the “big five” dimensions of personality can facilitate organisational change at an individual level by exploring the relationship between these attributes and attitudes toward organisational change. The sample consisted of 137 professionals who completed self‐report inventories assessing emotional intelligence, personality traits and attitudes towards organisational change. The results confirmed that there is a relationship between personality traits and employees’ attitudes toward change. Similarly, the contribution of emotional intelligence to the attitudes to change was found to be significant, indicating the added value of using an emotional intelligence measure above and beyond the effect of personality. The practical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the phases of a change project.

In this diary study, we examined whether employee job crafting behaviours (i.e., resource seeking, challenge seeking, demand reducing) act as a substitute for lack of managers¢ influence tactics du...

Explores the role of evaluation in a business process re‐engineering initiative and its relationship with organisational learning and innovation. The paper presents the evaluation of the implementation of a business process re‐engineering project in three case studies. The implementation of the BPR project was based on an eight‐stage BPR methodology. The participating companies were asked to evaluate the implementation, describe the decisions made in order to adapt to the change process and analyse the potential benefits that they expect in terms of business performance improvement, organisational effectiveness and user acceptability. Discusses the evaluation results of the implementation of business process re‐engineering model in three case studies in order to identify links with organisational learning and innovation.

The paper focuses on the contribution which adequate organisational learning and innovation can make to the enhancement, development and improvement of professional expertise in the construction domain. The paper, based on research undertaken within the European (fourth framework)‐funded CONDOR project, explores the role of evaluation in a business process re‐engineering initiative and its relationship with organisational learning and innovation. The paper presents the evaluation of the implementation of a business process re‐engineering project in three case studies in the construction industry. The implementation of the BPR project was based on an eight‐stage BPR methodology. The participating companies were asked to evaluate the implementation, describe the decisions made in order to adapt to the change process and analyse the potential benefits that they expect in terms of business performance improvement, organisational effectiveness and user acceptability. Finally, this paper discusses the evaluation results of the implementation of a business process re‐engineering model in three case studies in order to identify links with organisational learning and innovation.

The paper is based on research carried out within the Condor project funded under the European ESPRIT programme. Condor is a partnership between English, French and Swedish construction companies with aims and objectives of defining the working practices, processes, techniques, tools and technical infrastructure to allow the construction industry to progress from its current position towards a large scale, computer integrated industry. The selection, design and implementation of a new information technology system involves inevitably many technical issues but it must also meet user and organisational requirements. A generic model for business process re‐engineering was produced based on research results in order to facilitate Condor’s implementation to participating companies.

Research suggesting a similar but different relationship between Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) and Counterproductive Work Behaviour (CWB) is dominated by North American samples. Little evidence exists on whether these findings are replicated in other countries. To assess if a similar pattern emerged, we used the Social Axioms model (Bond et al., 2004) as a cultural framework and surveyed employees in the UK (105), The Netherlands (203), Turkey (185), and Greece (70) on the relationship between OCB and CWB, and the relationship between these behaviours and personality, justice, and commitment. Analysis supported a multidimensional structure to OCB and CWB and indicated a nonbipolar relationship between these behaviours. Culturally, somewhat different to OCB research in general, we find support for a convergence perspective across countries. Conceptually, linguistically and structurally the scale assessing OCB/CWB was shown to be equivalent across countries and a nonbipolar pattern of relationships was consistent across countries. Overall, findings imply a universal nature to the relationship between OCB and CWB across societal cultural groups.

The concept of dispositional resistance to change has been introduced in a series of exploratory and confirmatory analyses through which the validity of the Resistance to Change (RTC) Scale has been established (S. Oreg, 2003). However, the vast majority of participants with whom the scale, was validated were from the United States. The purpose of the present work was to examine the meaningfulness of the construct and the validity of the scale across nations. Measurement equivalence analyses of data from 17 countries, representing 13 languages and 4 continents, confirmed the cross-national validity of the scale. Equivalent patterns of relationships between personal values and RTC across samples extend the nomological net of the construct and provide further evidence that dispositional resistance to change holds equivalent meanings across nations.

This study focuses on perceived daily resource exchanges between employees and their organization. We examine how within-person variations in the pattern of this exchange explain daily well-being (...

The existing literature has frequently overlooked the possibility that change recipients may distinguish between general and specific attitudes to change. The present research aims to close this ga...

One very common finding in the organizational change literature is that the members of an organization are the key source of energy for organizational change processes and for this reason their com...