Postscript to change: survivors' retrospective views of organizational changes

Abstract

Purpose

To analyze lower level employees' retrospective views of their experience with organizational changes introduced by management; to provide a typology of change responses based on employees' interpretations.

Design/methodology/approach

Canadian bank employees' accounts of their experience with change were obtained in interviews and analyzed using established guidelines for qualitative data analysis. A typology of change responses (acceptance, resigned compliance, avoidance/opposition, and ambivalence) was derived from the data. Links are made to the literature on readiness for, compliance with and resistance to, change, and to the literatures on framing and on identity as they inform responses to change.

Findings

Among others, the findings indicate: that changes that are compatible with employees' role identity or that are viewed as enhancing organizational identity tend to be easily embraced; the extensive prevalence of the “resigned compliance” response; that lack of participation in change decisions may be a common expectation among employees of large bureaucratic organizations that seek uniformity across widely dispersed geographic units; and opposition to change may be functional from an organizational standpoint.

Research limitations/implications

Several research implications are outlined including the need for theories to consider that change has been ubiquitous and that its pervasiveness can place its legitimacy beyond questioning. Research limitation includes the fact that the study focused on change survivors and did not have access to employees who had willingly left, or were asked to leave the organization as changes were being implemented.

Practical implications

The study provides an understanding of the dynamics that underlie different responses to change. Understanding such dynamics is essential for the performance of the change agent role.

Originality/value

Unlike much of the extant literature that tends to focus on the managerial view of change and on managerial framing, this study contributes the lower level employee perspective on, and framing of, change. In contrast with other studies of change that attend to a specific change situation, this article focuses on experiences with multiple changes and on the general view of change held by participants. The study also addresses a gap in the literature, as empirical studies have failed to tie responses to change to identity dynamics.

Citation

Chreim, S. (2006), "Postscript to change: survivors' retrospective views of organizational changes", Personnel Review, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 315-335. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480610656711