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Naive dialecticism and Chinese employees' commitment to change

Jingqiu Chen (Organization Management Department, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China)
Lei Wang (Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China)
Minyan Huang (Organization Management Department, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China)
, and
Julie Spencer‐Rodgers (Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA)

Journal of Managerial Psychology

ISSN: 0268-3946

Article publication date: 20 January 2012

1256

Abstract

Purpose

This research aims to examine the relationships among employee commitment to change, naïve dialecticism, and performance change in the context of change in Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs).

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 287 employee‐supervisor matched data were collected by questionnaire from three Chinese SOEs implementing a major change on sector restructuring.

Findings

Results showed that affective commitment to change was related to performance change. Change thinking was positively related to all three components of commitment to change, whereas contradictory thinking was negatively related to affective commitment to change. Affective commitment to change fully mediated the association between contradictory thinking and performance change.

Originality/value

This research integrates “outside in” and “inside out” approaches to contextualize commitment to change studies in China. An “outside in” approach was followed to investigate the relationship between commitment to change and performance change, whereas an “inside out” approach was followed to add valuable insights to the commitment to change model from the point of view of Chinese naïve dialecticism.

Keywords

Citation

Chen, J., Wang, L., Huang, M. and Spencer‐Rodgers, J. (2012), "Naive dialecticism and Chinese employees' commitment to change", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 48-70. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683941211193857

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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