Managing change: role of leadership and diversity management
Journal of Organizational Change Management
ISSN: 0953-4814
Article publication date: 24 July 2020
Issue publication date: 7 December 2020
Abstract
Purpose
The lived paid work experiences of two women (a European Canadian-born and a South Asian immigrant) demonstrate how low-quality leader–member exchanges and poor diversity management negatively influence employees' health, job satisfaction and retention during a period of major organizational change.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper combined a narrative case study with auto ethnography to examine the lived paid work experiences of the two female authors and identify common patterns of meaning within the data.
Findings
The analysis of personalized accounts demonstrate the damaging results of a failed change management initiative when leaders did not follow an organizational change model and used an authoritarian leadership style. Further, the low-quality leader–member exchanges and poor diversity management reduced authors' feelings of inclusion and negatively impacted their emotional and physical health, job satisfaction, and retention.
Research limitations/implications
New knowledge gained about leader–member exchange and diversity management has implications not only for leaders, but also human service managers. The data represents the authors' two perspectives, constraining generalizability. Larger samples of employees' narratives from diverse cultural/work backgrounds would be valuable to inform organizational change.
Practical implications
The paper provides practical reasons for leadership training and skill development in change management models.
Social implications
Given global demographic diversity, the findings are relevant to organizations, highlighting the importance of creating a climate of inclusion for workers' job satisfaction and retention and organizational success.
Originality/value
While the sample size (n = 2) is very small, using a combination of personal experience methods offered insights into the complexity of leader–member exchange and diversity management from workers' perspectives, and went beyond successful cases, adding value to organizational change research.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Ashley Elsie-McKendrick, former MSW student at King’s University College, for her assistance with the initial literature review, and the reviewers for their helpful feedback.Funding: The authors received a King’s University College internal research grant to assist with the literature review.
Citation
Vito, R. and Sethi, B. (2020), "Managing change: role of leadership and diversity management", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 33 No. 7, pp. 1471-1483. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-04-2019-0116
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited