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Occupational 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.

A 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.

The 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.

A 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.

The 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 purpose of this paper is to investigate how perceived leadership effectiveness is related to staff members’ attitudes towards development of elderly care organizations in private and public institutions.

A cross-sectional quantitative survey was conducted using self-report questionnaire that contained Modified Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire (Heck et al., 2000), the scale of attitude towards change from Preziosi’s Organizational Diagnosis Model (1980) and organizational development intentions measure developed for the study. The respondents were 510 Lithuanian social workers and other staff members employed in different public and private elderly care organizations.

The results revealed that perceived higher leadership effectiveness was associated with more positive employees’ judgements on organization’s readiness to change both in private and public sector elderly care organizations. But perceived leadership effectiveness was not associated with staff members’ intentions to change. Also it was found that different models for private and public sector that explained the importance of particular leadership behaviours in the prediction of employees’ judgements on organizational change and intentions to change were valid.

This study may add to further broaden knowledge on attitudes of staff members towards development of elderly care organization and the role of leadership effectiveness taking into account the type of organization.

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.

This study aims to contribute to a better understanding of resistance to change (RTC) by examining the role played by organisational commitment (OC) as a potential predictor and moderator in the analysis of RTC.

First, alternative models of OC were developed, first as a co‐predictor of RTC, and then as a moderator of the relationship between key established antecedents of RTC and resistance itself. The main established antecedents of RTC examined included employees' perceptions of the benefits of change (PBC), their involvement in the change process (IIC), and their overall attitudes towards the change (ATC). The alternative OC models were tested using data from a sample of over 300 middle managers from an Italian public sector service provider company undergoing a radical process of change.

Results showed that OC, along with PBC and IIC, had a significant negative direct and indirect effect on RTC. The indirect effect was mediated by employee attitudes to the change. Contrary to expectations, however, commitment did not moderate any of the antecedents‐RTC relationships.

Although based on self‐report cross‐sectional data, this paper suggests that, while OC has a main significant effect on RTC, it does not have a moderator effect in relation to RTC.

The results suggest that OC is not a substitute for the effective management of change, but rather that management would be well advised to give due consideration to both factors when planning and implementing change.

The implications outlined above apply to a wide range of change initiatives, including the implementation of major social and economic programmes.

This paper adds to existing knowledge in the area of RTC, showing that employee attitudes towards the change is a key mediating mechanism through which OC may help to reduce resistance.

The aim of this study is to explore dynamic managerial capabilities (DMCs) and their effect on public organisational performance. While the previous research has focused on how leadership style impacts on organisational performance, the authors have investigated how the dynamic managerial capabilities of middle managers and their organisational capacity for change as well as their attitude towards the change are linked to organisational performance.

The dataset was gathered during the field research carried out in a large public Indonesian government institution. In total, 313 managers and their direct followers participated in this study. The authors have employed structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses.

The results of this study demonstrate the role of the dynamic capabilities of the middle managers associated with organisational performance. The results show that dynamic managerial capabilities and organisational performance are mediated by the organisational capacity for change.

Middle managers should equip and develop their capabilities in order to embrace change in the organisation through the communication between the different staff levels, uniting the vision and mission with the organisational members. Further, the organisation should empower the role of the middle managers by increasing their authority and participation in the policy-making that is part of the change process. In addition, the workplace could implement interventions to optimise the dynamic managerial capabilities held by the middle manager and employees through assessments and mentoring. Finally, particular training programmes could be implemented to boost the employees' skills and flexibility, thereby keeping them agile in the context of the changes in the work environment.

The role of the dynamic managerial capabilities of the middle manager is a prominent factor when facilitating a high level of organisational performance in a public organisation. However, the role of dynamic managerial capabilities does not have a direct effect on organisational performance if the organisation does not have the capacity to change, particularly in the Indonesian context.

This study proposes to understand the conditions favorable for readiness for organizational change. The analysis helps in proposing managerial interventions that would be useful for change management in an organization.

The study employs an empirical methodology to investigate the effect of individual and organizational factors on readiness for organizational change. The study has used descriptive research design. Bivariate linear regression is used to test the hypotheses, and multiple regression is used to identify the pertinent factor that affect individual's readiness for organizational change. Thereby, a causal relationship model is proposed, using few pertinent factors which are tested using the structured equation modeling (SEM) technique.

First, each of the factors independently has a significant effect on readiness for organizational change. Second, the prior experience of change, commitment towards organization and participation in decision-making are the pertinent factors that affect readiness for organizational change. Lastly, commitment towards organization partially mediates the relation between participation in decision-making and readiness for organizational change.

The analysis helps in proposing managerial interventions that would be useful for change management in an organization. It investigates how individual and organizational characteristics influence employees' readiness for organizational change, causing them to adopt the change process.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies that investigates the pertinent individual factors and the organizational factors that affect readiness for organizational change in the context of an emerging economy, India.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a research model on Taiwan's National Police Administration setting, extending the theory of planned behavior, reasoned action, and expectancy‐valence, and developing the more neglected aspects of the goal‐setting theory.

Participants were Taiwan's National Police Administration employing 500 full‐time employees. Structural Equation Modeling was used to explore the relationship among regulatory focus, uncertainty towards organizational change, and organizational commitment.

The results were that promotion focus or prevention focus had a significantly positive influence on uncertainty towards organizational change, and only promotion focus had a significantly positive influence on organizational commitment. In addition, uncertainty towards organizational change had a significantly negative influence on organizational commitment. The results supported the significant role of uncertainty towards organizational change as a mediator in the relationship between promotion focus (or prevention focus) and organizational commitment.

The results of the research help fill important research gaps (lack of empirical research and generalization) in the regulatory focus theory literature, clarifying the special role of regulatory focus in a traditional police organization's change processing, and its implications for police officers utilizing a non‐US setting to allow a cross‐cultural examination of regulatory focus theory.

This study aims to investigate the influence of social intelligence and collective efficacy on the fearlessness of change. Furthermore, this study investigates the mediation effect of collective efficacy and moderating role of management commitment to change in the relationship between social intelligence and fearlessness of change.

The analysis is based on data collected from 296 members of information technology and Banking Financial Services Industry organisations using a survey questionnaire. Hypotheses have been tested using structural equation modelling.

The findings show that social intelligence and collective efficacy positively influence fearlessness of change. Social intelligence also impacts collective efficacy positively. Further, collective efficacy acts as a mediator and management commitment to change acts as a moderator in the relationship between social intelligence and fearlessness of change.

This study highlights the relevance of social intelligence in fostering a fearless attitude towards change for easy transition from the current organisational state to a new or desired state.

Organisational leaders must strive to develop a climate of fearlessness in organisations undergoing change so that the employees acquire this attitude of fearlessness and face the hurdles that come with change with a positive mind set.

This study is amongst the few such studies that examined the relationship amongst variables of this study.

This paper aims to examine the relationships and predictive power of organisational justice factors such as distributive and procedural justice along with demographic factors towards the employee readiness for organisational change in a developing country.

The paper uses random sampling of large public sector organisations of a developing country. This is a cross‐sectional study where the researcher has used a self‐administered survey questionnaire for data collection. The researcher used analytical techniques such as descriptive statistics, factor loading and Pearson's correlations. Finally, hypotheses were tested using the multiple regression analysis on to Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15.0 for Windows.

It is concluded that employees of public sector organisations in a developing country can develop their positive attitudes and behaviours for organisational change on the basis of distributive and procedural justice. Furthermore, the findings of the paper hold that demographic variables such as gender, age and marital status have no positive and significant relationships with employee readiness.

This study contributes to the literature on change management, human resources management, organisational behaviours and organisational development. This study may support the management and practitioners of change management in assessing and evaluating organisational change programmes, particularly in the developing country.

The originality of the paper lies in the use of multivariate statistics on the organisational justice variables in order to examine the attitudes and behaviours of the employees of a public sector employer of a developing country.

Effective engineering asset management is essential in delivering public services safely whilst avoiding breakdowns and accidents. The purpose of this paper is to ensure asset safety and sustainability, public sector firms have to adopt new processes and practices. It is the role of supervisors to implement the changes, and as part of the new public management (NPM) public sector reforms, public sector asset managers have more discretionary power to implement further changes related to increased accountability.

The paper explores the impact of management practices on supervisor-employee relationships and employees’ perception of autonomy, employees’ attitudes towards change and their perceptions of organisational culture within Australian public sector engineering asset management organisations, and in the context of NPM reforms and consequent changes in supervisory discretionary power. Social exchange theory provided the theoretical framework and a self-report survey was administered to 149 employees.

The findings from a structural equation model indicate positive and significant relationships between the variables in this study. A finding of significant interest was that public sector employees are on average slightly dissatisfied with their supervisors and feel they have a minimal amount of autonomy in the workplace. This may represent an unintended consequence of NPM reforms.

The implication of the findings is that an effective relationship between supervisors and employees is a necessary ingredient for achieving change, and ensuring asset safety and sustainability. Social exchange theorists argue that the low level of satisfaction with the supervisors evident in this study is one factor compromising asset safety and sustainability.

The roadblocks to good supervisory relationships in the post NPM environment must be dismantled and the findings clearly indicate a need for targeted development of supervisors/management skills to ameliorate the negative effects of the NPM regime and enable effective change management.