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The vast majority of interventions during organizational change tend to focus on individually-held attitudes toward change. However, groups often form collective attitudes that are distinct from those held by its individual members, and organizational change often necessitates collective attitude change within teams, work units, or even the entire organization. We challenge the dominant view that collective attitudes to organizational change merely reflect an aggregation of individual attitudes by considering how and why collectively-held change attitudes are formed and activated. Drawing on social network theory, we propose an alternative approach toward an understanding of change. Acknowledging and detailing attitude formation as a social response to change – a social system of interaction among change recipients – we explain how collective attitudes to organizational change emerge. With this stance, individuals may hold broad and differing attitudes, but as a group can come together to share a collective attitude toward change. Using this approach, we explain how collective attitudes and individual attitudes are linked through top-down or bottom-up processes, or a combination of both. Developing this alternative perspective improves our understanding of how collective attitudes to change develop and evolve and enables both scholars and practitioners to better manage and influence the formation of change-supportive collective attitudes.

What role do people's attitudes toward social policies play for the politics of welfare state reform? This chapter contributes to a growing scholarship on policy responsiveness in welfare state research with a longitudinal comparative case study of the Bismarckian welfare states of France and Germany. Quantitative analyses of changes in mean attitudes as well as polarization and inequalities of attitudes based on the 1996, 2006, and 2016 waves of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) Role of Government module are triangulated with a thick description of social policy changes. While recommodifying and defamilializing reforms in Germany transformed the welfare state fundamentally, there was more continuity in the French welfare state, in spite of a stronger focus on labor market activation policies. The quantitative results suggest that lower attitudinal stability toward the welfare state in Germany and lower polarization evoked a higher willingness for reform than in France, where more polarized attitudes and overall marginal changes in attitudes gave French governments less maneuverability in adopting reforms. In both countries, I find no evidence for an upper-class bias in policy responsiveness. In sum, my research supports the claim that change in public opinion toward the welfare state and diverging attitudes within societies play a role for the timing and direction of reforms.

Purpose – To provide a behavioural perspective on the relationship between transport and climate change.

Methodology/approach – The factors influencing travel behaviour and the elements critical to behaviour formation are reviewed. The importance of behaviour change measures to reduce the impact of transport on climate change, and the application of behaviour change measures to increase the sustainability of transport, are examined.

Findings – There have been a range of travel behaviour measures implemented, such as individualised marketing programmes and travel plans, which have demonstrated some behavioural change impacts, in turn affecting climate change emissions, although they tend to be localised and small-scale.

Social implications – There is a real challenge to encourage individuals within society to exhibit more sustainable travel behaviour.

Originality/value – A range of behavioural issues still need to be resolved in terms of the relationship between transport and climate change, including a need to influence attitudes, to bridge the gaps between attitudes and both behaviour and intention, to make an impact at points of transition for individuals, to use cognitive dissonance as a way of harnessing social norms, and to understand more fully social pressure and group influence.

The present chapter puts one perspective center stage and looks at the relationship between TSC and its manifestation in individuals. More specifically, we are concerned with the relationship between processes of attitude formation and attitude change. The concept of attitudes is one out of several psychological constructs which are known to have mediating influence on actual behavior. Thus, it is a possible starting point to positively influence behavior in road traffic toward higher levels of (commitment to) safety. Understanding how safety culture is internalized by individuals and how it shapes safe conduct shall be theoretically described and practically exemplified to show how this approach can become useful and relevant for practitioners in the field of road safety.

The argument is developed in three parts. In the first part, Herbert Kelman’s (1958) conceptual scheme of three stages of attitude change is presented in which the levels of compliance, identification, and internalization of values are distinguished. In the second part, it is argued that these different levels of value integration correspond with three different kinds of psychological theories which address the relationship between attitudes and deliberately conducted behavior (action). It is a well-known fact in the science of human action that there is no direct relationship between attitudes, decision making, and action. Using Kelman’s three levels of value internalization as a scheme of reference, the conditions under which persons act in line with their attitudes can be conceptualized more precisely. From a normative point of view, it is argued that persons who align their actions and attitudes with reference to socially appreciated values are said to be elaborated. They orient their conduct by an ethos of safety to which they feel committed and they are able to interact in mindful ways. We discuss some of the basic constructs at each level and underpin their importance with reference to behavioral change toward higher levels of safety with empirical findings that have been published. In a third part, we present our findings in a summarizing table and suggest a list of factors and themes which mainly correspond to one of the three stages of attitudinal change and value internalization. Finally, we outline some examples of how traffic safety interventions can be conceptualized at these different levels.

The chapter examines the evolution of individual attitudes of the national political (parliamentarian) elite towards a supranational entity such as the European Union in the changing political context during times of economic crisis. General attitudes towards the European integration process and federal/intergovernmental preferences for governance are analysed with a hierarchical approach taking into account individual level data, party characteristics and the country context with a comparative perspective across three time points during the period of the economic crisis. Contrary to expectations, results show that supranational attitudes of the national political elites remained quite stable and the increasing presence of extremist parties in national parliaments did not have a significant effect, while individual drivers of attitudes, such as an instrumental evaluation of the benefits of EU membership and attachment to Europe remained key determinants.

Strategy scholars have theorized that a firm's strategic leaders play an important role in firm dynamic capabilities (DCs). However, little research to date has studied how leaders shape the development of DCs. This inductive theory-building study sheds new light on the multilevel architecture of DCs by uncovering that the three core DCs – sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring – operate through distinct individual, group, and organizational processes. Further, the role of strategic leadership is critical as organizational processes create DCs only when they are purposefully designed by firms' strategic leaders to enable change and opportunity pursuit. Whether strategic leaders design processes for change and opportunity pursuit, in turn, reflects the extent to which they view change as positive and desirable. Our insights about the role of strategic leaders' positive attitude toward change as an important aspect of firm DCs uncover new interconnections between strategic leadership, organizational design, and the micro-foundations of DCs. Collectively our findings about the role of positive attitude toward change, the purposeful design of processes for change, and the varying manifestations of these processes at different levels of analysis reveal the coupling of strategic and organizational processes in enabling strategic dynamism and change.

There has been a dramatic increase in recent years in the numbers of international students undertaking undergraduate and postgraduate study in the United Kingdom. This has been as a direct result of the huge influx of mainly postgraduates from the Far East, and in particular from China. After briefly setting the students in their educational context, this chapter presents the findings of two pre- and post-course questionnaires produced in order to reach a better understanding of the needs and expectations of international students attending a UK departmental presessional programme. In addition, the questionnaires explored the students’ notions of and attitudes to change as they proceeded though their programmes. The research revealed a consistent range of concerns and perceptions, which may help us to prioritise students’ needs and address them more effectively and sensitively in the future. The chapter concludes with a number of suggestions and recommendations to help us improve our provision and maintain and expand our position as a high-quality provider of courses for international students.

Cyberethnographic accounts of behavior are just emerging as a legitimate and useful way of exploring new forms of communication including the digital co-presence found in cyber communities. The chapter represents the first known account of such a research approach applied to issues of climate change in online travel communities as manifested through travelblogs. The research undertook observations of five online websites where experiences are shared and issues discussed. This first round of findings revealed no discussions on the topic of travel and climate change, which the researchers imputed to mean a lack of interest in the topic. A further round of observations was conducted on a site with a more nuanced approach to travel (though not an overtly green site). This revealed sufficient data for frame analysis: budding green, ironic cynics, reluctant cynics, candourants, and rational cynics. The findings suggest that the tourism and climate change issue as seen by these tourists is confused, paradoxical, and cynical. The main conclusion is that there must be greater efforts in creating public understanding of science so as to change behavior in ways favorable to diminishing greenhouse gas emissions.