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In the current dynamic world, organizations required rapid changes to meet the increasing demands of their customers. On the other hand, the practice side claims that the majority of the organizational change attempts fail due to resistance from the employee side. Based on the behavioral theory of leadership, the authors examined the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational change with moderated mediation effect of behavioral resistance to change and commitment to change on the stated relationship.

Data were obtained from 333 employees, selected at random, in three waves (i.e. pre-change, during change and post-change) using survey methods from services sector organizations operating in Pakistan.

The authors found that ethical leadership was positively linked to organizational change and this relation was partially mediated by the commitment to change. Further, behavioral resistance to change weakened the relationship between ethical leadership and commitment to change.

The current study illuminates the importance of ethical leaders in the organizational change process, and empirical findings also gave an important direction to build change commitment in employees to reach positive results. Further, change leaders should use ethical practices in the workplace during organizational change initiatives to deal with behavioral resistance to change.

This study links ethical leadership with organizational change using the behavioral theory of leadership, an unexplored area in the existing literature that gives a new insight to academia and practice side officials to successfully implement any organizational change initiative.

This study examines the influences of personality traits on the employees' commitment to change that moderated by the organizational culture. The employee's commitment to change is important for the large companies to sustain in the global economy.

The quantitative data were collected from the employees in the large companies that are listed in Bursa Saham Kuala Lumpur (BSKL) Malaysia. The research used a simple random sampling and a cross-sectional survey.

The results showed there is a relationship between the personality traits and the employees' commitment to change, moderated by the organizational culture.

This study implies that both practitioners and leaders need to review how they could increase the employees' commitment to change in the companies based on the various personalities.

The originality of the study is the establishment of the instruments and theoretical building on the personality traits, organizational change and employees' commitment to change.

Future organizations must focus on their ability to change to be sustainable, and this calls more attention to sustainability as an organizational issue. However, change initiatives often fail because of a lack of employee commitment. The purpose of this study is to examine how organizational culture and individual readiness for change (IRFC) relate to types of commitment to change.

Survey data from a sample of 259 employees in a Norwegian public organization undergoing major strategic changes were used to test the hypothesized relations.

The results show that flexible and stable organizational cultures did not relate differently to types of change commitment. This may indicate that the strength, rather than the type, of organizational culture is vital for change commitment. Nevertheless, a flexible organizational culture had a clearer relation to positive change commitment; in part through its positive relation with both change self-efficacy and negative personal valence. These are important dimensions of IRFC.

The study contributes to a nuanced understanding of the role of contextual and individual factors in explaining various types of commitment to organizational change, in particular, by examining the distinction between flexible and stable organizational culture, as well as separate dimensions of IRFC. A flexible culture together with both of the included dimensions of IRFC is shown to be of importance in fostering affective commitment to change – the gold standard of change commitment. Recognizing sustainability as an organizational issue underscores the need for creating a culture conducive to change.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) represent major organizational changes, and create traumatic, stressful situations to employees. The purpose of this paper is to study the acquired key employees' organizational commitment towards the acquiring organization during the post‐acquisition integration phase.

This paper is a longitudinal single case study of a European‐acquisition within the high‐tech sector. Data are collected for nearly two years both with four repetitive quantitative surveys and 58 interviews.

The results imply that the key employees perceive the organizational changes differently. In friendly acquisitions, key employees not only expect organizational changes but also they may have an active role in inducing changes. Moreover, the results imply that key employees' organizational commitment is closely linked to the prior role of the key employees in the acquired company, and how they perceive and experience the post‐acquisition integration phase.

This research is a single case study, which strives for analytical generalisation rather than statistical generalisation. The results of the case study are limited to the context of European small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and the Indian IT industry, and not generalisable as such to other companies or industries. However, this research contributes to the growing interest in understanding how change is experienced by individuals, and especially how key persons and managers from the acquired company experience changes following a cross‐border acquisition.

The findings of this paper provide useful insights to managers involved in M&As on how key persons from acquired SMEs may react to changes following a friendly acquisition.

This paper focuses on the key persons of an acquired high‐tech company and provides unique insights on how key persons may be critical in M&As not only for their tacit knowledge but also from the change leadership point of view. Commitment is crucial from both the retention and change management perspective.

Organizational change is usually stressful and destabilizing for employees, for whom coping with the induced stress is primordial to commit to the change. This paper aims to unravel how and when change recipients can enact different coping strategies and, ultimately, manifest different forms of commitment to change.

We propose a theoretical model that identifies challenge appraisal and hindrance appraisal as two primary appraisals of organizational change that fuel, respectively, proactive and preventive coping strategies and, indirectly, affective and normative forms of commitment to change. Moreover, this framework suggests that coping strategies and commitment are influenced by the secondary appraisal of two vital resources – resilience and POS – allowing individuals to react effectively to primary change-related appraisals. Finally, the relationship between coping strategies and the components of commitment to change is proposed to be moderated by employees' regulatory focus.

Using appraisal theory and conservation of resources theory as guiding frameworks, our integrated model describes the antecedents, processes and boundary conditions associated with coping with the stress of organizational change and how they ultimately influence commitment to it.

This is the first theoretical paper to identify a conditional dual path to disclose the different reactions that change recipients can manifest in response to the stressful aspects of organizational change.

Prior research in the area of organizational change highlights the critical role played by HR practices during organizational change as it may require altering employee behavior to support the change direction. human resource (HR) function is considered to be well positioned to influence employee behavior by institutionalizing HR practices that support change. Further there is a significant body of literature that suggests that employee behavior is significantly influenced by the perceptions of HR practices during change. HR practices which create positive employee perceptions increase employee commitment to change. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that identifies critical HR practices that support organizational change and examines their impact on employee perception and commitment to change.

First, an extensive literature review on organizational change at macro level has been done to identify critical practices desired from key organizational members during organizational change. Second, a case for importance of HR function as a key organizational member during change is presented. Further literature on effectiveness of HR practices adopted by HR professionals during organizational change is examined to find out the gap areas. Third, literature on employee perception and commitment to change is examined to find out possible linkages to HR practices during organizational change. Finally, eight propositions are presented to build an integrated conceptual framework identifying critical HR practices during organizational change and their impact on employee perception and commitment to change.

The study suggests that HR practices undertaken in the area of culture, leadership, cross functional integration, training, communication and technology if introduced and implemented will positively influence employee perception reducing resistance and increasing commitment to change. Therefore assessing employee perception about critical HR practices at different stages of change initiation, implementation and consolidation can enable understanding about employee commitment to change. This would also help HR professionals understand how effective the HR practices implemented during change have been.

This framework can be used by the researchers and practitioners to study, guide, frame and model empirical research into the area of studying critical HR practices during organizational change. So far literature provides a generic view of desired organizational practices during change. Moreover there are few studies available on employee perception about HR practices implemented during organizational change and its impact on employee commitment to change. The framework presented in this paper would help explore the effectiveness of specific HR practices implemented during change by evaluating its impact on employee perception and commitment to change.

Successful change implementation is crucial for organizational prosperity, and even survival. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of personal trust and communication on change success, through affective commitment.

Based on an empirical study conducted among 307 employees of Canadian organizations and using structural equation modeling techniques.

The authors find that communication has a direct impact on change success, as well as an indirect impact through affective commitment. Trust only exerts an indirect effect through affective commitment.

This research thus extends the literature on the role of “soft” organizational factors on organizational change. Since the authors have limited this study to “soft” variables, it can be complemented with a study of hard factors contributing to change success, in order to build a comprehensive organizational change success model.

In implementing evolutionary or revolutionary change, considering people-related issues is critical. Based on the shared mental model (SMM) and occupational stress theory, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between change perception and change commitment by investigating the moderating effect of organizational-level SMM and individual-level work stress.

This research tested the direct cross-level effect of change perception on change commitment, and the cross-level moderation analysis. The data collected from small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan, and sampled 1,201 employees in 267 firms.

Change perception would relate positively to change commitment. Moreover, the SMM positively moderated the relationship between change perception and change commitment. In addition, a significant negative-moderated relationship is found. There is a positive relationship between change perception and change commitment at low level of work stress. However, there is the opposite effect when work stress is high.

The generally understanding of the employees’ attitudes and behaviors in organizational change, especially to investigate the moderating factors at cross-level analysis is limited. The results provide a basis for successful employees’ change commitment, and the authors propose that both organizational- and individual-level moderating effects need to be considered.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between interpersonal and organizational factors in consultant‐client relationships and their contribution to the effectiveness of an organizational change process.

The authors designed two studies in order to gain insightful information, both qualitative and quantitative in nature. Study 1 is composed of semi‐structured one‐on‐one interviews conducted with pairs of clients and consultants. Study 2 is designed as a quantitative study and is a direct expansion of study 1. The sample, conducted between the years 2002 and 2007, is composed of departments within organizations that underwent an organizational change process, in which external consultants took part.

The authors found that a high level of commitment to change has a positive effect on the successful implementation of organizational change as a whole. Also, high levels of dyadic trust in the consultant‐client relationship result in higher levels of consultant commitment to the change process. Finally, consultant commitment to change partially mediates the relationship between trust and successful implementation of organizational change.

The paper explores the link between individual and organizational levels in pursuing organizational change processes and attempts to clarify this link.

With employees’ support of organizational changes being vital for today’s organizations, the purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of how organizational commitment is linked to change-supportive intentions. Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB, Ajzen, 1991), mediated effects of affective organizational commitment were empirically tested to explore the underlying psychological processes.

The study was conducted in the context of a complex change process at a production facility of a large international manufacturing company (n=667). Data from the change survey were analyzed employing Hayes’ (2012) PROCESS macro.

The results showed that organizational commitment relates to change-supportive intentions directly and, as suggested by the TPB, its effects are mediated via change-related attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Furthermore, results suggest additional effects of change recipients’ age and occupational status.

Employing the TPB offers specific insights for tailored interventions to create conditions facilitating organizational changes. The results indicate that commitment lays the ground for employees’ change reactions. Moreover, the psychological processes suggested by the TPB serve as additional levers for explaining change-supportive intentions.

The study provides valuable information on the relationship between commitment and change-supportive intentions. Specifically, affective organizational commitment is shown to be an important resource in times of change, as it relates to more positive psychological reactions to change.