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This case study is based on primary data collected through interviews with the company’s founder and CEO. It also includes secondary data collected through the Glassdoor job search and career community site. The names of the company and the employees have been disguised. However, the figures included accurately represent the primary data and the quotes are directly from the company representative.

When it was founded in 2009, employees were excited about the prospect of working at Wombat alongside its founder and CEO Dan Wallace. They had looked forward to making a difference in the lives of college students with the company’s higher ed-focused digital communication platform. But by 2022, Wallace could not ignore the significant change in these employees’ attitudes. Anonymous feedback pointed to employees’ commitment to Wombat having wavered, and employees’ reception of post-COVID organizational changes had become concerningly critical. Though he knew enough to be concerned, Wallace felt unsure of how to move forward based on the anonymous feedback alone. He was left wondering: how should Wombat communicate with employees to boost their attitudes and strengthen their commitment while making the hard decisions that best serve the company?

This case study is appropriate for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in organizational communication courses. It can constitute the employee communication module in a class that surveys strategic managerial communication, or it could be used as one of many examples in a course specifically focused on the internal communication component of the discipline. Students will need an understanding of communication theory, specifically interpretive organizational communication theory, to grasp the complexities of the case. While the focus company is in the educational technology industry, the themes presented are faced by companies of all sizes in all sectors.

This paper aims to examine primarily the readiness for change at an individual level. Additionally, this study examines the impact of internal change factors on individual readiness for change as well as their effect across nations.

The research relies on a quantitative research approach. A survey was conducted among 241 managers across 33 countries. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) approach and multigroup analyses have been applied for hypothesis testing.

Our research contributes a novel perspective on individual readiness for change and unveils how employees' perceptions of context, process and intensity as internal change factors influence their readiness for change. The findings give support to the assertion that employees' attitudes toward change are altered by individual perceptions.

Our research explores the moderating effect of nationality used through a grouped variable and finds significant impacts of clusters of nationalities. Thus, nationality may serve as a proxy for culture that might be examined in future research studies in a more deeply focused way to include beliefs, values and societal norms.

The new understanding of the topic “individual readiness for change” opens up new research directions and enriches ongoing discussions about societal change and sustainable project management. This topic creates a link to situational leadership principles, considers cultural factors and, therefore, advocates for a people-centric approach to modern stakeholder management in order to achieve commitment toward change initiatives and consequent project success.

Considering that the path toward the successful implementation of any change project is highly contingent on personal dispositions to change, our research uncovers the potential impact of individual perceptions on employees' readiness for change.

Our major contribution is to highlight the importance of considering individual perceptual drivers of readiness for change and to acknowledge the moderating effect of nationality as a contextual factor altering the relationship between perception of change and individual readiness for change.