Identification During Imposed Change: The Roles of Personal Values, Type of Change, and Anxiety

Abstract

Using a person-situation perspective, we explain what happens to individuals' identification with a collective in the context of a change. We propose that given the anxiety that often emerges during change, individuals' personal values (conservation and openness to change) interact with type of change (imposed vs. voluntary) in predicting identification following change. In a pilot, longitudinal field study (N = 61, 67% female) of an imposed university campus relocation, we measured employees' values and identification with the university before and several months after the relocation. In two lab experiments (Study 1: N = 104, 91.3% female; Study 2: N = 113, 75.2% female), we manipulated a change to be either imposed or voluntary and compared the relationships between values and identification across types of change. In Study 2, we also measured anxiety from the change. When change was imposed (all three studies), but not when voluntary (Studies 1 and 2), individuals' conservation was positively, and openness negatively, related to individuals' post-change identification. The effects emerged only for individuals who experienced change-related anxiety (Study 2). Our findings demonstrate that individuals' identification with a changing collective depends on the amount of anxiety change elicits and on the particular combination of their values and type of change.

Values at Work: The Impact of Personal Values in Organisations

“…Several studies have exemplified the positive impact of conservation values on compliance to organisational authorities. Sverdlik and Oreg () found that when organisational change was imposed, emphasising conservation (vs. openness to change) values positively predicted identification with the organisation. In an ongoing research among university faculty members (Elster and Sagiv, ), emphasising conformity values predicted satisfaction with top management and deference identification (i.e., idealisation of the organisational symbols and leadership, see Roccas et al, ), two and four years after the participants reported their values.…”

“…Several studies have exemplified the positive impact of conservation values on compliance to organisational authorities. Sverdlik and Oreg (2015) found that when organisational change was imposed, emphasising conservation (vs. openness © 2018 International Association of Applied Psychology.…”

Basic Values and Change: A Mixed Methods Study

“…A series of studies show that openness-to-change values are positively associated with voluntary change while they have a negative relationship to imposed changethe opposite is true for conservation values (Sverdlik & Oreg, 2009, 2015. In another study, Sverdlik and Oreg (2015) studied the relationship between type of change (imposed/voluntary), values, and organizational identification. They found that imposed change has a positive relationship to identification when conservation values are prioritized and a negative relationship when openness-to-change values are prioritized.…”

Value Stability and Change in an ISAF Contingent

“…An important consideration in relation to the above arguments on the transformative power of conflict deployment is the issue of value fit to life situations (i.e., the interaction of individual values and environment). Bardi and colleagues () found that self‐selection into different life situations was driven by preexisting value configurations, and that the value change that did occur after a transition was driven by the extent of the change in situation/context (see also Sverdlik & Oreg, , on values and person‐situation fit). In other words, people often choose life transitions based on value configurations that will fit the new context, making changes less likely if the new environment is not highly different.…”