Negative experiences of organizational change from an emotions perspective

Abstract

This study aims to explore the negative experiences of employees following organizational change through adopting a contextual emotions perspective. Previous studies have tended to examine negative change experiences through the lens of general concepts such as resistance, where it is often assumed that negative experiences are due to internal and intra-psychic processes, ignoring the role played by external events, situations and social relationships; hence negative change experiences are seen as irrational and misconceived. We therefore have limited knowledge about what kinds of specific negative emotions are actually experienced by individuals undergoing organizational change, and the ways in which these experiences relate to the surrounding context in which they emerged. A qualitative study was conducted to explore the negative emotional experiences of a selected group of nursing staff following the introduction of a new electronic care planning system at their ward. A range of different and quite specific negative emotional experiences were identified, and these revolved around two themes in particular: managerial planning and actions; and the quality of professional work. None of the negative emotional experiences seemed to reflect a general unwillingness to change.

Exploring the Emotional Experiences During Organizational Change: A Leader and Followers Perspective

“…Change induce several emotions due to multiple interpretation of various planned and unplanned situations (Tiedens & Linton, 2001;Härtel & Zerbe, 2002), which the rational model of change fails to address (Vince & Broussine, 1996). These models view change as a problem and a deviation from management's expectations with resistance as an obvious response to change (Vince & Broussine, 1996;Kiefer, 2002;Giaever & Hellesø, 2010;Smollan, 2014). This infers that the rational and cognitive models of change aim to suppress human emotions and view them as irrational and an indication to an underlying problem that needs to be controlled and managed to please the management (Kiefer, 2002).…”

“…Also, emotions have been seen as a hinder-ance and destructive to the change process (Eriksson, 2004) which is actually a 'myth' and could turn out to be useful to the change process (Härtel & Zerbe, 2002;Vince, 2006;Fineman, 2016). On the contrary, the reason why people resist or conform to change is significant to understand for an effective change (Kiefer, 2002;Giaever & Hellesø, 2010). This signifies that emotions are crucial to understand in the context of change.…”

“…Nevertheless, change can produce both positive and negative emotions as it provides opportunities and threats to individuals, but less attention has been given to positive emotions (Piderit, 2000;Smollan, 2014;Smollan & Parry, 2011). The emphasis has been on the negative emotions as they were seen as destructive and problematic for the management that had to be controlled to have an effective change (Giaever & Hellesø, 2010). This study incorporates both the negative and positive emotions of the leader and the follower using an interpretive approach, and contributes by arguing that emotions, irrespective of whether positive or negative, should be seen as a "resource" to understand the main issues at stake (Vince, 2006).…”

Implementering av sykepleiediagnoser i fritekst

“…Det innebar overgang fra retrospektiv fortløpende dokumentasjon som beskriver hva som har blitt utøvd av helsehjelp, til prospektiv prosessdokumentasjon som skal beskrive den sykepleie man planlegger å utføre. Sykepleiere i klinisk praksis ga etter flere års bruk av elektroniske sykepleieplaner uttrykk for usikkerhet på om dokumentasjonspraksisen var god nok (25). Usikkerheten er sammenfallende med det som kommer frem i en studie gjennomført ved et annet universitetssykehus i Norge (26).…”

“…Samtidig er det vist til at sykepleiere gir uttrykk for at de ikke har vaert involvert i utforming av løsninger i EPJ i den grad de ønsker (22,25). Også internasjonalt har studier trukket frem at løsninger som beslutningsstøtte, klassifikasjonssystem og bedre funksjonalitet i EPJ kan fremme kvalitet i dokumentasjonen (7,8,13,22).…”