The Role of Change Content, Context, Process, and Leadership in Understanding Employees’ Commitment to Change: The Case of Public Organizations in Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Abstract

In times of financial austerity, public organizations are forced, either by internally motivated goals or externally mandated policies, to implement reforms and changes to cut back on expenses. While organizational change happens with increasing magnitude and frequency in public sector organizations, much of public management research concerning organizational change has mainly focused on change at the sector or national level. This study, on the contrary, focuses on a more micro-level and individual perspective by investigating the simultaneous influence of content, context, process, and leadership on employees' affective commitment to change (ACC) in a non-Western, Islamic setting. To test the study's hypotheses, data were collected from a sample of 147 employees in five public sector organizations that recently witnessed major structural changes in Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Regression results reveal that process-related variables and transformational leadership behavior of direct supervisors enhance commitment to change while employees' negative perception of his or her change history (a context-related factor) impedes commitment to change. The findings support the external validity of previous findings in Western, non-Islamic settings, and, thus, would increase our understanding of organizational change theories in non-Western settings.

Participation and Commitment to Change on Middle Managers in Indonesia: The Role of Perceived Organizational Support as Mediator

“…Results showed that participation in decision-making had a variety of effects on several types of change. Participation in decision-making was found to be a significant predictor to affective commitment to change (Ahmad & Cheng, 2018;Soumyaja, Kamlanabhan, & Bhattacharyya, 2011;Van der Voet et al, 2016) and normative commitment to change, but of no relation with continuous commitment to change (Soumyaja et al, 2011). The research conducted by Rogiest et al (2015) and Thien (2019) did not find direct relation between participation with commitment to change.…”

“…Active participation would result in positive attitude towards change and required behaviour in change (Lines & Selart, 2013). Various research results showed that participation correlated positively with attitude towards change, such as openness to organizational change (Wanberg & Banas, 2000), individual readiness for change (Bouckenooghe & Devos, 2008;Bouckenooghe, Devos & Van den Broeck, 2009) and commitment to change (Ahmad & Cheng, 2018;Rogiest, Segers, & van Witteloostuijn, 2015; Van der Voet, Kuipers, & Groeneveld, 2016). Also, participation was valued as a form of organizational support towards middle managers (Reeves, Walsh, Tuller, & Magley, 2012).…”

Employees’ Change Support in the Public Sector—A Multi‐Time Field Study Examining the Formation of Intentions and Behaviors

“…Such a notion is supported by various scholars who argue that “If people do not change, there is no organizational change” (Schneider et al 1994, 7), or that “change persists over the long term only when individuals alter their on‐the‐job behaviors in appropriate ways” (Choi 2011, 480). Thus, the response of change recipients to changes is, inter alia, suggested to be one of the main determinants of the extent to which organizational changes succeed in public sector organizations (Ahmad and Cheng 2018; Kelman 2005; van der Voet 2016).…”

Transformational Leadership and Individual Creativity: The Mediating Role of Structural Empowerment

“…Therefore, the last condition can be relaxed to 'a significant reduction of the direct effect' rather than a complete elimination of the effect. When this is applicable, one speaks of partial mediation [25,26].…”