An Empirical Study on the Role of Context Factors in Employees' Commitment to Change

The study attempts to address the gap of exploring the possible antecedents of employees' commitment to change and its three dimensions. The role of context factors--participation in decision making, quality of communication, trust in management and history of change--are tested on overall commitment to change and also on its three dimensions--affective, continuance and normative commitment to change. Data were collected via survey from employees who have been part of major transformational changes such as restructuring, merger and acquisition from various organisations across manufacturing and IT sectors. A total of 305 responses were obtained and the hypothesised relationships were tested using multiple regression analysis. Among the context factors, participation in decision making was found to be a significant predictor, whereas quality of communication was found to be insignificant. Hence while implementing the change process, employees should be actively involved in it rather than being just informed. (Contains 4 tables.)