Introduction:
The constantly evolving external environment forces organizations to realise organizational change to stay competitive. This kind of change now also occurs to a wider extent in public organizations which are becoming more business oriented. To make changes successful organizations need to consider employee behaviour in terms of acceptance and commitment to new situations.
Objective(s):
Our aim is to examine how employees in Swedish public organizations respond to organizational change and to get a wider understanding of potential resistances. From this, we would like to give recommendations on how management can influence the employee response in order to improve the commitment and enhance the chance of success of a re-organization.
Method:
We will use a hermeneutic research philosophy with a deductive approach. To catch information concerning the change process and employees’ behaviour our empirical data is gathered using qualitative interviews. The theoretical framework includes research concerning the change implementation and the use of power, communication, resistance, and acceptance during the change process.
Conclusion:
Our results show that the efficiency of the organization decreases with the implementation of change programs, employees are now less committed, less motivated and takes fewer own decisions. Problems come from a lack of trust between lower and higher levels in the organization, communication, and limited possibilities for employees to influence the change process. Top-management need to engage more people into the change process at an early stage and empower first-line managers in order to create a climate of confidence and a sustainable change process that can lead to a successful implementation.
Source: Växjö University
Authors: Ulvenfalk Edman, Joel | Jeleniewska, Kinga | Bourgeois, Edouard