Insecure Commitment and Resistance: An Examination of Change Leadership, Self-Efficacy, and Trust on the Relationship between Job Insecurity, Employee Commitment, and Resistance to Organizational Change A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Robert Elijah Smith IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dr. Kenneth R. Bartlett, Advisor September, 2013 © Robert Elijah Smith, September 2013 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Throughout the journey culminating in this study, there were a number of individuals who provided support, knowledge, and encouragement without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. I have been fortunate to have been surrounded by encouraging family members, friends, and colleagues along the way. I would first like to thank my advisor, Dr. Kenneth Bartlett, who served not only as an exceptional advisor but also a wonderful mentor before my doctoral journey began and every step along the way. I would also like to thank the members of my committee including, Dr. Theresa Glomb, Dr. Alexandre Ardichvilli, and Dr. James Brown. I had the privilege of being a student in their classes and gaining from their perspective throughout the dissertation process. I would also like to thank Dr. Theodore Lewis, Dr. Andrew Van de Ven, Dr. Timothy McClernon, Dr. Shari Peterson, and Dr. Ernest Davenport whose insights and courses had a strong influence on the development of many the ideas presented. Thanks to my study buddy, colleague, and friend Jane, for the recommendations, countless study sessions, and commiseration. From a data gathering perspective, this study would not have been possible without the support of Rashad and Scotty—many thanks to you both. I also wish to thank Vicky whose statistical expertise was invaluable. Also, a special thanks to the Directors of the Western Golf Association Evans Scholarship Foundation and the Minnesota Evans Scholars Directors and Faculty Advisor, John, Ede, Jim, and Rodney for the opportunity. Above all, I especially want to thank my family. First, to my wife, Luise, whose feedback, HR expertise, encouragement, and willingness to support home responsibilities ii enabled me to finish. My sister, Chrystal, was a constant source of encourage and support. Finally, I wish to thank my parents, Helen and Jerome Smith, and grandparents, Ineater and Robert Franklin and Alease and Charles Smith, whose years of struggle, hard work, prayers, and focus on the value of education, enabled me to reach the highest heights. iii ABSTRACT This study was designed to examine the mediation role of self-efficacy and the moderating roles of change leadership strategy and trust on the change attitudes of job insecure employees. Using job insecurity theory (Greenhalgh, 1983), Chin & Benne’s (1961) seminal classification of change leadership strategies and the tripartite model of attitudes (Breckler, 1984; McDougal, 1909) as a theoretical basis, data were collected from two samples of employees including a manufacturing firm (n=275) and a retail company (n= 350). The samples and study hypotheses were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression analysis. As predicted, job insecurity was directly positively related to affective, behavioral, and cognitive resistance to change and self-efficacy partially or fully mediated the relationships. Mixed results were found for the role of trust as well as information and participation-based change leadership strategies in moderating employee resistance to change. In some cases perceived information-based and participation change leadership approaches were associated with increased resistance rather than decreased resistance to change. Power-based change leadership strategies however were found to be consistently associated with more pessimistic employee attitudes. Results support previous findings showing that individuals who believe they will be negatively impacted by organizational change are particularly sensitive to change leadership approaches. The results also suggest that commonly prescribed change leadership strategies such as increased information, communication, and participation during periods of heightened job insecurity may not always be effective in reducing resistance to change but efforts to increase employee self-efficacy may support the iv coping mechanism employees use to reduce resistance to change attitudes in organizational change climates with moderate levels of job insecurity. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................. i ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................ v LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 Changing Technology.............................................................................................................. 4 Globalization ......................................................................................................................... 17 Changing Customer Preferences ........................................................................................... 22 Job Threatening Organizational Changes .............................................................................. 27 Research Purpose and Questions............................................................................................... 38 Significance of the Study .......................................................................................................... 39 Contributions and Implications for HRD .................................................................................. 43 Summary of Chapter 1 .............................................................................................................. 45 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................... 47 Organizational Change .......................................................................................................... 48 Job Insecurity ......................................................................................................................... 49 Change Related Self-Efficacy ............................................................................................... 57 Resistance to Organizational Change .................................................................................... 62 Commitment to Organizational Change ................................................................................ 68 Leading and Managing Organizational Change .................................................................... 77 Trust in Management ............................................................................................................. 89 Insecure Resistance: Toward an Integrated Model of Job Insecurity and ............................. 93 Employee Commitment and Resistance ................................................................................ 94 Summary of Chapter 2 .............................................................................................................. 99 CHAPTER 3: METHODS .......................................................................................................... 101 Population and Sample 1 (Manufacturing Sample) ................................................................ 102 Population and Sample 2 (Retail Sample)............................................................................... 108 vi Data Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 138 Summary of Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................ 141 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS ............................................................................................................ 143 Descriptive Statistics ............................................................................................................... 143 Hypothesis Test Results .......................................................................................................... 145 Manufacturing Sample Results ............................................................................................ 147 Retail Sample Results .......................................................................................................... 160 Combined Manufacturing and Retail Sample Hypotheses Results ..................................... 176 Full Hypothesized Relationship Model Results .................................................................. 190 Summary of Chapter 4 ............................................................................................................ 191 CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, DISCUSSION, AND ...................................... 198 RECOMMENDATIONS ...........................................................................................................