MGMT725 Assignment 1 Solution and Discussion
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SEMESTER FALL 2019
CHANGE MANAGEMENT (MGMT 725)
ASSIGNMENT NO. 1
DUEDATE: JANUARY27,2020
MARKS: 10
Topic: The role of perceived organizational support in individual change readiness Learning Objectives:-
To learn about the role of perceived organizational support (POS) in change readiness and trust in management with the help of understanding a research study.
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To learn about the role of a few research concepts like the use of control variables and relevant advanced data analysis tests that may help in obtaining the results for such a research study.
Learning Outcomes: -
Students are expected to do some brainstorming for knowing the optimum use of perceived organizational support during the organizational change process and for the strategic measures to address the employees’ resistance to change.
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Students are expected to be able to assess the use of subject related variables in research and to differentiate between the role of those variables in research, e.g., the nature of covariates, control variables, predicting and outcomes variables etc., and that why a post hoc test can better explain the relationship of variables in a deductive research process.
Short Summary of the Referred Article
This empirical study was about the role of perceived organizational support that makes a positive impact on the individual change readiness. Change in organizational work processes and systems remains a constant requirement for organizations. However, 70 percent of the change initiatives fail primarily due to the lack of employees’ support. Hence, it is essential for change agents to gain the support of employees for such change initiatives. There has been the research conducted in the past for antecedents of individual change readiness (e.g. Holt & Vardaman, 2013). However, the role of employees perceived organizational support for change readiness is one area that has not been explored as such in the past prior to this study. Perceived organizational support is the degree of wellbeing that the organization provides to its employees during the change process. It generates the positive feelings of control and psychological safety climate in the employees’ mind during uncertain times of change.However, perceived organizational support required feeling of trust in the employees that change would not be harmful to them. This study explains that trust in management is the key mediating mechanism between perceived organizational support and change readiness. This stance has been more of an assumed one in the literature rather than getting empirically tested. This stance gets supported by social exchange theory as well.
This study was conducted on the sample of 154 employees of a restaurant chain in United States of America (USA) that was going through a major organizational restructuring process. However, some past researchers suggested that this relationship of variables including trust, perceived organizational support (POS) and change readiness might not remain a constant linear relationship permanently and after a certain point, it becomes a sort of curvilinear relationship as depicted on graph (see figure 1 in the reference article). Post hoc test conducted in this study proved that this claim is true on higher level of POS. Social exchange theory supports the norm of reciprocity that organizational support gets responded with positive individual efforts for organizational needs. POS contributes positively in crafting employees’ participation, organizational citizenship behavior and organizational commitment of employees. “Often employees may perceive themselves deleted during the change process but increase in POS may buffer this feeling” (Turgut et al., 2016). So, based on previous literature support and under the light of overarching theory, i.e. social exchange theory, four hypotheses given in this study emphasized that perceived organizational support positively impacts on change readiness and trust in management. Furthermore, trust in management positively impacts change readiness and that indirect effect of POS manifests through employees’ trust in management.
The company under study was going through a major restructuring which started after the joining of new CEO. Reporting mechanisms were refined, new training protocols, new safety processes etc. were introduced. For analyzing these changes across fifteen locations of these restaurants, researcher adopted a survey strategy through a personally administered questionnaire. Measurement scales for variables including perceived organizational support (POS), trust in management and readiness for change were adopted from the relevant past studies. Job satisfaction, turnover intention and demographic variables such as tenure, age and gender were taken as control variables in this study. Data analysis was done through confirmatory factor analysis for testing validity of variables. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) Regression and Process Macro for SPSS (that helps in testing the indirection effects for moderation and mediation). Results of the study showed that all the hypothesis predicting direct and indirect effecting of POS with change readiness and trust were supported. However, post hoc test indicated that at high level of POS, its relationship might not remain linear with change readiness and trust compared to lower level of perceived organizational support. However, the curvilinear effect suggests that at an inflection point, increased investments will be associated with attenuated trust and change readiness levels.
Reference: Gigliotti, R., Vardaman, J., Marshall, D. R., & Gonzalez, K. (2018). The Role of Perceived Organizational Support in Individual Change Readiness. Journal of Change Management, 19(2), 86-100. doi:10.1080/14697017.2018.1459784
Requirement: You are required to thoroughly read the reference article titled “The role of perceived organizational support in individual change readiness” available in the download section of course LMS with the file name of “Reference Article for Assignment 1 MGMT725_Fall 2019” and answer the following questions.- Considering yourself as the manager of this organization under study and after having a look at the post hoc test result, would you choose medium level of perceived organizational support or a very high level of perceived organizational support for the better change readiness of the employees? Also suggest two practical strategies for enhancing the trust of employees in management that should reduce resistance to a change process. Logically justify your answer.
(2.5 +2.5 = 5 marks)
- Considering yourself as the manager of this organization under study and after having a look at the post hoc test result, would you choose medium level of perceived organizational support or a very high level of perceived organizational support for the better change readiness of the employees? Also suggest two practical strategies for enhancing the trust of employees in management that should reduce resistance to a change process. Logically justify your answer.
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What is the role of control variables in the research and why the author of this study identified a few control variables? For what reason, researchers of this study used post hoc test when hypotheses were already supported with relevant tests like OLS regression and process macro etc.? Logically explain your answer.
(2.5 +2.5 = 5 marks)
Important Note: You would be better able to answer the assignment questions if you will carefully read the reference article. However, if you want to consult other source of secondary data (like research papers, books and websites etc.) then you are allowed. But, in that case please provide proper in-text and end text reference for every citation. Referencing should be in APA style. Please provide your answer in a concise manner.
Important:
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