A Dynamic Change Perspective on how Employees Make Sense of Technology-driven Organizational Change

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the dynamics of the emerging employee perception and response to the process of technology-driven organizational change. The study follows a grounded theory approach, and uses Critical Incident Technique to capture the recollection of events over time within the process of business transformation. Findings suggest a ten-stage change process in the development of emerging and changing employee perceptions and responses. Moreover, a particularly salient focus on internal changes emerged in the perspective of employees, whereas management focuses on external drivers of change, which effectively created two separate realities, hampering the success of the change processes. Furthermore, we see that employees start off organizational change with a positive change perception, which then seems to shift at the start of the actual implementation of change with the process ending on strong negative perception and responses during the evaluation phase. This study contributes to the body of organizational change literature by taking an intra-individual dynamic approach to studying employee perceptions, and responses to, change using a process-perspective. Second, by collecting data in a highly volatile, digitalizing environment which is exemplary for contemporary global business developments, the findings add to the understanding of change-related employee behavior.