Adapting to Organizational Change: The Role of Positive Affect Change

Abstract

Job affect can influence work behaviors, especially in the context of organizational change that is characterized by challenges and uncertainties. As employees navigate the upcoming changes, they may experience changes of affective states in the adaptation process. Based on affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) and broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001), the present study investigates the role of positive affect change, beyond positive affect level, in providing additional resources to help employees adapt to organizational change initiatives. Using seven waves of monthly longitudinal data collected from 110 full-time sales employees at a Chinese regional bank that was undergoing reforms of its incentive structure, we found that increase in positive affect over 5 months was positively related to employee adaptive performance and negatively related to post-change counterproductive work behavior. Moreover, the joint effect of employee’s task-contingent conscientiousness and intrinsic motivation predicted interindividual difference in intraindividual positive affect change, and their indirect effect on employee behavioral outcomes was mediated by positive affect change. The findings provide initial evidence of positive affect change in facilitating the process of employee adaptation.