Ambivalencia Actitudinal Ante el Cambio Organizacional: Un Análisis Desde el Individuo en Contexto Laboral

Abstract

Traditionally workers' reactions in organizational change situations have been studied from the perspective of resistance to change, an approach which has led to controversial findings. The present research focused on the role of attitudinal ambivalence, integrating contributions from social psychology. A first experimental study aimed to manipulate worker's ambivalence levels controlling the type of information on organizational change that was provided to them. A second correlational study evaluated the moderating role of attitudinal ambivalence in the relationship between workers' attitudes and behavioral intentions. The participants were, respectively, 61 and 418 workers of a Chilean mining company undergoing a change process, selected through a stratified random sampling process. Two forms of a questionnaire were administered. Student's t -test, bivariate correlations, and moderated regression analyses revealed that the participants of Study 1 who were exposed to inconsistent information displayed higher levels of ambivalence. Study 2 suggested that ambivalence moderates the relationship between workers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions. These results indicate that ambivalence assessment should be regarded as a relevant factor in organizational change contexts.