Employee Readiness for Organizational Change: A Case Study in an Export Oriented Manufacturing Firm in Sri Lanka

Anjee Udari Samaranayake

doi:10.17015/ejbe.2017.020.01

Abstract

In this article, we investigated the relationships between organizational commitment, trust in peers and management and employee change readiness. The effects of demographic factors such as gender, age, and working experience on employees’ organizational commitment, trust in peers and management and their change readiness were also examined. We conducted a cross sectional questionnaire survey to collect data from a sample of 185 randomly selected employees in an export oriented business firm in Sri Lanka. Pearson Productmoment Correlation test was used to test the strength and direction of the relationships in the hypotheses. A Multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed to analyse the relationships between demographic variables and the three main variables concerned. This article unveiled that organizational commitment and trust in peers and management were significantly and positively correlated to employee readiness for organizational change. The article also revealed the significant association of certain demographic factors with trust in peers and management and employee readiness.

Highlights

Globalization and rapid advancement in technology has turned the entire world in to a highly competitive and ever-changing market place
The Factor corresponding to change readiness was loaded with six items while organizational commitment and trust in peers & management were each loaded with five items (Table 2)
This article, with reference to a case study in a manufacturing firm in Sri Lanka, reveals that employees’ organizational commitment and trust in peers & management are more influential on their readiness to change over their demographic characteristics. These two factors can be altered through human resource development (HRD) functions such as employee training, employee career development and mentoring

Summary

Introduction

Globalization and rapid advancement in technology has turned the entire world in to a highly competitive and ever-changing market place. Business organizations must embrace change to survive and prosper in a highly competitive and volatile business environment. On the other hand, eliciting, implementing and managing changes within business organizations are challenging and time consuming. To adapt to changes demanded by the business environment, a firm may have to implement a planned change process in which the employees’ role would be highly decisive. Ghany (2014) reports that managing organizational change is in very large part, about managing the people. Employees may not welcome such changes instantly or without being pushed through a strenuous change programme

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion