The Development of Implicit Followership Theories in Organizational Change Processes

Abstract

Successful organizational change requires substantial efforts from both change leaders and followers. After a long tradition of focusing on change leadership, academics increasingly focus on the role of followership. However, understanding the diverse responses of followers in change processes is complex, as a clear understanding of the underlying mechanisms that trigger followers’ heterogeneous interpretations seems missing. Using a standardized process interview protocol, we content-analyzed 60 individual experience narrations of major organizational changes in eight different organizations and industries. These narrations appeared to map in six prototypical stories (i.e. the ‘Warrior Story’) that are proposed to explicate yet uncharted temporal pathways of change followership. We highlight several similarities and differences between those stories and interpret them as reflections of Implicit Followership Theories in change context. By adding to the understanding of interpretive processes grounded in mental schemas, this study could help leaders of change to anticipate their followers’ diverse responses to supposedly similar experiences.