The power of negativity: the role of negative emotion in determining readiness for change

Abstract

This study examines the impact of negative emotions associated with change on individual readiness for change among business school faculty and administrators. Our quantitative study is based on 489 survey responses from faculty and administrators across a variety of U. S. business schools. Our findings suggest negative emotions such as frustration and anger are important in explaining why cognitive readiness for change is not enough to assure successful organizational change. Specifically, we tested a new construct designed to measure negative emotions as a mediator between an individual’s cognitive readiness for change (i.e. their beliefs about change) and their actual intentional readiness for change (i.e. their intended behavior regarding change) and found that negative emotions negatively mediate this relationship. We also tested the impact of positive and negative affect as mediators and found that positive affect positively mediates the effect of cognitive readiness on intentional readiness but that negative affect has no mediation effect. This research is important because it suggests business school leaders must go beyond persuading their faculty and administrators that a proposed change ‘makes sense’ and address the emotions that faculty have toward change if they hope to alter behavior.