Transformational Changes and Sustainability: From the Perspective of Identity, Trust, Commitment, and Withdrawal

Ambreen Malik,Kirk Chang,Usman Talat,Muhammad Naseer Akhtar

doi:10.3390/su11113159

Abstract

Drawing upon the psychology of sustainability, effective organizations can create a sense of belongingness for people, and successfully facilitate growth and development activities for both individuals as well as the organization itself. Extending the recommendations of Zappala, Toscano, and Licciardello, the current study considers a range of variables. The role of overall justice judgements and change favorableness are taken as predictors of affective commitment to change and exit-based withdrawal. The relationship is mediated by organizational identification and moderated by trust in organization. Overall, the results support the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, findings showed that both change favorableness and overall justice judgements are positively related to affective commitment to change and negatively related to exit-based withdrawal. Organizational identification mediates the relationships between overall justice judgements–affective commitment to change, change favorableness–affective commitment to change, and change favorableness–exit-based withdrawal, whilst trust in organizations moderated the direct relationship between overall justice judgements–affective commitment to change, and change favorableness–exit-based withdrawal. Furthermore, the indirect effect of trust in organizations positively moderated the relationship of overall justice judgements and change favorableness with affective commitment to change, and at the same time, it negatively moderated the relationship between change favorableness and exit-based withdrawal via organizational identification. Crucially, for practitioners, this brings trust of employees as a key factor that should be managed to ensure sustainable change. Both trust and identity appear important in improving commitment and lowering the exit-based withdrawal behavior of employees. Future recommendations, implications, and limitations are discussed.

Highlights

In the past decade, globalization has exerted considerable influence over financial markets and their international growth
Based on our review, we propose two sub-hypotheses that examine the impact of change favorableness on both affective commitments to change and exit-based withdrawal mediated by organizational identification in a change context
I.e., one single factor of merging all variables was inappropriate for data analysis (χ2 (275) = 1933.51, p < 0.001, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.12, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.60, goodness fit index (GFI) = 0.68, non-normed fit index (NNFI) = 0.57)

Summary

Introduction

Globalization has exerted considerable influence over financial markets and their international growth. This has created pressure, volatility, and competition across markets [1]. The ensuing dynamics of decentralization, digitization, and diversity of financial markets, as well as the intensification of competitive forces, have characterized international banking and trade [2]. Amidst financial crisis, including the 2008 downturn as well as more recent Brexit plans involving the U.K. and EU, banks and other financial institutions have become insecure and have begun re-evaluating their strategy for their corporate sustainability. Over the past two decades, scholars have paid considerable focus on the significance of sustainable change interventions. Many are considering the prospect of forging alliances with industry partners internationally through adaptive change

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Discussion

Conclusion