Work Engagement and Job Crafting as Conditions of Ambivalent Employees’ Adaptation to Organizational Change

Abstract

This work focuses on how mixed feelings serve adaptive functions in organizational change. Failing to recognize that attitudes to change may involve both positive and negative evaluations of the change at the same time may affect change implementation. This article explored the relationship between ambivalence to change and adaptive performance in the context of an acquisition using a diary study. We also examined work engagement and job crafting as specific conditions under which ambivalence can lead to adaptive or nonadaptive courses of action. Our results showed that the relationship between ambivalence to change and adaptive performance is positive but not robust. We uncovered two conditions that increase ambivalent employees’ chances to adapt to organizational change: (1) either employees display high work engagement or (2) they display high reducing demands and low seeking resources. Analyses of change recipients’ reactions beyond dichotomous ones and their mechanisms will better inform practitioners and researchers.