This study provides information on organizational change. The middle manager’s initial commitment to change is determined by his views on the importance of change. There is a change in the type of commitment to change. There are various factors affecting changes in the type of commitment of middle managers.
Organizations today are required to change with extraordinary speed (Piderit, 2000). However, not all organizational changes run successfully.
Two of the three organizational change initiatives failed. Another opinion states that at least 70 percent of all initiatives to make organizational changes end in failure.
A common factor causing the failure of organizational change is the inability of managers to cope with the demands of organizational change. Furthermore, the lack of commitment from the middle manager also contributes to failure.
Commitment to change is the key to a successful implementation of change. Consistent efforts are needed in building commitment to change in employees.
In this condition, a middle manager must have a commitment to change because they are role models for their employees. The results showed that leader as a model during a time of change would increase commitment to change in employees. Leaders must have a high commitment to change, especially middle managers who have positions close to employees. They have a significant influence on the successful implementation of change. (Herzig & Jimmieson, 2006).
All this time, the role of the middle manager in a period of change is not discussed as prominently as the top manager (Huy, 2002) even though they play an important role. To add study reference on commitment to change in middle managers, this study was conducted. It aims to answer the question of the commitment of middle managers to organizational change.
This study used a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach through longitudinal studies. The number of participants in this study was nine middle managers who felt the impact of changes happening in the organization where they worked.
At the data collection stage, all participants were asked for approval to participate in the interview study. Interviews were conducted at the participant’s workplace, recorded, and verbatim transcripts were made.
One year later, the participants were contacted again and asked for their willingness to conduct an interview using the same procedure as the previous interview. The type of interview conducted was a semi-structured interview.
In the beginning, participants were asked to describe recent or ongoing organizational changes that had an impact on the way they did work. It aims to ensure that they experience the effects of change.
The next question is how participants perceive the changes happening in the place where they work. They were also asked to describe their experiences as middle managers in the early days of the change.
The second interview was conducted one year later, and they were given questions about how participants perceive the changes happening in their workplaces. They were also asked to describe their experiences as middle managers during the change period in one year.
Data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) with the following stages: comprehension of transcripts and initial recording, formulation of emergent themes, formulation of superordinate themes, patterns between cases/intervals of participants’ experiences (La Kahija, 2017).
After analysis, three superordinate themes were found as follows:
(1) The middle manager’s view on the change influences commitment to change at the beginning of organizational change. During the process of change, middle managers make judgments and considerations based on what they know, experience, and feel. This assessment is influenced by their cognitive and emotional. From this arises a change in mindset that organizational change must be supported, although the support on the change is caused by different reasons and different factors by each individual.
(2) There is a change in commitment of middle manager after one year of organizational change. In the first year, affective commitment to change and normative commitment to change was found, however in the second interview (one year later) the difference between affective commitment to change and normative commitment to change became less clear. The experiences they feel during a period of change affect cognitive change and affective change. The benefits of the changes they feel both in their changing ways of thinking and feeling positive emotions were the reasons for the middle manager implementing changes, they changed not only because of obligations (normative) but also for the perceived benefits and positive emotions they felt (affective).
(3) Factors influencing changes in commitment to change in middle managers include organizational support in the form of training to increase competence, clear and transparent information, good relations with superiors, leadership, participation in decision making, emotional attachment to the company and reasons for the changes.
Authors: Evi Kurniasari, Fendy Suhariadi, Fajrianthi
Details of this research available at http://journal.uad.ac.id/index.php/Psychology/article/view/12403
Purwaningrum, E.K., Suhariadi, F., & Fajrianthi (2019) Middle manager commitment to change : A Qualitative study. Journal of Educational, Health and Community Psychology, 8 (2): 47-65. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12928/jehcp.v8i2.12403
