ABSTRACT
Employees’ reactions to organizational change are affected by transformational leaders, who foster employees’ readiness for and commitment to change and motivate them to act in support of the change. However, just how transformational leadership affects employees remains unclear. To address this gap in knowledge, the present study analyses work engagement and the perceived consequences of a change (valence) as motivational mechanisms that explain the influence of transformational leaders on employees’ behaviour during change. The study engaged 328 employees who were experiencing organizational change to complete a survey and used structural equation modelling for data analysis. Results show that work engagement and valence function as mediators in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee behaviour during change, so two motivational mechanisms are identified that shed light on the leadership process. Transformational leadership increases employees’ work engagement and perceptions of attractive change consequences, subsequently evoking employee behaviour in support of change. In doing so, the study expands the research on the role of transformational leadership during organizational change and helps to sensitize managers about how they can positively influence employees in the course of organizational change.
Introduction
Because of developments such as digitization, globalization and demographic change, organizations must change continually if they are to stay competitive (Doppler, Fuhrmann, Lebbe-Waschke, & Voigt, 2011). Organizations initiate processes of change that include adopting new strategies, adjusting structures and implementing new or more flexible forms of employment (Doppler et al., 2011). Since many organizational changes fail to reach their defined objectives (Beer & Nohria, 2000; Burnes, 2011), empirical research on the factors of successful change has grown (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002; Oreg, Vakola, & Armenakis, 2011). While there are multiple reasons for the low success rates of organizational change processes, researchers have found that employees themselves have a profound impact (e.g. Bormann & Rowold, 2016; Oreg et al., 2011; Self, Armenakis, & Schraeder, 2007), as it is them who put planned changes into action and respond to the variations in their work routines that come with organizational changes. If planned changes are not realized on the individual level, they cannot be successful on the organizational level, so employees’ motivation and behaviour have been found to be crucial to the success of organizational changes (Kim, Hornung, & Rousseau, 2010; Van den Heuvel, Demerouti, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2010; Woodman & Dewett, 2004).
