Beliefs underlying employee readiness to support a building relocation: A theory of planned behavior perspective

The purpose of this research was to examine the utility of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as a framework for understanding employee readiness for change. One of the major advantages of the TPB approach is its ability to identify the underlying beliefs that distinguish between those who intend and do not intend to perform the behavior under investigation. In the present study, the extent to which a sample of local government employees intended to carry out activities during a 6-month period that were supportive of their organization's relocation to new premises was examined. An elicitation study (N = 18) determined salient beliefs relating to the relocation. For the main study, 149 participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their behavioral, normative, and control beliefs in regards to the change event. A series of MANOVAs revealed statistically significant differences between employees with moderate compared to high intentions to engage in changesupportive behaviors on a range of beliefs. Implications of these findings for designing change management strategies that help foster readiness for change are discussed.