Change fatigue: Development and initial validation of a new measure

Abstract Although organizational change often places strain on employees, few studies have explored the impact of multiple organizational changes on their well-being and withdrawal, including organizational commitment and turnover intentions. To provide a means of directly investigating such issues, we developed a measure of change fatigue, and then empirically examined its implications for employees. Using data from change consultants and a manufacturing organization in the United States that had undertaken a number of organizational changes over the last three years, the authors developed a six-item measurement scale, obtained initial evidence of construct validity, and then investigated the relationship between change fatigue and harmful outcomes, including exhaustion, organizational commitment and turnover intentions. Results indicated that change fatigue was positively associated with exhaustion, and exhaustion was in turn negatively related to organizational commitment and positively related to turnover intentions. Implications for organizations and employees facing multiple changes are discussed.

[1]  Timothy R. Hinkin,et al.  A Brief Tutorial on the Development of Measures for Use in Survey Questionnaires , 1998 .

[2]  M. Leiter.  Coping patterns as predictors of burnout: the function of control and escapist coping patterns , 1991 .

[3]  Zinta S. Byrne,et al.  The relationship of emotional exhaustion to work attitudes, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[4]  Michael S. Cole,et al.  Organizational identity strength, identification, and commitment and their relationships to turnover intention: Does organizational hierarchy matter? , 2006 .

[5]  Angelo J. Kinicki,et al.  Employee coping with organizational change: An examination of alternative theoretical perspectives and models. , 2008 .

[6]  K. Parkes,et al.  The effects of transition stress: A relocation study , 1999 .

[7]  A. Bedeian,et al.  Organizational Change: A Review of Theory and Research in the 1990s , 1999 .

[8]  John P. Wanous,et al.  Understanding and managing cynicism about organizational change , 1997 .

[9]  Heike Bruch,et al.  Affective mechanisms linking dysfunctional behavior to performance in work teams: a moderated mediation study. , 2008, The Journal of applied psychology.

[10]  A. Pettigrew,et al.  Studying Organizational Change and Development: Challenges for Future Research , 2001 .

[11]  Robert Hogan,et al.  Personality and the Fate of Organizations , 2006 .

[12]  S. Jackson,et al.  The Measurement of experienced burnout , 1981 .

[13]  Y. Baruch,et al.  Organizational Anxiety: applying psychological concepts into organizational theory , 2007 .

[14]  Quy Nguyen Huy,et al.  Emotional Capability, Emotional Intelligence, and Radical Change , 1999 .

[15]  Cynthia D. Fisher,et al.  The availability of personal and external coping resources: their impact on job stress and employee attitudes during organizational restructuring , 1993 .

[16]  Richard S. Lazanis.  Stress and emotion, a new synthesis , 1999 .

[17]  Q. Huy.  Time, Temporal Capability, and Planned Change , 2001 .

[18]  S. Hobfoll.  Conservation of resources. A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. , 1989, The American psychologist.

[19]  S. Tvedt,et al.  Does change process healthiness reduce the negative effects of organizational change on the psychosocial work environment? , 2009 .

[20]  Donald B. Fedor,et al.  THE EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES ON EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT: A MULTILEVEL INVESTIGATION , 2006 .

[21]  Frances J. Milliken.  Three Types of Perceived Uncertainty About the Environment: State, Effect, and Response Uncertainty , 1987 .

[22]  Ljiljana Eraković.  Researching organisational change in the public sector , 2006 .

[23]  Johannes Ullrich,et al.  Continuity and Change in Mergers and Acquisitions: A Social Identity Case Study of a German Industrial Merger , 2005 .

[24]  R. Liden,et al.  Perceived Organizational Support And Leader-Member Exchange: A Social Exchange Perspective , 1997 .

[25]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models , 2004, Behavior research methods, instruments, & computers : a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.

[26]  C. H. Lawshe.  A QUANTITATIVE APPROACH TO CONTENT VALIDITY , 1975 .

[27]  Tom R. Tyler,et al.  Process‐orientation versus outcome‐orientation during organizational change: the role of organizational identification , 2006 .

[28]  D. A. Mack,et al.  The Stress of Organisational Change: A Dynamic Process Model , 1998 .

[29]  Mitchell Lee Marks,et al.  Charging Back Up the Hill: Workplace Recovery After Mergers, Acquisitions and Downsizings , 2003 .

[30]  L. Porter,et al.  The Measurement of Organizational Commitment. , 1979 .

[31]  Mark A Griffin,et al.  Perceptions of organizational change: a stress and coping perspective. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[32]  Achilles A. Armenakis,et al.  Leader–member social exchange (LMSX): development and validation of a scale , 2007 .

[33]  A. Noblet,et al.  Organizational change in the public sector: Augmenting the demand control model to predict employee outcomes under New Public Management , 2006 .

[34]  S. Hobfoll.  The Influence of Culture, Community, and the Nested-Self in the Stress Process: Advancing Conservation of Resources Theory , 2001 .

[35]  John Child,et al.  THE CONTEXT AND PROCESS OF ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION ‐ CADBURY LIMITED IN ITS SECTOR , 1987 .

[36]  Steffanie L. Wilk,et al.  Display rule "regulators": the relationship between supervisors and worker emotional exhaustion. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[37]  B. Arnetz,et al.  Organizational change, health, and sick leave among health care employees: A longitudinal study measuring stress markers, individual, and work site factors , 2008 .

[38]  A. Denisi,et al.  Communication with Employees Following a Merger: A Longitudinal Field Experiment , 1991 .

[39]  S. Folkman,et al.  Stress, appraisal, and coping , 1974 .

[40]  Blake E. Ashforth,et al.  A meta-analytic examination of the correlates of the three dimensions of job burnout. , 1996, The Journal of applied psychology.

[41]  P. Bordia,et al.  Job uncertainty and personal control during downsizing: A comparison of survivors and victims , 2005 .

[42]  W. Schaufeli,et al.  Job burnout. , 2001, Annual review of psychology.

[43]  D. Marlowe,et al.  A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. , 1960, Journal of consulting psychology.

[44]  Andrew Hede,et al.  Resistance to organisational change: the role of defence mechanisms , 2001 .

[45]  J. Halbesleben,et al.  Burnout in Organizational Life , 2004 .

[46]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[47]  William H. Glick,et al.  Studying Changes in Organizational Design and Effectiveness: Retrospective Event Histories and Periodic Assessments , 1990 .

[48]  D. Chan.  Functional Relations among Constructs in the Same Content Domain at Different Levels of Analysis: A Typology of Composition Models , 1998 .

[49]  T. A. Wright,et al.  Emotional exhaustion as a predictor of job performance and voluntary turnover. , 1998, The Journal of applied psychology.

[50]  John P. Meyer,et al.  AFFECTIVE, CONTINUANCE, AND NORMATIVE COMMITMENT TO THE ORGANIZATION: A META-ANALYSIS OF ANTECEDENTS, CORRELATES, AND CONSEQUENCES , 2002 .

[51]  Robert R. Hirschfeld,et al.  Achievement and avoidance motivational orientations in the domain of mentoring , 2006 .