Projects

Change Management

Change Management Effectiveness Within the Paper Industry:
A Multi-Level Investigation

Project Description

In order to achieve the purposes and goals of this project, we propose to do the following:

Initial Qualitative Steps

1. We would expect to work with one to three paper industry organizations and their unions that have gone through significant organizational changes (e.g., merger, acquisition, downsizing, new technology) and that have had to make a significant number of subsequent internal changes. The number of specific change efforts studied within each organization would be determined by how many areas in the organization have been affected. Furthermore, the change efforts selected for study need to have the following attributes.

a. Each specific change should have affected the working lives of an entire work group (15 or more employees).
b. Projects need to have had a significant impact on the group in which they were implemented and be identifiable as a discrete change (e.g., installation of a new IT system).
c. The projects need to have been recently completed. This means within nine months of the survey administration (with shorter timeframes preferable). This is a necessary condition so that we can assess the outcomes from the project and that participants can still accurately remember what took place.
d. A significant number of the changes should have "objective" data available concerning the change project's success (e.g., extent goals were met, unit production changes) and about employee responses (e.g., absenteeism, tardiness, grievances filed).
e. For each change effort that involves unionized employees, we will need the union's support. The goals of the research will be explained to union representatives, and their inputs will be sought as to possible explanations for different levels of success with different change projects.

2. Direct observation and semi-structured interviews will be used to better understand each organization's culture and business practices. Key individuals in the organization will be queried about the specific change, the goals it was intended to achieve, and its current impact on the organization. Interviews will also be conducted with organizational members who were affected by the specific changes selected for study.

These site visits will facilitate our understanding of the general business issues in the organizations being studied, as well as any unique aspects concerning the organization, its processes, change-related efforts, or its people that will need to be reflected in our survey measures. We will also request additional qualitative and quantitative information from each organization. This information will include a mission statement, announced business strategies, and other documents about the organization's business philosophy along with workforce data (e.g., turnover rates, grievances).

All of these data will afford us a view of the context in which the organization's changes are taking place and will be extremely valuable as we construct the final survey instruments.

Empirical Data Collection - Overview

One of the biggest challenges of studying organizational change empirically is to be able to get independent assessments of what happened and responses to it. In order to do this, we will follow a method developed by us for previous work in this area (see Herold, Fedor, & Caldwell, 2002; Caldwell, Fedor, and Herold (2002a,b). The method randomly splits work groups and uses one half of the participants to provide information about the specific change, whether the change met its goals, how the organization managed the change, and what other changes were taking place. These data are collected in the Organizational Change Survey. The other half of the participants provide information on their own attitudes and responses toward the change and individual differences data. This is done in the Personal Change Survey.

All surveys will be accompanied by a cover letter that will explain the objectives of the study. The specifics for returning the surveys to the research team will be worked out with each participating organization. In some cases, there will be on-site data collection conducted by the research team. In other cases, the participants will be returning the surveys in pre-addressed envelopes or sealing them in envelopes and returning them to a designated organization representative. For organizational groups that have the capability, we can also gather the data via a website that has been designed specifically for our change research.

The data covering multiple levels of analysis are combined through a technique called Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). This analytical technique makes it possible to determine the empirical effects of events at other units/levels of analysis (e.g., organizational and work unit) on individual level responses. In this study, HLM allows us to use the data from both the change project level and individual characteristics to predict employee responses to change (the predictors are described in greater detail below).

In order for the study to yield meaningful results, we will need to study at least twenty specific change efforts and preferably in two or three organizations. The drivers for such changes can be such events as mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, or new technology.

Empirical Data - Predictors

1. Change Context - We will assess the extent to which other changes have been or are going on as a backdrop to the specific change being studied. This will be done using dimensions derived from Tushman and Romanelli's (1985) research. The five dimensions along which organizational turbulence will be assessed are: A). Culture -- the extent to which the basic values and beliefs of the organization have been changing; B). Strategy - the extent to which there have been changes in markets or products; C). Power - the extent to which there has been a shift in the individuals, groups or functions that control resource allocation; D). Structure - the extent to which reporting relationships, hierarchies, and relationships between roles have changed; and, E). Control systems - the extent to which there have been changes in the way organizational members' behaviors are monitored, rewarded, or controlled.

We will also include company and industry specific items derived from the observational and interview data discussed above. This will allow us to provide more targeted feedback to the participating organizations and help identify gaps in the turbulence dimensions.

2. Focal Change - The specific changes selected for study will be assess at two levels. First, the nature of the change will be measured at the work unit level (e.g., change in mission, leadership, and staffing) and, second, at the job level (e.g., changes in tasks and responsibilities). A starting point for scale development will be Herold, Fedor, and Caldwell (2002).

3. Change Management- The way the change was managed will be assessed on three dimensions derived from Brockner et al. (1994) and Beer's work (1980). These dimensions deal with perceptions of A) how procedurally fair the change implementation was, B) management's planning of the change, and C) management's support for the change. These latter dimensions (Planning and Support) are the same as the ones discussed above comparing the paper industry-related companies to the larger cross section of organizations. Further, we understand that there will be other specific issues regarding the setting of the change that may need to be included so that we can custom-tailor some information for each organization. For example, where unions play a significant role in the implementation, assessing the extent of union "buy-in" for the project would be very important.

4. Individual Characteristics - It is expected that the individuals involved in the change process will also influence the success of the change effort beyond those factors already discussed. There are two primary ways in which people can differ that might affect their response to change. These are individual demographics and personality. Demographics deal with objective qualities of an individual. The ones we anticipate being of interest within this study are the following: 1) tenure in the organization, location, and specific job, 2) age, 3) career history in terms of other types of jobs held, and, 4) the exposure the individual has had to different settings (geographical, industry, etc.) which may provide a different perspective vis a vis change.

Change-related personality will be assessed with three dimensions of the Big Five personality measures (Goldberg, 1992; Costa & McRae, 1992). The dimensions are "Conscientiousness"(i.e., ones' dependability and achievement orientation), "Emotional Stability" (i.e., how one handles stress) and "Openness to Experience" (i.e., one's enjoyment of new experiences). These have been theoretically linked to dealing with change and empirically associated with individual change-related responses in our earlier research.

Empirical Data - Outcomes

1. Employee Provided - We will assess individuals' affective and cognitive responses to the focal change that they experienced. This will be done through survey items concerning their attitudes toward the change, the effects the change has had on their level of commitment toward the organization, and how they believe they have been personally impacted by the change. We also anticipate gathering information on outcomes of interest to the participating organizations.

2. Organization Provided - We will assess a variety of change success measures such as goals being met, extent change project met budget guidelines, timeliness of the project, and possibly its impact on other areas in the organization (where applicable). If possible, this will be done twice since the effects of change projects often cannot be adequately captured in a single time period. Further, we will request objective data concerning employee responses (e.g., absenteeism, tardiness, grievances, turnover) before and after the change project.

As has been noted above, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of what influences the success of specific change efforts. This is somewhat surprising given all of the work that has previously been done on this topic. However, almost all of the research on change management has been done within separate frameworks and has not been designed to encompass this diverse set of influences.

Given this current state of affairs, there are some major contributions we hope to make from this proposed research project. First, the data generated from this study will allow us to more fully test the relationships that we have proposed in some of our earlier research (i.e., A paper has already been presented at the Society for Industrial and Organization Psychology, two papers have been accepted for presentation at the Academy of Management, and papers will soon be under review at the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Journal of Management). We believe that the findings from this study will be very compelling and thus publishable in the top management journals.

The second expected contribution is to put forth a more complete model of the change process detailing how the multiple influences function together to affect change success. At the end of this project, we should have sufficient evidence to elaborate many of the relationships. This will allow change-oriented researchers to further verify our results and to test other relationship indicated in the model (see Figure 1). Without this theoretical step, we feel the field will continue to do research on change that is limited in scope and usefulness.

As might be apparent from this proposal, we feel that we are on the verge of a significant break-through in the study of organizational change. The opportunity to work with interested paper industry companies on this topic will allow us to take some crucial steps in sorting out the change process. This is something that will enrich a number of management disciplines (e.g., Organizational Behavior and Organizational Development) and hopefully not only facilitate future studies, but truly reenergize change-based research.

This research will yield three types of understandings. First, there will be a deeper understanding of how participating paper companies have approached changes and change management, how their general environment has facilitated or impeded such efforts, and how organizational members have responded to such efforts. Second, to the degree that participating companies will be representative of the industry, this study will generate results generalizable to other paper industry companies, leading to recommendations concerning the planning for future changes, improving change implementation strategies, and monitoring of change efforts to ensure success. Finally, this research will generate knowledge about organizational turbulence, organizational change, and change management associated with major change activity in the paper industry. Where possible, we will compare these results to other change data we have collected from other industries.

Outputs, reflecting the above three types of knowledge, would be along the following lines:

1. The paper companies directly involved in the research will receive detailed reports of the findings for their organization and (with appropriate protection of confidentiality previously agreed upon) comparisons to other organizations in the study. These reports will include:

• An assessment of the impact multiple change events have had on employees.



• An assessment of the specific changes studied, their effectiveness, the extent to which they were embraced by individuals, were seen as effective, and how the change management effort was handled.



• Recommendations for managing the overall change environment, possible mid-course corrections for changes still going on, and recommendations concerning modifications in future change implementation strategies.

2. The sponsor of this research (IPST) will receive a report for dissemination to member companies synthesizing the findings from the research. Such a report will include:

• The range of findings concerning the "state of change" in the industry, change management practices, change implementation successes across the participating companies, comments on the industry based on such findings, and benchmarking data (as available) for other industries in our sample.



• A summary of change management practices and their consequences in terms of effectiveness, employee reactions, and any other positive or negative reactions.



• Recommendations for improved change monitoring, implementation, and strategizing.

Duration: 2 years