Employees' perception of organizational change: the mediating effects of stress management strategies.(Statistical data)

Organizational change is the process whereby an organization converts from an existing state to a hoped-for future state in order to increase its effectiveness. For employees, organizational change may produce negative effects, such as ambiguous role responsibilities, unemployment, a lowering of social status, and family and job conflicts.

Schweiger and DeNsi (1) and Hellriegel, Slocum, and Woodman (2) have pointed out that organizational changes can be viewed as the greatest source of stress on the job and, perhaps, in an employee's life. Kotter (3) has pointed out that, while each is important, the core problems of organizational changes are never strategy, structure, culture, or system. Rather, the real problems arise when deciding how to help employees adapt to the change. Schabracq and Cooper (4) believe that employees' stress rises because positions and technical skills may be changed or altered. When employees cannot make necessary technical adjustments, a sense of uncertainty arises about the future, which, in turn, creates stress. This uncertainty can affect employees' job commitment and job satisfaction.

Furthermore, trust is an important foundation of cooperative relationships between people. Once an organization begins changing, its employees may face threats to their jobs, roles, positions, and resources, and these threats can lower employees' trust in their organization as a whole. This reaction can negatively manifest in employees' attitudes toward their work. (5) When individuals contemplate the stress of organizational change, their perceptions, choice of reaction strategies, and working attitudes all strongly influence whether the change will be successful and whether the newly reconstituted organization will function efficiently.

To address changes in the world economy and national political realities during the 1990s, the Executive Yuan of Taiwan presented a plan to merge some central government organizations and eliminate-hundreds of federal jobs. These changes were intended to increase operating efficiencies and lower expenditures from the treasury. Police and military organizations, including the Ministry of National Defense, the Coast Guard Administration, the National Police Agency, and the National Fire Agency, all faced large staff reductions. According to Hui and Lee, (6) the government's announcement of the mergers and staff reductions produced strong shocks in the affected organizations.

This study uses the uncertainty of expected organizational change to explore employees' perceptions of external changes, as well as the relationships among employee trust, stress management, organizational identification, and job involvement. It is hoped that the conclusions can serve as a reference point for governmental departments initiating changes.

Literature Review and Hypotheses

To survive and expand, organizations must quickly adapt to changes in their environment. If organizations do not change, they lose their ability to compete. When the environment changes and the niche originally filled by the organization either becomes unimportant or is superseded, the organization must change or die. Hodge and Johnson (7) believe that when change has the potential to lower a person's position or change the person's job description or freedom, the person is likely to resist the change. The studies of Storseth showed that job insecurity is related to individuals' perceptions of changes: The greater the threat is perceived to be, the greater the perception of job insecurity. (8) Role stress is the uncertainty of change. Role stress includes role ambiguity, role conflict, and role pressure. (9)

Change in an organization will produce some uncertainty, frustration, and anxiety among employees that will have long-term effects on employees' attitude and psychology. (10) Hui and Lee found that the expectation of changes led employees to experience psychological uncertainty about the potential loss of current position, unemployment, role pressure, and reduction of available resources. Employees may also lose trust in the organization as a whole. (11) Dekker and Schaufeli (12) pointed out that there is an inverse relationship between perception of job insecurity and trust.

Liaw, Fan, and Wu (13) believe that when employees doubt whether they can adapt to a change by their organization--or whether their positions, workload, and workplace will be changed--those doubts will influence the employees' trust and relationships with their organization and also with their superiors and peers.

Based on the findings from earlier studies of how employees perceive and react to organizational change, that the study described in this article was conducted to determine whether employees' uncertainty about a change in their organization is associated with lowered levels of trust in their organization.

Hypothesis 1: The greater the uncertainty associated with a perceived change, the less trust an employee has for the organization.

Stress refers to the physical and emotional reactions of an individual faced with external psychological and physical stimulation that the individual cannot control or know the outcome of . (14) George and Jones (15) believe that stress management strategies can be used to change perceptions and behavior when external and internal demands exceed personal resources. Such strategies can be divided into personal problem-oriented strategies and emotion-oriented strategies.

After an organization changes, employees will suffer from stress brought about by uncertainty, threat of job loss, changes in responsibilities, and transfers of authority. (16) Stress causes a reduction in the effectiveness of the organization, high desertion rates, low morale, and low job satisfaction. (17) Therefore, stress management should be used to resolve and relieve stress. Chen pointed out that the privatization of state-owned businesses resulted in insecurity, role conflict, and work pressure for employees, which could be lessened by developing positive interpersonal relationships, good time management skills, and personal self-control. (18) Apparently, the stronger the negative perceptions an employees has of the change being made at his or her organization, the greater the stress will be and the greater the need for stress management strategies will be.

Hypothesis 2: The greater the uncertainty of organizational change, the greater the need for stress management strategies.

Organizational identification has been defined as "perceived oneness with an organization and the experience of the organization's success or failures as one's own." (19) When employees face organizational changes, they easily lose confidence in the change because they do not receive proper information, resulting in a reduction of identification and job satisfaction. (20) The greater the employee's understanding of organizational changes, the greater the employee's identification and job involvement will be, and the greater the influence on organizational effectiveness. (21) Uncertainty about the nature and outcomes of organizational change leads to greater job insecurity and decreased job satisfaction and commitment. Job insecurity results in emotional stress and creates resignation tendencies, resulting in a lowering of organizational identification and of job involvement. (22) Furthermore, role stress created by organizational change can also lower organizational morale. (23) Hence, when an organization threatens its employee with job insecurity or uncertainty, employees will not be likely to develop high levels of organizational commitment. (24)

Hypothesis 3-1: The greater the uncertainty of organizational changes, the lower employees' organizational identification.

Hypothesis 3-2: The greater the uncertainty about the nature and outcome of organizational changes, the lower levels of job involvement employees will have.

Trust refers to the willingness of an individual to believe and rely on another party. (25) Based on the research of Deluga, (26) trust can be divided into organizational trust, superior trust, and peer trust. George and Jones found that good stress management strategies have a significant positive effect on stress, and the greater the level of trust of employees, the greater the influence of stress management strategies in response to job stress. (27) Lindsay (28) pointed out that employees can relieve stress by developing more open relationships with co-workers and supervisors. Stress management strategies such as involving employees in planning, encouraging communication and open discussions, and encouraging trust in the organization are also effective in reducing the stress brought on by changes in the work environment.

Hypothesis 4: The greater the trust of employees in the organization, the greater the use of stress management strategies in response to stress.

An organization can provide employees with opportunities to develop job-related skills, give them support in problem solving, and provide communication support, thus satisfying employees' needs for professional growth and organizational trust. When an organization provides such opportunities, employees' identification with the organization will increase.

Rajnandini, Schriesheim, and Williams (29) have suggested that the expression of trust between managers and employees is directly related to job commitment and job satisfaction. Nyhan's research on governmental organizations found that interpersonal trust between managers and subordinates can increase productivity and commitment. (30) As can be seen, strong positive relationships underlie strong organizational trust, job commitment, and job satisfaction. (31)

Hypothesis 5-1: The greater the trust employees have in their organization, the greater the employees' identification with their organization.

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