The relationships among managers' perceptions about an impending change in their organization, perceptions about the change outcomes, and job outcomes in a telecommunications company in Taiwan

Lin, Chun-Yu

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/46724 Copy

Description

Title

The relationships among managers' perceptions about an impending change in their organization, perceptions about the change outcomes, and job outcomes in a telecommunications company in Taiwan

Author(s)

Lin, Chun-Yu

Issue Date

2014-01-16T18:00:20Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Jacobs, Ronald L.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Jacobs, Ronald L.

Committee Member(s)

• Hackmann, Donald G.
• Zhang, Jinming
• Huang, Wen-Hao

Department of Study

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Discipline

Human Resource Education

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Organizational change
• Manager
• Expectation
• Perceptions
• Job outcomes
• Change impact

Abstract

Rapid environmental changes have forced organizations to engage in various strategies for remaining competitive. When informed of an impending change, employees usually form their own expectations about what will happen to them as a result of this unknown situation. After a change occurs, employees have their perceptions about what has been actually altered. The time between when expectations form and when the change actually occurs, which may confirm or disconfirm the expectations, often leads to high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity. However, few studies have been conducted that seek to understand how employee expectations might be related to subsequent employee outcomes. Most studies have focused simply on negative effects of organizational change on employees rather than examining change and its impact on employees’ feelings and perceptions during a period of change, failing to take into account various problems and barriers to successful change have commonly existed in organizations. There is a need for studies that examine the relationships among employee expectations about change, their perceptions about change outcomes once a change has been implemented, and about job outcomes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among managers’ perceptions about the impending change in their organization, their perceptions about the change outcomes, and the subsequent job outcomes, and the moderating effects of individual factors and change impact on the relationships involving other related variables. The following research questions guide this study: 1. What is the relationship between managers’ perceptions about the impending change and their perceptions about the change outcomes? 2. Do managers’ individual factors affect the relationship between their perceptions iii about the impending change and their perceptions about the change outcomes? 3. Does change impact affect the relationship between managers’ perceptions about the impending change and their perceptions about the change outcomes? 4. Do managers’ expectations about the impending change, perceptions about the change outcomes, individual factors and change impact relate to their job outcomes? 5. What have managers learned from their experience with this organizational restructuring? The research setting for this study was a telecommunications company in Taiwan. In January 2011, two branches of this company underwent an organizational restructuring in response to the merging of two political districts, as part of the national government’s policy. Of the two branches of this company, one had 1200 employees, and the smaller had 300 employees. The researcher collected quantitative data in order to identify the correlational relationships among managers’ feelings and perceptions during organizational restructuring. Furthermore, the researcher collected qualitative data by conducting interview for answering the last research question. Thus, this study consisted of two phases of data collection and respondent selection. The surveys were distributed to the selected participants. In terms of interview, the researcher invited 15 managers at different position levels to share their personal experiences and opinions about this organizational restructuring. The results show that managers’ perceptions about the impending change were positively related to their perceptions about the change outcomes. Managers’ perceptions about the impending change were different from their perceptions about the change outcomes. In addition, managers’ individual factors (POS, OC, and self-efficacy) affected the relationship between managers’ perceptions about the impending change and their perceptions about the change iv outcomes. In some situations, change impact on work processes affected the relationship between their perceptions about the change and their perceptions about the change outcomes. Also, managers’ expectations about the impending change, perceptions about the change outcomes, POS and OC are positively related to their job satisfaction. Managers’ self-efficacy was positively related to job performance. Change impact was not related to managers’ job outcomes. The results of the interviews show that managers did now know much about this organizational restructuring before it was officially announced. When informed about it, most of them did not have feelings since they have experienced organizational change in this company. They did not take any actions to find out details about this change before the organizational change took place although managers had different concerns at that time. After change, most of the managers stated that the increasing work load was the most obvious change impact. Overall, managers were positive when asked about their current feelings about their company. They provided advice about change including fours aspects: about company’s downsizing strategy, advice for managers, advice for individual career and profession, and advice for subordinates’ work attitude. Based on the findings, the implications for both HRD future research and HRD practice were provided.

Graduation Semester

2013-12

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46724

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Copyright 2013 Chun-Yu Lin

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