Applied psychology: theory and practice

Perceptions of Organizational Change: A Stress and Coping Perspective:

Rafferty and Griffing (2006) note that there have been few studies that have identified the facets of organizational change that are important to individuals and influence well-being. As such, the authors research brought to light three unique change characteristics: "the frequency, impact and planning of change" (p. 1154). The authors used Lazarus and Folkman's cognitive phenomenological model of stress and coping to theorize how these change characteristics affect how individuals view the uncertainty of the change and the effects this has on job satisfaction and related retention of employees.

With this in mind, Rafferty and Griffing's (2006) research supported several hypotheses. If employees perceived change as being deliberate and occurring with planning, psychological uncertainty was not related. However, if change was frequent or resulted in significant changes to the core of the organization, it was positively related to psychological uncertainty. Likewise, a second set of hypotheses were developed that centered on the effects of psychological uncertainty and the perception of change. Psychological uncertainty was theorized to be related to negative job satisfaction and increased turnover intentions. If employees perceive change as occurring as being planned and deliberate that this will result in increased job satisfaction and reduced turnover intentions. When change is perceived to occur frequently, it indirectly negatively affects job satisfaction and results in increased turnover intention. Job satisfaction is hypothesized to be negatively related with perceived changes to the organization's core aspects, but is positively relationship with turnover intentions. Lastly, when change was perceived to occur frequently it was also theorized that this would be negative related to job satisfaction, but positively directly affect turnover intentions.

Employee Resistance to Organizational Change: Managerial Influence Tactics and Leader-Member Exchange:

Furst and Cable (2008) investigated how managerial influence tactics affected employee resistance to organizational change. The authors begin with the understanding that "organizations are cooperative systems that rely on the willingness of members to behave in ways that support the organization" (p. 453). They use attribution theory to develop their hypotheses regarding not only how influence tactics affect employee resistance to change, but also the ways these relationships are moderated by the leader-member exchange.