Psychological change climate as a crucial catalyst of readiness for change: a dominance analysis

The aim of this inquiry was to explore the relationships between four psychological change climate dimensions (trust in top management, history of change, participation in decision making, and quality of change communication) and readiness for change. By means of a large scale survey administered in 56 Flemish public and private sector organizations, we collected in total 1,559 responses. These data were used to test the hypotheses about the role of context (i.e. trust in top management and history of change) and process factors of change (i.e. participation in decision making and quality of change communication) in engendering readiness for change. In general the results of the hierarchical regression analyses supported the four hypotheses. This implies that trust in top management, a positively perceived change history, participation in decision making and excellent change communication, have positive correlations with readiness for change. Furthermore, different patterns are observed with respect to the relative contribution of process and context factors in explaining the overall readiness for change and the three sub dimensions (i.e. emotion, cognition and intention). Despite these differences, a major conclusion is that the perceived change process and change context are salient antecedents of people’s attitude towards change. This study contributes to the literature by looking at the combined effects and relative contributions of change communication, participation in decision making, trust in top management and history of change on readiness for change. In addition, readiness for change is measured as a multidimensional construct comprised of an emotional, cognitive and intentional component, whereas previous inquiries considered it as a one-dimensional construct.