Readiness for change : an individual perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand employees’ views of their readiness for change. The study explores employees’ retrospective interpretations of their experience with the elimination of the public service division of an organization that they worked for. A qualitative case study approach involving the utilization of deductive and inductive analyses was adopted. A conceptual model of readiness factors was adapted from the literature. The research findings indicated that the constructs of the conceptual model, discrepancy, appropriateness, personal valence, self-efficacy, and fairness influence employees’ readiness for change. As significantly, the findings revealed that the model should be expanded to include three additional factors that influence employees’ readiness: a sense of control, the passage of time, and a sense of the change inevitability. The study emphasized the importance of studying the change targets’ perspectives to enhance our understanding of change dynamics in organizations.