Measuring the Behavioral Properties of Commitment and Resistance to Organizational Change

The goal of this study was to develop and validate behavioral measures of employees’ commitment and resistance toward organizational change. The scales were developed using an “imposed etic–emic–derived etic” perspective, the act frequency approach, principal components and confirmatory factor analysis. Five Canadian government departments participated across the three stages of the study. The measures were tested in four departments (N = 583). Both scales were found to be valid and reliable. This study supports the following conclusions. First, resistance to change may not be as conceptualized in the management literature (i.e., strategies or behaviors used by employees to slow down or avoid the implementation of organisational change). Rather, our findings suggest that employees resist change by “voicing their concerns about change.” Second, only those employees who are committed to the change are likely to make the effort to “voice their concerns” to those above them in the hierarchy