Leadership style and employee resistance to change : the mediating role of job satisfaction and organisational commitment

Alharbi, Abdullah Medari

Abstract

Although many scholars have recently indicated that an enormous number of organisational change initiatives fail due to several reasons, it has been argued that resistance to organisational change is one of the foremost reasons, if not the main reason, for failure of these initiatives. Surprisingly, this phenomenon has not been received adequate attention from researchers. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of two leadership styles, leader-member exchange (LMX) and transformational leadership (TL), on resistance to organisational change both directly and indirectly through the mediation effects of two work-related attitudes, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Furthermore, it sought to examine the relationship between some demographic characteristics (age, tenure, qualifications, and job level) of participants and their resistance to organisational change.
Instruments used in the current study were adopted from previously validated scale measures published in top academic journals. Data were collected from employees and their immediate managers at three Saudi organisations under process of organisational change. Of 753 questionnaires distributed, 449 questionnaires were returned, representing a response rate of 59.6%, and of these, 414 responses were usable. SmartPLS software was used to empirically test and estimate both the measurement and the structure of the proposed theoretical model.
As expected, the findings found evidence that the two leadership styles, leader-member exchange and transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and organisational commitment were correlated negatively to resistance to organisational change. Moreover, as hypothesised, the results of statistical data analysis showed that job satisfaction and organisational commitment mediated the relations of these two leadership’s styles with resistance. What is more, the study revealed that organisational commitment mediated the relationship between job satisfaction and resistance, and also LMX mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and resistance. Furthermore, unexpectedly, it was found that participants’ age, education, and their level of job negatively correlated with resistance to organisational change, whereas their tenure did not influence resistance.
Further analysis conducted showed interesting results such as that job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and LMX are correlated directly and negatively with the three sub-dimensions of resistance (affective, cognitive, and behavioural). However, they have the strongest relationship with participants’ behavioural resistance and the weakest relationship with cognitive resistance. On the other hand, TL was found related negatively with only the behavioural component of resistance. Moreover, it was found that job satisfaction and organisational commitment were mediators between the two leadership styles mentioned and the three components of resistance, and LMX was a mediator between TL and behavioural resistance. In addition, it was found that there were no differences between groups regarding the effects of job satisfaction, organisational commitment, leader-member exchange, and transformational leadership on resistance to organisational change. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of the findings are presented and future research directions are discussed.

Citation

Alharbi, A. M. Leadership style and employee resistance to change : the mediating role of job satisfaction and organisational commitment. (Thesis). University of Hull. https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4266893

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Apr 19, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 19, 2023
• Keywords: Organisational behaviour ; Business
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4266893
• Additional Information: Business School, The University of Hull
• Award Date: 2018-05