Rethinking 'Top-Down' and 'Bottom-Up' Roles of Top and Middle Managers in Organizational Change: Implications for Employee Support

Abstract

In this study we integrate insights from ‘top-down' and ‘bottom-up' traditions in organizational change research to understand employees' varying dispositions to support change. We distinguish between change initiation and change execution roles and identify four possible role configurations in which top managers (TMs) and middle managers (MMs) can feature in change. We contend that both TMs and MMs can play change initiation and/or change execution roles, TMs and MMs have different strengths and limitations for taking on different change roles, and their relative strengths and limitations are compounded or attenuated based on the specific configuration of change roles. We subsequently hypothesize employee support for change in relation to different TM-MM change role configurations. Our findings show that change initiated by TMs does not engender above-average level of employee support. However, change initiated by MMs engenders above-average level of employee support, and even more so, if TMs handle the change execution.

Full text

Accepted for publication in Journal of Management Studies
RETHINKING ‘TOP-DOWN’ AND ‘BOTTOM-UP’ ROLES OF TOP AND MIDDLE
MANAGERS IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: IMPLICATIONS FOR
EMPLOYEE SUPPORT
Mariano L. M. Heyden1
pitosh.heyden@monash.edu
Monash Business School
900 Dandenong Rd, Building N, Room xxx
Caulfield East, VIC 3145, Australia
Phone: +61 (0)xxxx xxxxx
Sebastian P. L. Fourné
sfourne@wlu.ca
Wilfrid Laurier University
75 University Ave. W (LH 4108)
Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5, Canada
Phone: +1-519.884.0710 (x3980)
Bastiaan A. S. Koene
bkoene@rsm.nl
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
Burg. Oudlaan 50 (Room T10-46)
3062PA Rotterdam, Netherlands
Phone: +31 (0)10 4081927
Renate Werkman
renate.werkman@kantelwerkers.nl
Kantelwerkers
Commissarislaan 50
8016 LB Zwolle, Netherlands
Phone: +31 (0)6553 74947
Shahzad (Shaz) Ansari
s.ansari@jbs.cam.ac.uk
Cambridge Judge Business School
University of Cambridge
Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1AG, UK
Phone: +44 (0)1223 768 128
Acknowledgments:
The authors would like to thank Daniel Güssow, Udari Ekanayake, Justin J. P. Jansen, Yasemin Kor, Baylor
Parker, Heidi Wechtler, and participants at the WHU doctoral course participants in 2015 for their willingness to
provide input at different stages of the project. Part of this work was conducted while the first author was
affiliated with the University of Newcastle (Australia). All remaining errors and omissions are our own.
1 Corresponding author
This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been
through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process which may lead to
differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as a Journal
of Management Studies (‘Accepted Article’), doi: 10.1111/joms.12258
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
1
RETHINKING ‘TOP-DOWN’ AND ‘BOTTOM-UP’ ROLES OF TOP AND MIDDLE
MANAGERS IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: IMPLICATIONS FOR
EMPLOYEE SUPPORT
ABSTRACT
In this study we integrate insights from ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ traditions in
organizational change research to understand employees’ varying dispositions to support
change. We distinguish between change initiation and change execution roles and identify
four possible role configurations in which top managers (TMs) and middle managers (MMs)
can feature in change. We contend that both TMs and MMs can play change initiation and/or
change execution roles, TMs and MMs have different strengths and limitations for taking on
different change roles, and their relative strengths and limitations are compounded or
attenuated based on the specific configuration of change roles. We subsequently hypothesize
employee support for change in relation to different TM-MM change role configurations. Our
findings show that change initiated by TMs does not engender above-average level of
employee support. However, change initiated by MMs engenders above-average level of
employee support, and even more so, if TMs handle the change execution.
Keywords: change execution, change initiation, change roles, employee support, middle
managers, top managers.
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
2
INTRODUCTION
Top managers (TMs) and middle managers (MMs) rely on employee support to realize
planned organizational change (Coch and French, 1948; Huy, Corley, and Kraatz, 2014).
Organizational change entails ‘directing (and redirecting) resources according to a policy or
plan of action, and possibly also reshaping organizational structures and systems so that they
create and address technological opportunities and competitive threats’ (Teece, 2012, p.
1398). Fostering employee support is crucial for avoiding costly delays, deviations, or even
failures of intended change (Mantere, Schildt, and Sillince, 2012; Niehoff, Enz, and Grover,
1990; Yang, Zhang, and Tsui, 2010). Yet, generating support from the workforce remains an
elusive target for managers involved in organizational change (Van Riel, Berens, and Dijkstra,
2009; Wooldridge and Floyd, 1990). This raises lingering questions about how TMs and MMs
foster employee support through the roles they are expected to play in organizational change.
Change initiation and change execution are key roles of TMs and MMs in
organizational change (Hales, 1986; Herrmann and Nadkarni, 2014; Pinto and Prescott, 1990).
Change initiation entails the ‘spark’ for change through activities such as identifying,
articulating, and outlining an opportunity for change, formulating the initial business case,
emphasizing its urgency, and securing key budgetary and resource commitments. Change
execution in turn is about realizing change plans through activities such as day-to-day
adjustments, rolling out initiatives, aligning activities with stated objectives, translating
overarching goals into periodic milestones, and giving sense and direction to change
recipients. Despite the inherent interplay between these change roles, the literature is still
divided along ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ assumptions about ‘who does what.’
Change can be conceptualized as ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’ based on the roles played
by managers across the hierarchy1 (Burgelman, 1983; Raes et al., 2011). Top-down
perspectives view TMs as initiators of change (Carpenter, Geletkanycz, and Sanders, 2004),
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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traditionally portraying MMs as reluctant executors (Balogun and Johnson, 2005; Guth and
MacMillan, 1986). In turn, bottom-up perspectives (Wooldridge, Schmid, and Floyd, 2008)
emphasize the pivotal role of MMs in initiating change (Burgelman, 1983; Glaser, Stam, and
Takeuchi, 2016; Huy, 2001), but assume that TMs are not always receptive to initiatives
emanating from below (Day, 1994; Dutton et al., 1997; Friesl and Kwon, 2016; Rouleau,
2005). Although both top-down and bottom-up streams have been illustrative, they have
largely developed in parallel and have each reinforced a restricted range of change roles that
TMs and MMs can play—with little cross-fertilization. As a result, ‘alternative’ ways in
which TMs and MMs may feature in organizational change remain undertheorized.
In this study we integrate role assumptions from top-down and bottom-up perspectives
in organizational change to explain employees’ dispositions towards change. We argue that it
matters who plays what role (i.e., TMs and/or MMs) and hypothesize how employees’
dispositions towards supporting change may vary in relation to four possible TM-MM change
role configurations: Change initiated and executed by TMs (H1), change initiated by TMs and
executed by MMs (H2), change initiated by MMs and executed by TMs (H3), and change
initiated and executed by MMs (H4). Our approach challenges stereotypical assumptions
about change roles in top-down and bottom-up perspectives and encourages a more
comprehensive understanding of possible ways TMs and MMs can feature in organizational
change. Taking into account the relative strengths and limitations of TMs and MMs for taking
on different roles in organizational change further elucidates why employees may vary in their
receptiveness to change.
Our approach allows us to contribute to the literature on organizational change by (1)
suggesting that change initiation and execution is not endemic to TMs and MMs respectively,
but that both TMs and/or MMs can play change initiation and/or execution roles, (2)
specifying the differing strengths and limitations of TMs and MMs in taking on different
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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roles, (3) theorizing how TMs’ and MMs’ strengths and limitations may be compounded or
attenuated through different ways in which TMs and MMs can feature in organizational
change, and (4) explaining varying dispositions of employees in relation to different change
role configurations of TMs and MMs. As ‘successful organizational adaptation is increasingly
reliant on generating employee support and enthusiasm for proposed changes’ (Piderit, 2000,
p. 783), our approach provides insights into how change characterized by different TM-MM
role configurations is received by non-managerial members of the workforce (Fedor,
Caldwell, and Herold, 2006; Fenton-O'Creevy, 1998; Rouleau, 2005).
CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES
Cross-echelon roles in organizational change
TMs and MMs are expected to be centrally involved in initiating and executing change
(Balogun, 2007; Heyden, Sidhu, and Volberda, 2015; Knight and Paroutis, 2016). The
theoretical origins of top-down approaches to studying organizational change can be traced
back to Chandler (1962) who interpreted change as a TM activity (see also Child, 1972). The
associated assumptions have been exemplified in traditions such as Upper Echelons Theory
(Hambrick and Mason, 1984), where emphasis is on the roles of managerial actors at the
organization’s apex (Wiersema and Bantel, 1992). Scholars in the top-down tradition tend to
ascribe unique role expectations to TMs, such as driving ‘turnarounds’ (Chen and Hambrick,
2012). However, theorization in this tradition tends to ignore the complementary roles of
MMs (Carpenter et al., 2004), even treating MMs as obstacles (Fenton-O'Creevy, 2001),
while sometimes scapegoating MMs for unfavorable outcomes (Balogun, 2003).
In response to the dominance of top-down perspectives, bottom-up interpretations
received mainstream acclaim with the work of Kanter (1981) who praised MMs’ role in
challenging the status quo. Burgelman (1983) followed up by documenting how bottom-up
initiatives from MMs can form the basis for organization-wide change. Contemporary
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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thinking on bottom-up approaches is often captured in what has become known as the Middle
Management Perspective (Wooldridge et al., 2008), which advocates and documents the
pivotal roles of MMs in driving change from the organization’s core (Balogun and Johnson,
2004; Huy, 2002; Wooldridge and Floyd, 1990). Scholars advocating the bottom-up approach,
however, often neglect the importance of TMs filtering through competing priorities (Friesl
and Kwon, 2016), attending to multiple stakeholders (Agle, Mitchell, and Sonnenfeld, 1999),
and contextualizing the paradoxical demands of change (Knight and Paroutis, 2016).
Collectively, top-down and bottom-up interpretations highlight that (1) change
ultimately rests on the interplay between both change initiation and change execution roles
and (2) change roles are not endemic to either TMs or MMs. Yet, research on organizational
change remains divided along stereotypical, and perhaps even errant, assumptions about who
does what in organizational change (Hamel and Zanini, 2014). Most commonly, the
expectation that change is initiated by TMs and executed by MMs is rarely challenged
(Kotter, 1995). Yet, these assumptions unnecessarily constrain our overall understanding of
change, as top-down models tend to omit the possibility of ‘MMs as change initiators’ and
bottom-up perspectives neglect the potential role of ‘TMs as change executors.’
MMs as initiators of change. MMs are often presented as impediments to change
(Balogun, 2003; Rouleau and Balogun, 2011). However, there is evidence indicating that
MMs can, and do, initiate change (e.g., Glaser, Stam, et al., 2016; Huy, 2001; Mantere, 2008).
In particular, MMs more directly confront technological and market developments (Fourné,
Jansen, and Mom, 2014; Taylor and Helfat, 2009). This intimate exposure motivates them to
advance ideas (Dutton and Ashford, 1993) that can lead to rethinking the strategic priorities of
their own units (Galunic and Eisenhardt, 2001) and eventually of the whole organization
(Burgelman, 1983). By taking the lead in initiating organization-wide change MMs capitalize
on synergies across units (Taylor and Helfat, 2009) and showcase their willingness and ability
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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to exercise strategic leadership—which can be crucial for career advancement, reputation
development, and mobility (Mom, Fourné, and Jansen, 2015; Ren and Guo, 2011).
TMs as executors of change. TMs have also been known to execute change. As TMs
have a ‘big picture’ overview of how different sub-units interlink throughout the
organization’s value chain, they can interpret performance-feedback from rollout activities
holistically and adjust the execution swiftly as information becomes available (Lee and
Puranam, 2015). Whereas MMs are often expected to represent sub-unit interests and have
more blind spots regarding distant organizational units (Reitzig and Sorenson, 2013; Ren and
Guo, 2011), TMs’ formal authority, access to resources, and external networks may help
legitimize execution by rolling out change from an organizational-wide perspective, reducing
concerns of unit-specific favoritism (Day, 1994).
The aforementioned juxtaposition highlights that change initiation and change execution
are co-dependent roles, but not exclusive to a particular managerial echelon. Carrying this
premise forward, we propose that a useful vantage point to conceptualize change is through
the specific configuration of TM and MM change roles (i.e., who initiates and who executes).
We argue that TMs and MMs have relative strengths and weaknesses for taking on change
initiation and change execution roles. In turn, these strengths and limitations may be
compounded or attenuated based on the specific way in which TMs and MMs feature in
organizational change. As a result, change may be differentially received by non-managerial
members of the workforce in relation to the specific roles played by TMs and/or MMs in
organizational change (Fedor et al., 2006; Rouleau, 2005).
Employee responses to change role configurations of TMs-MMs
Employees are not passive recipients of change (Bartunek et al., 2006; Iverson, 1996).
Fedor et al. (2006, p. 2) note that ‘attitudinal reactions to change are thought to be driven, in
part, by feelings of uncertainty, loss of control, and fear of failure engendered by the change
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
7
events (e.g., Ashford, Lee, and Bobko, 1989; Coch and French, 1948; Oreg, 2003).’ To
counteract these factors and foster support, we can expect that employees will tend to be more
supportive of change when they have accurate information to reduce uncertainty (Sharma and
Good, 2013), feel empowered and in control of their contribution to the bigger picture
(Greenberger and Strasser, 1986), and confident in their beliefs about the organization’s
ability to handle the change (Griffin, Neal, and Parker, 2007). However, TMs and MMs differ
in the informational specificity of their communications, which affects uncertainty
experienced by employees (Raes et al., 2011; Taylor and Helfat, 2009); bases of authority
through which they ‘get things done’, which could affect the sense of control experienced by
employees (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1997; Westley, 1990); and the nature and frequency of
interaction with employees, which can appease or accentuate their fear of failure (Fenton-
O'Creevy, 1998; 2001).
Building on the aforementioned, we argue that the strengths and weaknesses of TMs
and MMs may be reinforced or counterbalanced depending on the role configuration through
which they feature in an organizational change. Accordingly, we proceed to hypothesize how
employees’ attitudes towards change may vary based on the net-effects of four different role
configurations: Change initiated and executed by TMs (H1), change initiated by TMs and
executed by MMs (H2), change initiated by MMs and executed by TMs (H3), and change
initiated and executed by MMs (H4).
Change initiated and executed by TMs. Some evidence suggests that centralizing
the handling of change at the top, when both change initiation and execution are in the hands
of TMs, is associated with lack of engagement and participation from organizational
members, resistance to change (Pardo del Val and Martínez Fuentes, 2003), foot dragging
(MacMillan and Guth, 1985), and lack of trust (Lines et al., 2005). Employees perceive TM-
driven change initiation as coercive (J.D. Ford, Ford, and D'Amelio, 2008), or even unfair
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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(Kellermanns et al., 2005), accentuating their feelings of powerlessness (Ashforth, 1989).
Ahearne, Lam, and Kraus (2014, p. 10) note that TMs are seldom fully informed when
initiating change. As a consequence, TMs ‘might prefer communicating nothing to
communicating information that later turns out to be incorrect’ (Schweiger and Denisi, 1991,
p. 111) and thus may provide employees with less information about the rationale of changes
and focus more on the outcomes to be achieved. In doing so, TMs often assume lower levels
of employees to be less strategically aware (Armenakis and Harris, 2002) and that ‘[w]hen
followers have little information, they have little reason to act differently from what the leader
prescribes’ (Bolton, Brunnermeier, and Veldkamp, 2013, p. 514). Thus, TMs may fail to
translate the rationale for desired future states in digestible bits that employees can make
sense of to reduce uncertainty (Armenakis, Harris, and Mossholder, 1993).
TMs also tend to articulate change plans in a broad, sometimes visionary (Hamel and
Prahalad, 2005) manner, with less detail and in ways that are aimed at an undifferentiated
stakeholder audience (Vuori and Huy, 2016). The lack of detail, due to TM taking on change
initiation, will be compounded by the fact that when TMs execute change, change plans are
less likely to be translated into concrete and actionable projects. This may further cultivate
fear of failure, as employees may not feel sufficiently informed about what change means for
their subunit and their personal interests (Armenakis and Harris, 2002). As such, employees
may feel that the general organizational benefits overshadow their own concerns for job
security, training, and personal development. Thus, personal valence of the change is likely to
be low and may contribute to feelings of uncertainty and low confidence in their own and
organizational ability to successfully realize the change. Thus, as the net-effect we expect
that:
HYPOTHESIS 1 (H1): Change initiated and executed by top managers will be
negatively related to employee support for change.
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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Change initiated by TMs and executed by MMs. In this configuration the
challenges of TMs’ initiation in eliciting employee support discussed in the previous
hypothesis are expected to be counterbalanced by MMs proximity to the workforce. While
TMs elucidate the change in broad, visionary ways, MMs translate these general output-
oriented plans into concrete everyday activities that employees can understand (Balogun,
2007; Nonaka, 1988). Due to MM’s unique position as a ‘linking pin’ between TMs and the
workforce, they are at the nexus of key knowledge flows (Mom, Van Den Bosch, and
Volberda, 2007) and have access to information from both TMs and day-to-day operations
(Hutzschenreuter and Kleindienst, 2006; Nonaka, 1994).
Being closer to employees in terms of more frequent interactions, MMs are in a better
position to identify and resolve employee concerns and to frame the true implications of
executing the change at hand for them (Ellerup Nielsen and Thomsen, 2009). MMs are better
equipped to articulate solutions for unforeseen problems and for addressing inconsistencies
between the ‘ideal’ and the ‘real’ by using more relatable language. Given their position in the
organization, MMs translate strategic objectives into concrete operational changes that lead to
more positive evaluations of the potential change outcomes and more active employee support
for the change process (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1997). MMs’ informational specificity may
increase granularity of process milestones and evoke a sense of participation among
employees as the changes are discussed. This may elicit more supportive attitudes among
employees as they can see appropriateness and feasibility of changes more clearly (Armenakis
and Harris, 2002). Thus, we propose that as a net-effect:
HYPOTHESIS 2 (H2): Change initiated by top managers and executed by
middle managers will be positively related to employee support for change.
Change initiated by MMs and executed by TMs. When MMs initiate change they
may be better positioned than TMs to create a strong conviction among employees that
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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change is needed and to engender trust in individual and organizational capacities to
undertake it (Armenakis et al., 1993). As MMs tend to be more directly affected by change
themselves, given that they incur sunk and learning costs (Heyden, Sidhu, et al., 2015),
employees may believe that change initiated by MMs must be truly necessary. This may
suggest fairness of the change and fairness of how employees will be treated during or after
the change (Rodell and Colquitt, 2009). In addition, MMs’ knowledge of operations and
employee concerns helps in devising fit-for-purpose communication, which can improve
clarity in change initiation processes that may be favorably received by employees (Van Riel
et al., 2009).
However, MMs may be prone to position bias and favoring their unit’s goals over
organization-wide goals (Huy, 2011; Reitzig and Maciejovsky, 2014). TMs can
counterbalance this possible bias through their organization-wide focus that allows them to
translate MMs’ change initiatives to fit into organization-wide strategic thrusts (Collier,
Fishwick, and Floyd, 2004). Moreover, MMs usually lack the authority or legitimacy to
introduce organization-wide changes (Day, 1994). As TMs have a more comprehensive view
of the value chain, they can more swiftly pre-empt and react to bottlenecks during execution.
Hence, the involvement of TMs might be crucial for efficient allocation of supporting
resources (Raes et al., 2011). Thus, when TMs execute change initiated by MMs, employees
may perceive that the concerns and ideas developed at other levels within the organization are
taken seriously by TMs given the upward flow of ideas and TMs’ willingness to adopt them
(Burgelman, 1984). This perceived participation may increase receptivity to change by
signaling principal support and sponsorship of the change (Noda and Bower, 1996). Thus, as
the net-effect we expect that:
HYPOTHESIS 3 (H3): Change initiated by middle managers and executed by top
managers will be positively related to employee support for change.
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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Change initiated and executed by MMs. The configuration where MMs initiate and
then execute the initiatives is characterized by high autonomy of those who are closest to the
employees. Arguably, MMs have a better understanding of employees’ perspectives and are
better placed to gain their support for change and its integration into work processes (King
and Zeithaml, 2001). In fact, employees may expect that if those who are closer to them are
driving change and are executing it, employee concerns will be accommodated in the change
initiative throughout its realization (Huy, 2002). As such, when MMs are highly involved in
change, there is less chance of misinterpretation of ideas or confusion arising from translation
losses across organizational levels (Balogun, 2007; Ouakouak, Ouedraogo, and Mbengue,
2014). Consistency in communication will be high and likely trigger favorable attitudes (Beer
and Eisenstat, 1996). Also, the messages regarding the change will be easier to understand
and relatable because there is less information and power asymmetry between MMs and
employees than between TMs and employees (Armenakis and Harris, 2002).
MMs often adopt a process-orientation when executing planned change due to their
intra-organizational focus (Reitzig and Sorenson, 2013; Vuori and Huy, 2016). Because of the
proximity, employees will more likely feel that they are in a position to provide input and thus
increase their sense of participation, which has been linked to favorable attitudes (Van Dyne
and LePine, 1998). MMs as facilitators may be in a better position to absorb what additional
information and skill-upgrades are needed by employees for them to feel empowered and
have confidence in their ability to successfully realize the change (Balogun, 2003; Caldwell,
Herold, and Fedor, 2004). Initiation by MMs may offer opportunities for proactive
involvement in strategy processes for employees (Van Dyne and LePine, 1998), which
usually entails positive attitudinal responses (Gopinath and Becker, 2000). It is worth noting
that despite the favorable response expected, this configuration might make the change
somewhat slower from an organizational perspective, and thus the overall effect may not be as
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
12
pronounced as when TMs execute the change. However, employees might receive this
moderate pace favorably, as it gives them the opportunity to make sense of the change
gradually. Thus, in this role configuration we expect that:
HYPOTHESIS 4 (H4): Change initiated and executed by middle managers will be
positively related to employee support for change.
DATA & METHODS
Research design and sample
We collected multi-respondent data from organizations undergoing substantive
planned organizational change using networks of three Dutch management-training institutes.
These organizations had enrolled several of their members as participants in change
management modules provided through the network of management training institutes. The
organizations represented were all i rolling out a change plan of sufficient significance to
warrant resources to be committed to upgrading the knowledge, skills, and tools of key
organization members at different hierarchical levels (i.e., formal training of personnel was
also a component of their change plans). Participants in the module were managers, frontline
supervisors, or internal consultants/support staff; thus, participants reflected the varied
internal stakeholder groups of the organization undergoing change. Participants were
instructed to fill out one questionnaire themselves and encouraged to distribute several
questionnaires among members of their organization they considered generally
knowledgeable about the change. Over 3,200 questionnaires were completed and returned in
usable form, corresponding to 602 different organizations (average 5.29/organization; sd
3.75). Inter-rater scores (rwg) for the variables used in the multivariate analyses ranged
between 0.75 and 0.87 (James, Demaree, and Wolf, 1993). These scores provide us with
confidence in the inter-rater reliability of the research design.
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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Measures and operationalizations
Our measures are based on two existing questionnaires on organizational change that
have been extensively used and validated both for survey feedback in change processes in
individual organizations and for large-scale survey research on organizational change
(Bennebroek Gravenhorst, 2002; Bennebroek Gravenhorst, Werkman, and Boonstra, 2003).
Independent variables. We used two questions to capture who took the initiative for
change and who was involved in change execution. Change initiation relates to impetus for
change, so who the respondent believed was primarily responsible for triggering the change
initiative. Change execution relates to who the respondent believed was primarily responsible
for driving day-to-day choices during the change process. Respondents could select
corresponding actors for both these items from a non-exclusive list that included, top
managers, middle managers, staff members, consultants, employees, regulators, boards of
directors, and ‘other’. To further clean the data, and in line with our theory, we also excluded
cases that were not primarily executed by either TMs and/or MMs (e.g., external consultants;
Heyden et al., 2013).
We also excluded cases where respondents may have indicated both TMs and MMs as
initiators or executors, as this could introduce noise to the data. To further mitigate
unobserved heterogeneity due to changes driven by different motives, we focused on
responses that indicated they were undergoing extensive discretionary change (i.e., change
processes that can be initiated within the latitude of action of both TMs and MMs; Finkelstein
and Hambrick, 1990), excluding questionnaires from organizations that were undergoing
mergers and acquisitions, crises, or mandated regulatory changes. This reduced the sample to
around 2,000 responses to be included in our subsequent analyses. Finally, we computed four
categories corresponding to the TM-MM role configurations hypothesized. In our final
sample analyzed, 47.55% were initiated and executed by TMs (H1), 28.14% initiated by TMs
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
14
and executed by MMs (H2), 3.14% initiated by MMs and executed by TMs (H3), and 21.18%
initiated and executed by MMs (H4). This approach, next to non-systematic missing data that
were excluded, further reduced the valid sample to 1,795 observations within 468
organizations. Although these criteria are strict and reduced the usable sample from the larger
dataset, it allowed us to test our hypotheses on the most applicable empirical domain
corresponding to our theory based on a specific subset of our dataset. This approach, however,
carries with it a note of caution that our findings are not intended to be generalized beyond the
scope of these types of changes.
Dependent variable. Our dependent variable ‘employee support for change’ was
measured based on four items rated on a five-point Likert scale regarding perceived necessity
of changes, contribution and pro-activeness of employees, the extent to which employees are
willing to effectuate change, and employees’ degree of enthusiasm for the change
(Bennebroek Gravenhorst et al., 2003). Confirmatory factor analysis showed that these items
loaded on a single dimension and average variance extracted was 63.82% based on a principal
component extraction (J.K. Ford, MacCallum, and Tait, 1986). Cronbach’s alpha indicated
satisfactory reliability (0.81) and the scale was constructed based on the mean of the items.
Control variables. We controlled for several key variables. First, organizational size in
terms of employees (log transformed), given that larger organizations tend to have a different
organizational structure, more asymmetries of information, and fewer opportunities to interact
than smaller organizations and may thus experience change differently (Raes et al., 2011). We
also included dummies to control for unobserved industry effects (i.e., business,
manufacturing, services, utilities and other regulated, and government units and NGOs) as
well as the focus of the change, as changes aimed at market improvements or changes aimed
at internal functions disrupt different capabilities and could elicit different attitudes from
employees (Wilden and Gudergan, 2015). Respondents could select multiple applicable
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
15
motives for change processes in question. As multiple responses were possible, we
distinguished between the scope of internally-focused changes (i.e., implementing new
technology, improving efficiency, increasing flexibility, restructuring business processes, and
cost-cutting) and market-focused changes (i.e., improving innovativeness, competitive
positioning, and increasing customer-orientation). This variable was calculated as the sum of
items pertaining to each category as indicated by the respondent.
We also included scales that captured goal clarity to capture clarity of, and agreement
about, the change goals and the realization of change goals. Four items on a five-point multi-
item Likert scale posited, for instance, ‘it is clear where the organization is going with the
change,’ with an average variance extracted 61.25% on the respective factor and Cronbach’s
alpha of 0.79. We included two scales that capture the perceived management style during the
change: directive change style to measure the extent to which the change process was being
carried out with very little or no involvement of employees; and participative change style to
measure the extent to which the change process was characterized by space for different
opinions and employee input. Three items, each on a five-point Likert scale, posited, for
instance, ‘employees have little or no say in what happens during the change’ and ‘there is
plenty of room for ideas from employee,’ respectively, for directive and participative change
approaches. CFA corroborated the factor structure and Cronbach’s alphas were 0.64 and 0.76
for directive and participative approach, respectively. All multi-item scales were computed
based on the mean of the items.
As we are measuring perceptions, we also controlled for several potential respondent
effects. We included expected chance of success of the change as those with low expectations
have been shown to be more cynical in their evaluation of change-related variables (Reichers,
Wanous, and Austin, 1997). We did so by asking respondents to indicate how they would
estimate the percentage chance of success of the change initiative: (1) 0-10 %, (2) 11-20 %,
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
16
(3) 21-30%, (4) 31-40%, (5) 41-50%; (6) 51-60%, (7) 61-70%, (8) 71-80%, (9) 81-90%, or
(10) 91-100%. We controlled for whether the respondent was a member of the change
reference group (i.e., respondents who were enrolled in the course and whom we viewed as
potentially being more ‘actively’ involved in the change process) and further controlled for
the consequences for a respondent’s position to gauge the extent to which they felt their
current position would be affected by the change, ranging from 1 = very negative to 5 = very
positive, as anticipated harm and benefits constitute psychological reasons organizational
members may have a priori attitudes supporting or resisting a particular change initiative
(Cunningham et al., 2002). Finally, we included respondent age (interval scaled) as
perceptions and attitudes towards change have been shown to vary with age (Bal et al., 2012).
Common method variance. We adopted two complementary approaches for
diagnosing whether common method variance (CMV) was biasing our results (Podsakoff et
al., 2003). First, we adopted the classical Harman single factor model to see whether there
was a first ‘general’ factor that explains more than half of the total variance extracted. Factor
analysis results indicate that the first factor did not capture the majority of the variance and
each factor accounted for at least 62% of the average variance extracted. Then, we adopted
the approach advocated by Podsakoff et al. (2003) by modeling an unmeasured latent
construct on all items, next to letting them load on their respective theoretical constructs. An
unmeasured latent construct did not account for more than 1.89% of average variance in the
latent constructs. Therefore, we conclude that CMV does not appear to be biasing our results.
ANALYSIS & RESULTS
We analyze our data using Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE)—which is an
extension of the Generalized Linear Model that allows for non-independence of observations
caused by nesting, clustering, repeated measures, and/or longitudinal observations (Ballinger,
2004; Echambadi, Campbell, and Agarwal, 2006). Recent applications with non-independent
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
17
observations have attested to its versatility and robustness (Bogaert, Boone, and Van
Witteloostuijn, 2012; Paeleman and Vanacker, 2015). We accounted for potentially correlated
error terms (i.e., multiple respondents from the same organization) by specifying the GEE as a
two-level model with individual observations nested within the organization. We assess the
adequacy of our models based on Wald’s chi square (Zheng, 2000).
----------------------------------------
Insert Tables 1 & 2 about here
----------------------------------------
Results
Table 1 shows the bivariate correlations for the variables considered in this study. As
no anomalies were diagnosed from our correlation table, we proceeded to conduct our
multivariate analyses in several stages (Table 2). We first estimated a model with control
variables only (Model 1), then corresponding models with control variables plus the specific
parameter corresponding to each of our hypotheses, treating the remaining categories
collectively as the reference group (Models 2-5). Although this approach is informative, to
provide a more robust validation of our model given that the general reference group captures
the remaining three role configurations without differentiation, we sought to estimate a model
with the categories for the four TM-MM role configurations simultaneously. In order to draw
conclusions about the four TM-MM role configurations hypothesized, we estimated the model
without an intercept and include all categories (i.e., no reference category) in the model.
Excluding the intercept and including all categories is one way of avoiding the ‘dummy
variable trap’ while allowing for simultaneous inclusion of all categories.2 Inclusion of all
variables in the final model did not change the pattern of results displayed in previous stages,
and we base our interpretation on this model (Model 6).
For our first hypothesis (H1), we expected that change initiated and executed by TMs
would be negatively related to employee support for change. Findings reported in Model 6 in
Table 2 indicate a non-significant coefficient (b = 0.04), thus not providing support for this
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
18
hypothesis. For H2, we expected a positive relation between change initiated by TMs and
executed by MMs, however, although in the predicted direction, this coefficient was not
significant (b = 0.01). We found statistical support for H3, in which we expected that change
initiated by MMs and executed by TMs would be positively related to support for change
(b = 0.59; p < .01). Our final hypothesis (H4) was also supported, where we expected a
positive relation between change initiated and executed by MMs and employee support for
change (b = 0.25; p < .001).
DISCUSSION
In this study we have examined how employee support for change varies in relation to
different ways TMs and MMs can feature in organizational change. We have advanced a role-
configurational approach to propose that although change initiation and change execution are
key roles in the orchestration of change, both TM and MM can initiate or execute change—
albeit with different approaches to how they enact these roles. We have shown that these TM-
MM role configurations (i.e., the specific pairing of who initiates and who executes) are a
useful vantage point for integrating key insights from top-down and bottom-up perspectives
on change. Our findings based on survey data from 1,795 respondents in 468 organizations
undergoing change show that top-down change does not engender above-average level of
employee support, regardless of whether the change is executed by TMs or MMs. However,
employee support for change is boosted when change is initiated by MMs and executed by
either TMs or MMs, with the strongest positive attitudes being evoked when MMs take on the
initiation and TMs take on the execution—although this is the rarest configuration observed in
our sample. Our theorizing and findings have important implications and contributions.
Implications and contributions
Rethinking managerial change roles. Although people’s roles represent expectations
associated with social positions (Fondas and Stewart, 1994; Hales, 1986), and therefore
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
19
facilitate continuity of behaviors (Biddle, 1986; Floyd and Lane, 2000), they can also be
loosely and dynamically structured (Mantere, 2008). Our main findings reveal that change
characterized by MMs initiating change tends to receive the highest support among the
workforce, especially when change is executed by TMs. This finding implies that TMs and
MMs have distinctive role-taking strengths and weaknesses that are most valuable in
particular configurations. For instance, capitalizing on MMs strengths for initiating change
(e.g., proximity to employees, deep knowledge of core technologies) with the strengths of
TMs for contextualization, and for efficient and legitimate allocation and redistribution of
resources, seems to engender the strongest support for change from employees.
Our theory and findings accentuate a blurring distinction between ‘thinking’ and
‘doing’ often proliferated in scholarship and management education through dichotomized
labels like ‘strategy formulation’ versus ‘tactical implementation’ (Hales, 1986; Herrmann
and Nadkarni, 2014; Pinto and Prescott, 1990). Conventional thinking is still dominated by
models of change assuming that TMs initiate change and either assume delegation of its
execution to MMs (Balogun and Johnson, 2005; Huy et al., 2014; Lüscher and Lewis, 2008)
or do not explain how the theorized change comes about (Westley, 1990). We nuance TMs’
and MMs’ differential agency in taking on various change roles (Mantere, 2008). Our findings
show that when these roles are enacted in direct contrast with ‘traditional’ views on TMs’ and
MMs’ roles (Fondas and Stewart, 1994), the likelihood of generating support throughout the
organization is the highest. We especially underscore that there might be relative pros and
cons inherent in the distinctive features of TMs and MMs that need to be theorized for
understanding how they enact different change roles. By distinguishing between change
initiation and execution as conceptually distinct roles, arguing that both TMs and MMs can
take on either role, and embracing the core strengths and weaknesses of TMs and MMs in
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
20
enacting these roles, we offer one way of clarifying the debate on how managers across
hierarchical levels influence organizational change.
Effectiveness of top-down and bottom-up perspectives. Our theory and findings
support the view that change agents can be found at many levels in organizations (Denis,
Lamothe, and Langley, 2001; Plowman et al., 2007). Although studies focusing on TMs have
made commendable calls for inclusion of MMs (Carpenter et al., 2004; Menz, 2012), even
recent efforts embracing these calls by co-theorizing the roles of both TM and MMs tend to
assume that change initiation cascades downwards (cf. Heyden, Sidhu, et al. 2015; Knight and
Paroutis, 2016; Thomas, Sargent, and Hardy, 2011) with less emphasis on how change may
also spring upwards. We have introduced the notion of TM-MM change role configurations
as one vantage point for interpreting and consolidating these complementary streams of
thought, embracing insights from both. Our findings suggest that there is value in
simultaneously theorizing about the different roles of TMs and MMs and acknowledging how
their differences can be configured for synergistic advantage, instead of focusing just on TMs
or MMs or even blaming each other for being unenthusiastic (MMs) or unwilling to listen
(TMs). As a conceptual lens, our role configurational approach resonates with role based
approaches to complex organizational phenomena (e.g., Järventie-Thesleff and Tienari, 2016;
Matta et al., 2014; Vandenberghe, Bentein, and Panaccio, 2014) and more specifically, role
agency (Floyd and Lane, 2000; Mantere, 2008), as well as configurational theorizing
(Busenbark et al., 2015; Meyer, Tsui, and Hinings, 1993) to develop novel insights that add to
understanding the role of different managerial echelons in organizational change.
Our findings also indicate that the most supported configuration is the least common
one (MM initiation, TM execution) in our sample. This attests to the inherently
counterintuitive nature of implementing this role configuration in practice. Given the high
failure rate of change processes (Hickson, Miller, and Wilson, 2003), often attributed to a lack
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
21
of support and understanding at lower levels (Huy et al., 2014), our study underscores the
need to further develop and empirically validate emergent theory on the interplaying and
dynamic roles of TMs and MMs in organizational change. Developing an understanding of
the strengths and weaknesses that TMs and MMs bring to the table, without being overly
constrained by traditional beliefs and expectations about these actors’ roles, is an important
step in this area.
Cultivating employee support for change. Our cross-echelon insights into
organizational change are valuable for contemporary organizations given the increasing
pressure for change and need for involvement of the whole workforce (Kotter, 2014) amid
rising uncertainty and accelerated pace of development in many industries (Teece, 2014). A
main focus of our study—eliciting employee support and enthusiasm for change—is a key
responsibility for TMs and MMs to realize change plans (Huy, 2002; Huy et al., 2014;
Rafferty, Jimmieson, and Armenakis, 2013). Our multi-echelon perspective (i.e., including
TMs and MMs and employees) offers insights into how employees respond to ‘who does
what’ in organizational change. As a result, we provide insights into why change may unfold
as planned and why some change initiatives fail (i.e., failure to foster employee support). Our
findings provide a platform for further work on examining the contingencies that may shape
such cascading effects (Yang et al., 2010). It is surely worthwhile for organizations to
mobilize support for change among employees and to motivate them to pursue organization-
wide interests. Employees are not resistant to change by default; but they may vary in their
responses to roles played by TMs and MMs in organizational change. Overstepping this
conceptual hurdle allows us more latitude for understanding how we can better tap into the
non-managerial workforce to realize organization-wide change (J.D. Ford et al., 2008; Oreg,
2003; Piderit, 2000).
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
22
Managerial implications. Our theory and results bear important implications for
directing the attention of future research on change management. Our managerial implications
speak to both TMs and MMs. We find that when change is characterized by traditional views
(i.e., change initiated and executed from the top), it has no significant effect on employee
support for change. This seems to turn the change premises of traditional top-down
perspectives (e.g., lack of employee understanding and engagement) into self-fulfilling
prophecies. MMs may feel forced to execute and do strictly what is expected of them. As a
result, MMs may fail to engage in extra role behaviors necessary to actively ‘think along’ and
inspire employees (Heyden, Sidhu, et al, 2015). This may translate into a more ‘clinical’
interpretation of the change process at lower levels and reduce support among employees.
Our study’s results imply that planned organizational change needs to be understood
from a multi-echelon perspective—leveraging complementarities between TMs and MMs. In
contrast to existing research portraying the ‘other’ group as a barrier (Dutton et al., 1997;
Guth and MacMillan, 1986; Huy et al., 2014), we advocate more open-minded approaches to
rolling out planned change that turn differences between TMs and MMs into fruitful
opportunities. The good news is that it is possible to mobilize support among employees and
to motivate them to pursue organization-wide interests (Glaser, Stam, and Takeuchi, 2015).
However, TMs and MMs need to be mindful of their co-dependence, the change roles they
embrace, and how they embrace these roles. Failing to embrace this opportunity can impair,
deviate, or retard the realization of change plans. Considering our findings, it may be
worthwhile for TMs to encourage MMs to initiate change that eventually could permeate the
whole organization (De Clercq, Castañer, and Belausteguigoitia, 2011). TMs can help MMs
make sense of the initiative at hand from an organizational perspective, and can reframe and
selectively stimulate activities during the change process, for instance, through validation or
provision of resources (Fourné et al., 2014) and by promoting the development of change
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
23
platforms to allow MMs to initiate change (Hamel and Zanini, 2014). Organizations can also
nurture the requisite skills through targeted management development programs that focus on
MMs’ idea selection, framing, and upward communication as well as TMs’ execution
abilities.
Future Research Avenues and Limitations
We offer several promising research avenues towards developing a comprehensive
theory of how TMs and MMs combine to drive organizational change. First, our findings beg
for further investigation of the performance outcomes resulting from the different role
configurations. A fruitful avenue would be to examine and consolidate the micro-processes
through which TMs and MMs can actually make different role configurations work. Indeed,
research in this area is gaining significant momentum, albeit in diverse niches, such as quality
of change communications (Boselie and Koene, 2010; Vuori and Huy, 2016), shared
professional identities to stimulate extra-role behaviors (Heyden et el., 2015), a shared
interpretative context to cope with the paradoxical change demands (Knight and Paroutis,
2016), strategic consensus involving different management levels (Tarakci et al., 2014), and
integrative bargaining between TMs and MMs (Raes et al., 2015). Our study on TM-MM role
configurations adds an important conceptual frame that allows us to organize, develop, and
critically evaluate this nascent literature and question extant assumptions regarding the roles
that TMs and MMs play in organizational change.
Second, we encourage the need for understanding anteceding factors that may
influence why TMs and MMs take on different roles (e.g., underperformance, career
aspirations, environmental conditions) as well as how different properties of change (e.g.,
type of change) moderate the relation between ensuing role configurations and other possible
outcomes (e.g., change success, actual employee behaviors). We thus recommend expanding
our understanding of organization, group, and individual level factors—which can include
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
24
factors such as values (Gentry et al., 2013), behaviors (Tuncdogan, Acar, and Stam, 2016),
personality (Furnham, 2016), succession (Georgakakis and Ruigrok, 2016), intra-echelon role
differentiation (Buyl et al., 2011; Heyden, Reimer, and Van Doorn, forthcoming), and rules
(Simons, 2013)—moderate the relationships between different role configurations and
employee support for organizational change. This could reveal complementarities, but also
substitution effects and further enrich our understanding of the various pathways to planned
organizational change (Birkinshaw and Ansari, 2015). In addition, enriching our model with
deeper insights about leadership styles and leadership behaviors across echelons could be
informative (Deichmann and Stam, 2015; O'Reilly et al., 2010).
Third, taking a temporal perspective would allow for disentangling the dynamic nature
of exchanges between TMs and MMs. This could be related to goal clarity for different units
and the organization as a whole and allow for developing a more comprehensive
understanding of why some change projects are able to better leverage the allocated resources
across business units. We welcome more research on how these actor groups can interact
effectively to enable adaptability at both the organization and local unit levels (Glaser,
Fourné, and Elfring, 2015; Van Doorn et al., 2015). We suggest tracing direct sources of
variation in actors’ behaviors and empirical assessment over time of the effectiveness of
interpersonal and information exchange processes, that link TMs and MMs in change
initiatives. Such perspectives may inform how TMs and MMs enact the roles they undertake.
Future research may uncover what TMs may be able to learn from MMs and vice versa in
enacting change roles. This should also be reflected in the (perhaps joint) training and
development of these key actors.
Fourth, MMs’ change initiation can lead to the convergence of MMs’ and
organizational goals (Tannenbaum and Massarik, 1950) given that MMs are known to care
about their subordinates (Huy, 2002). This creates a fascinating linkage between strategy
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
25
process research and agency theory in terms of providing a mechanism for aligning interests.
This linkage has been ignored as far as agency theorists tend to assume self-interest of
managers (Eisenhardt, 1989). Thus, future research could benefit from more in-depth studies
about how goals and incentives converge when organizational change emerges at lower levels
and the management control mechanisms required (Reimer, Van Doorn, and Heyden, 2016a;
b). This research could explain convergence among organizational, unit-level, and personal
goals.
Our study has several limitations. Our empirical investigation is set in the context of
firms undergoing substantive planned organizational change. Although we control for the
locus of change, future studies could benefit from refining not only the intra-, but also extra-
organizational contingencies that may shape the roles of TMs and MMs in organizational
change—and that may provide further insights into when top-down and when bottom-up
approaches have their limits. Our analyses are based on planned organizational change in
Dutch organizations. While these findings may resonate with other European contexts, they
may be less relevant in other contexts that merit further investigation.
In addition, despite having multiple respondents per organization, which is widely
encouraged as a best practice in survey research (e.g., Eddleston, Kellermanns, and Sarathy,
2008), we relied on the judgment of the members of the change reference group to determine
who were knowledgeable about the change process in question. As we have established the
relevance of different hierarchical levels, future studies could consider a stratified sampling
approach to ensure insights are proportionally obtained from predefined expectations about
different organizational levels or functions. Future work based on longitudinal research
designs can draw on objective indicators to supplement self-reported data for a clearer picture
of focal change processes and their consequences. Another avenue to add important boundary
conditions to our work on the implications of different role configurations is looking at how
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
26
different role configurations are moderated by different specific properties of change
processes, for instance, by making distinctions between exploratory and exploitative
processes (e.g., Kwee, Van Den Bosch, and Volberda, 2011). The role of environmental
moderators could also help refine our baseline theory, as well as expand the theoretical focus
beyond TMs and MMs by considering, for instance, the roles of boards (Heyden, Oehmichen,
et al., 2015), regulators and competitors (Ansari, Garud, and Kumaraswamy, 2015), and/or
external consultants (Heyden et al., 2013), and their approaches to enacting different change
roles. We believe all of these are exciting and fruitful areas for further research into how TMs
and MMs collectively matter for our understanding of organizational change processes and
their outcomes.
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
27
NOTES
1 TMs comprise the managers highest up in the hierarchy (Carpenter et al., 2004), whereas
MMs are situated below TMs, but above supervisory levels (Wooldridge et al., 2008).
2 The most common approach to avoid the ‘dummy variable trap’ is to drop one of the
categories and interpret the marginal effect of the other categories relative to the reference
(dropped) category. Another equally viable approach would be to drop the intercept and
estimate all the categories in the model (see e.g., Baltagi, 2011; p., 81). The preference is
typically based on the more theoretically meaningful interpretation, but should produce the
same pattern of results and overall conclusion (see Hu et al., 2016 for a recent application).
This approach is not new and has been used, for instance, by Fombrun and Zajac (1987, p. 41)
who note in their study where they test three categories ‘…the use of three dummy variables
rather than two dummy variables and an intercept term—presents no problems. As Maddala
(1977, p. 34) noted: “If we do not introduce a constant term in the regression equation, we can
define a dummy for each group.” The typical procedure of dropping one of the dummy
variables is simply “more convenient,” according to Judge, Hill, Griffiths, Luetkepohl, and
Lee (1982: 484).’ As our aim at this stage in the literature is not to say whether one
configuration is ‘better’, but rather highlight that change characterized by each of the four
TM-MM role configurations may elicit different levels of employee support for change, we
believe that showing all categories in one model (i.e., Model 6 in Table 2) is most intuitive to
interpret. We thank an anonymous senior editor for encouraging us to clarify this approach.
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TM-MM Change Roles & Employee Support
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APPENDIX
Table 1: Correlationsa
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18)
(1) Employee Support for Change
(2) CI TM - CE TM -0.08
(3) CI TM - CE MM 0.01 -0.08
(4) CI MM - CE TM 0.02 -0.03 -0.01
(5) CI MM - CE MM 0.08 -0.09 -0.03 -0.01
(6) Market-Focused Change 0.09 0.04 0.02 -0.04 0.01
(7) Internally-Focused Change -0.08 0.04 0.02 0.05 0.00 0.14
(8) Respondent Age 0.03 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.01 0.03 0.08
(9) Goal Clarity 0.40 0.00 0.05 0.00 0.06 0.05 0.08 0.10
(10) Directive Change Style -0.35 0.05 -0.01 -0.01 -0.12 -0.07 0.06 -0.04 -0.30
(11) Participative Change Style 0.43 -0.07 0.03 0.00 0.10 0.09 0.00 0.07 0.39 -0.62
(12) Organization Size -0.10 -0.06 -0.02 0.01 -0.07 0.02 0.14 0.00 0.00 0.17 -0.20
(13) Consequences for Respondent 0.04 -0.07 -0.02 -0.03 -0.04 0.03 0.02 -0.06 -0.03 0.05 -0.06 0.02
(14) Expected Chance of Success 0.31 -0.01 0.02 -0.07 0.03 0.04 0.01 -0.02 0.36 -0.25 0.26 -0.04 0.04
(15) Member Chg. Reference Group 0.07 0.08 0.08 0.03 0.10 0.06 0.12 0.15 0.25 -0.17 0.18 0.08 -0.09 0.12
(16) Business Manufacturing 0.01 -0.02 0.00 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.03 0.01 0.05 -0.03 0.01 0.04 -0.02 0.05 -0.03
(17) Services 0.04 0.03 0.01 -0.02 -0.01 0.05 -0.06 -0.15 -0.04 0.06 -0.10 -0.09 0.07 0.03 -0.10 -0.10
(18) Utilities & Regulated 0.02 -0.07 0.03 -0.01 0.03 0.08 -0.01 0.07 0.05 -0.03 0.04 0.08 -0.04 0.03 0.09 -0.06 -0.47
(19) Government & NGO -0.09 0.03 -0.04 0.03 -0.02 -0.11 0.02 0.09 -0.05 -0.02 0.05 0.04 -0.05 -0.10 0.06 -0.07 -0.53 -0.31
a
For correlations: > | .04 | p < .05; > | .05 | p < .01; > | .07 | p < .001
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Table 2: GEE Results for Employee Support for Changea
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
b (s.e.) b (s.e.) b (s.e.) b (s.e.) b (s.e.) b (s.e.)
Intercept 1.80 (0.21)*** 1.81 (0.21)*** 1.80 (0.21)*** 1.77 (0.21)*** 1.76 (0.20)***
Government & NGO
0.12 (0.08)
Utilities & Regulated 0.07 (0.05) 0.07 (0.05) 0.07 (0.05) 0.07 (0.05) 0.07 (0.05) 0.19 (0.08)*
Services 0.15 (0.04)*** 0.15 (0.04)*** 0.15 (0.04)*** 0.15 (0.04)*** 0.15 (0.04)*** 0.28 (0.08)***
Business Manufacturing -0.03 (0.08) -0.03 (0.08) -0.03 (0.08) -0.05 (0.08) -0.03 (0.08) 0.04 (0.11)
Member Chg. Reference Group -0.04 (0.04) -0.04 (0.04) -0.04 (0.04) -0.04 (0.04) -0.04 (0.04) -0.05 (0.04)
Expected Chance of Success 0.06 (0.01)*** 0.06 (0.01)*** 0.06 (0.01)*** 0.06 (0.01)*** 0.06 (0.01)*** 0.10 (0.01)***
Consequences for Respondent 0.03 (0.01)** 0.03 (0.01)** 0.03 (0.01)** 0.04 (0.01)** 0.04 (0.01)** 0.06 (0.01)***
Organization Size 0.03 (0.06) 0.03 (0.06) 0.03 (0.06) 0.03 (0.06) 0.04 (0.06) 0.10 (0.06)
†
Participative Change Style 0.17 (0.02)*** 0.17 (0.02)*** 0.17 (0.02)*** 0.17 (0.02)*** 0.17 (0.02)*** 0.28 (0.02)***
Directive Change Style -0.18 (0.03)*** -0.18 (0.03)*** -0.18 (0.03)*** -0.18 (0.03)*** -0.17 (0.03)*** 0.02 (0.02)
Goal Clarity 0.27 (0.03)*** 0.27 (0.03)*** 0.27 (0.03)*** 0.27 (0.03)*** 0.27 (0.02)*** 0.31 (0.03)***
Respondent Age 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.02 (0.01)**
Market-Focused Change 0.04 (0.02)* 0.04 (0.02)* 0.04 (0.02)* 0.04 (0.02)* 0.04 (0.02)* 0.05 (0.02)**
Internally-Focused Change -0.05 (0.02)** -0.05 (0.02)** -0.05 (0.02)** -0.05 (0.02)** -0.05 (0.02)** -0.04 (0.02)**
H1: CI TM - CE TM -0.02 (0.03) 0.04 (0.04)
H2: CI TM - CE MM 0.00 (0.08) 0.01 (0.08)
H3: CI MM - CE TM 0.45 (0.22)* 0.59 (0.23)**
H4: CI MM - CE MM 0.18 (0.08)* 0.25 (0.08)***
Wald's 333.48 *** 331.94 *** 333.25 *** 337.57 *** 336.04 *** 479.02 ***
a
N = 1, 795; Subject effects: 468. Model 1 is model with control variables only. Models 2-5 estimated with alternating reference groups for parameters corresponding to H1-H4 and ‘Government &
NGO’ used as reference category for industry controls. Model 6 is estimated without intercept to allow for simultaneous inclusion of all categories for the parameters corresponding to H1-H4 and is
used for final interpretation.
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