Abstract:
This thesis examines employees' experiences of major organisational change, with an
emphasis upon examining how the personality traits Neuroticism and Extraversion, and
the personality disposition Work Locus of Control, influence these experiences. The
perspective of employees, who are the main recipients of major change initiatives, is not
well represented in the literature. Also, despite calls for research that addresses process
and context, existing literature on the role of individual differences in relation to
organisational change tends to be aprocessual and acontextual. The present research
seeks to overcome these shortcomings by adopting a longitudinal, real-time, qualitative
approach. The research elicited employees' perceptions of change as a major change
programme unfolded, and examined emerging patterns of employees' experiences in
relation to contextual and individual difference factors.
The research presents a picture of organisational change as unpredictable and emergent.
The research findings demonstrate that employees' experiences of change are varied and
suggest that these experiences are influenced by many factors at the personal, group and
organisational levels. The research shows that a change 'event' will elicit different types
of feelings and responses from the same individual over time, as the event unfolds.
Patterns of experience were found which suggested that personality factors, and
combinations of these factors, influenced the way aspects of change were perceived by
employees, and these perceptions appeared to influence employees' responses to change.
The present research contributes towards the change management literature by
confirming the view that change is 'messy', emergent and unpredictable, and by
presenting evidence to show how employees contribute towards the emergent nature of
this process. The research contributes towards the work psychology literature by
adopting an approach that contextualises research participants' responses, and presents an
account of change as an unfolding process. By focusing upon perceptions, the research is
able to offer explanations of how individual differences might influence employees'
experiences of major organisational change.
