“Vision,passion, and care:” The impact of charismatic executive leadership communication on employee trust and support for organizational change

This study explored how charismatic executive leadership communication during change influences employees’ attitudinal and behavioral reaction toward change. Specifically, it proposed and tested a conceptual model that links charismatic executive leadership communication during change, characterized by envisioning, energizing, and enabling behaviors, employee organizational trust during change, and employees’ openness to change and behavioral support for change (i.e., cooperation and championing). Through an online survey of 439 employees who had experienced a company-wide organizational change in the past two years in the United States, results showed that charismatic executive leadership communication during change positively influenced employee organizational trust, openness to change, and behavioral support for change. Employee trust toward the organization during change positively influenced employee openness to change, which in turn, contributed to employee behavioral support for change. Employee trust was revealed as a partial mediator for the positive impact of charismatic executive leadership communication during change on employee openness to change and behavioral support for change. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Planned change in the disability community

Planned change with people, who are physically or mentally disabled, as with other special populations, requires a range of skills and knowledge; several specific aspects of the change process are identified and discussed in this article: the characteristics of the change agent, the timing of the change event, and creating a vision for change. These aspects are illustrated through the writer's own experiences as a change agent working a long-range change event to improve access1 to mental health services in the US with and for people who are deaf and hard of hearing.     

Tactics for successful organizational change in a youth and family services agency

There is a vast body of literature on organizational change, but much of it includes only case studies or surveys with a limited number of variables. Organizational change tactics, key aspects of planned change, are not often studied. One purpose of this study was to add to this literature by assessing the use of a questionnaire regarding the use of organizational change tactics as seen by staff who had experienced an organizational change initiative. This study is particularly notable in that it uses perceptions of staff in assessing the success of the change intervention. A second purpose was to learn about specific tactics which were associated with the success of change processes in a youth and family service agency. Findings showed that eighteen of the tactics were observed and seen as helpful in goal accomplishment. These findings can help change leaders choose appropriate change tactics. This method, including a survey of all levels of staff regarding generic change tactics, an interview with an executive, and a focus group, shows promise for further study.     

Effects of Spouse Support and Hostility on Trajectories of Czech Couples' Marital Satisfaction and Instability

This article examines differences in the role of spouses' hostile and supportive behaviors in predicting level and change in marital satisfaction and marital instability. We propose 2 competing hypotheses. The first hypothesis proposes that hostility is relatively volatile and support is relatively stable, and that change in hostility affects change in marital outcomes over the course of the study, whereas the overall level of support functions to maintain the level of marital outcomes. The second hypothesis argues that change in marital satisfaction is a function of change in support, whereas change in marital instability is a function of change in hostility. We tested the hypotheses by fitting growth curves to 3 waves of panel data collected from 436 Czech couples between 1994 and 1996. The results offer some support for the first hypothesis. However, the dominant pattern was for level and change in spouses' reports of their hostility to affect both wives' and husbands' level and change in marital instability, respectively, and for the level and change in husbands' reports of their support to predict level and change in wives' marital satisfaction. Other variables suggested by previous research in the United States and by the Czech transition to a market economy are examined.     

Social transformation,collective categories,and identity change

Changes in collective categories of identity are at the core of social transformation. The causal linkages among identity change, institutional change, and change in modes of practice are, however, complex. Developing and adapting ideas from Pierre Bourdieu's work, this article shows the coexistence in tension of a plurality of elements within each collective identity category. On this basis, it proposes a typology of responses at the level of identity to socio-political change. This allows an explanation of patterns of identity change in terms of wider social processes and resource distribution, while remaining open to the sense and complexity of the individual's experience and the moments of intentionality that arise when individuals face choices as to the direction of change. The worth of the model is shown by analysis of modes of identity change in a society now experiencing radical change in socio-political structures, namely post-1998 Northern Ireland.     

Planned Change in the Disability Community

Abstract

Planned change with people, who are physically or mentally disabled, as with other special populations, requires a range of skills and knowledge; several specific aspects of the change process are identified and discussed in this article: the characteristics of the change agent, the timing of the change event, and creating a vision for change. These aspects are illustrated through the writer's own experiences as a change agent working a long-range change event to improve access¹ to mental health services in the US with and for people who are deaf and hard of hearing.     

Organizational change tactics in a homeless services agency

There is a vast literature on organizational change, but research on a key aspect of organizational change, the tactics used by change leaders, is limited. To address this gap, a questionnaire assessing the use of organizational change tactics has been used to allow an organization's staff to describe an organizational change initiative they had experienced. This study also included an interview with the agency's director of programs, an interview with two other staff, document analysis, and pre–post client outcome data. Findings showed the extent to which these tactics were observed and were seen as useful in achieving the change goal, offering guidance for change leaders considering organizational change tactics, and for researchers by advancing methods for studying organizational change. Results were also contrasted with those of an earlier study to identify common themes.     

Planned Change and Contract Negotiation as an Instructional Model

To facilitate integration of the concepts of a purposeful planned change process and contract negotiation as integral parts of social work practice, a teaching model was developed whereby students were asked to design and implement a change process through the use of contracts with the instructor. The student as client system established change goals appropriate to beginning practice experience, negotiated a contract to reach these goals, and engaged in a change relationship with the instructor as change agent.

The use of this teaching model gave clear indication of students' understanding and integration of the planned change process and components of contracting for actual implementation in practice efforts.     

Understanding the relationship between social change and its impacts: The experience of rural land use change in south-eastern Australia

This study investigated socio-economic impacts of land use change, giving explicit attention to the relationships between independently observed land use change and associated socio-economic changes, perceived land use change and socio-economic change, attributed cause of change, and experienced impacts of change. Using a case study region in south-east Australia, we examined the impacts of growth in use of land for dairy farming, cropping, blue gum plantations and rural residential development on (i) rural population trends, and (ii) the amount and nature of employment available in the study region. Perceptions and impacts of change were assessed using multiple qualitative and quantitative methods. Results demonstrate that local residents were not always aware of the extent and nature of land use change, and had difficulty attributing social changes and their impacts to the land use changes that underlie them. Furthermore, the felt impacts of land use change appeared dependent on a person's awareness of that change, and on their beliefs about the causes of social change. These findings highlight avenues for theoretical development to better specify the processes by which social change processes are experienced as human impacts. The findings also have implications for land use policy and social impact assessment, illustrating the importance of understanding both perceived and actual social change.     

Restaurant tipping in a field experiment: How do customers tip when they receive too much change?

Tipping behavior is analyzed in a field experiment where restaurant customers received excessive change, either 10 or 40 Shekels (about $3 versus $12). One third of the tables reported the extra change to the server and returned it. Tips were higher with the higher level of extra change. Returning the extra change was negatively correlated with tips. The interaction between the level of extra change and whether it was returned had no effect. Possible explanations that tips are higher when the excessive change is not returned due to a positive income effect or perceiving paying a tip out of excessive change as less costly because it is a forgone gain and not a loss, are not supported by the data. Subjects may have exhibited moral licensing and moral cleansing effects. These effects, however, were possibly mitigated by a self-selection effect going in the opposite direction: those who are more generous or altruistic by their nature are more likely to return the extra change and also more likely to tip generously. Receiving the larger amount of extra change may result in feelings of good mood, perceived luckiness, or individuation and unconscious fear of being observed, which increase tips. Interestingly, these feelings seem to remain even if the extra change was returned.     

Culture Change in Skilled Nursing: An Exploratory Comparison of a Traditional Home to a New Model

Abstract

The culture change movement has pushed for reform for more than two decades to align policy, the long-term care industry, and resident preferences with regard to care. Evidence from research indicates that culture change has the potential to improve quality in nursing homes. There is no one-size-fits-all way to implement culture change; however, there are key elements and associated concepts and models. A common thread is that they run counter to the medical model, typically found in nursing homes, where care is provided in a hospital-like setting according to the schedules and routines of physicians and staff with little resident input. This qualitative study looks for evidence of culture change in a traditional model of care compared to a newer culture change model, by describing the differences in practices associated with the medical model, person-centered care, and person-directed care between the two settings. Our results indicate that there is evidence of person-directed care in one model of culture change—the Green House home—but not in the traditional nursing home. Future studies should examine other culture change models to compare the differences in the utilization of person-directed care. This information will help to clarify the definitions and concepts of culture change, along with developing best practices for future culture change models.     

What is the Point of Change? Change Point Detection in Relational Event Models

This paper presents an extension to the relational event model with change points (REM-CP) to study abrupt changes to social interaction behavior in temporal networks. A change point detection algorithm is proposed for exploring when and which network effects abruptly change, and a confirmatory approach to test the presence of a change point at a given moment. The effectiveness of the methodology was assessed with numerical simulations and NASA’s Apollo 13 mission data. The latter revealed dynamic communication behavior and identified time zones where most change points occurred, including around the time of the famous quote “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”     

Personal histories and social restructuring: the transformation of a peasant society

Using the capacity of linked census data to combine two levels, individual and aggregate, and two dimensions, longitudinal and cross-sectional, the process of structural change is explored to reveal aspects of change which are usually hidden. North Troms, in North Norway, which still had a peasant economy at the end of the Second World War is used as an example. The trajectories of those economically active in 1960 and 1970 are disentangled then reassembled to show how they combined as structural change. Only a minority of personal histories paralleled the change in society as a whole. Much more structural change resulted from succession of cohorts leaving and entering the labour force. By joining the study of individuals to that of structures, it is possible to see how change occurs in the spaces between people, out of the effects of many contradictions.     

Stages of Sexual Behavior Change to Reduce the Risk of HIV/AIDS

Sexual behavior change to reduce the risk of HIV infection is a dynamic multi-staged process. We present an empirical model for change, where we describe a stage of initiation of safer sexual practices, followed by a consolidation stage, and a long-term maintenance stage. The process of change can be interrupted by occasional or repeated lapses. We apply this multi-stage model to sexual behavior in a cohort of gay men from the Chicago area. The prevalence of various stages are reported between 1986 and 1991. Men infected with HIV tended to initiate change to safer sex later than those who were not, but maintained change or relapsed to unsafe practices in the same proportion. Implications regarding factors associated with relapse to unsafe sex, and interventions to prevent relapse, are discussed     

Change agency as performance and embeddedness: Exploring the possibilities and limits of Butler and Bourdieu

In this paper, we explore the dual role of human agency in maintaining the status quo and generating change. Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu offer differing conceptions of change agency in relation to organization and transformation of gender relations. Focusing on how those approaches would work, we analyse an empirical case study on a particular change process: getting women the right to vote in the Swiss cantons of Appenzell. We contribute to the current use of Butler's and Bourdieu's theories in organization studies in three main ways. First, we explore stability and change from the lenses of these two scholars. Second, we illustrate how change agency looks from these two distinct perspectives. Finally, we offer an empirical analysis that identifies the main elements of change agency in the two frameworks and discuss the possibilities and limitations of bringing these two approaches together to better understand change agency.     

Understanding the differences between climate change deniers and believers’ knowledge,media use,and trust in related information sources

The purpose of this study was to understand the similarities and differences between climate change deniers and believers’ knowledge, news media consumption, and trust in related information sources. Using surveys conducted among 310 climate change-denying American adults, and 337 climate change believers, this study investigated these points with a few surprising results. As expected, climate change deniers displayed significantly lower levels of trust in the scientific community and the EPA than did climate change believers. Furthermore, commonly noted points of attack used by climate change disinformation efforts were found to have been accepted by climate change deniers, and disturbingly, in some cases by climate change believers as well. Implications for public relations scholars and practitioners are discussed (117 words).     

Planned change at The Center on Philanthropy: The CLER model

This article examines the creation of The Center on Philanthropy as an example of organizational change using the Configurational, Linkages, Environments, Resources (CLER) Model. In a case study, the CLER Model is used as a tool for analyzing planned change. Applying the model aided the rapid identification of the environment as favorable and able to provide necessary support. CLER determined that linkages were key in this change, due to the numerous formal and informal linkages that were positive and favorable toward the change. The importance of resources for implementing this change also became apparent in the analysis.     

The Gestalt of Organizational Downsizing: Downsizing Strategies as Packages of Change

This paper develops and examines a framework ofdownsizing processes at the organizational level. Itbuilds on previous frameworks and literature byintroducing new variables found to be important in a field study and by bringing empirical evidenceto bear on conceptual underpinnings related toorganizational downsizing and change. The frameworkdeveloped identifies two general approaches thatorganizations use when undergoing downsizing and redesign, aswell as patterns of activities and changes thataccompany them. Downsizing driving redesign involvesincremental and low-level change, and is associated with less communication and systematic analysis,narrow participation in change efforts, and lowermagnitude change in other organizational attributes.Redesign driving downsizing involves more fundamentalorganizational change, and is associated with high-levelchanges that involve restructuring, more communication,broad participation in change efforts, advancesystematic analysis, and the use of interorganizationalrelationships to further downsizing efforts.     

Talk changes things: The implications of McCloskey's Bourgeois Dignity for historical inquiry

In The Bourgeois Dignity, Deidre McCloskey asserts that although there were many reasons that have been posited for the rise of the bourgeois class and the tremendous increase in the world's standard of living that occurred during the Industrial Revolution, including the enlightenment and the Protestant ethic, something else was required. For her, that something else was a change in the esteem that was afforded to the bourgeois, to capitalists and to capitalism. The talk changed and a change in the talk was what ultimately changed things. In this article, we briefly explore and defend McCloskey's (2010) claim that a change in talk was at the root of the Industrial Revolution. Further, contrary to much of the literature on the relationship between discourse and social change which tends to focus on discourse as an artifact rather than a driver of change, we argue using examples from outside of economics and economic history that a change in talk not only tends to accompany but often precedes dramatic social transformation.     

Internal communication as power management in change processes: Study on the possibilities and the reality of change communications

Literature on change management has changed over the years. Under the umbrella of change management today frequently holistic approaches are discussed. The special significance of soft factors results from the area of tension of subjective/personal risk assessment of certain groups of actors, which entail comprehensive changes. As change projects depend on implementation by executives and employees, change communications is a form of (internal) strategic stakeholder management. Change communications can be identified as the single part of change management, which focuses on the soft factors that are activated through the change of hard factors. With the management of soft factors the aim is to make a contribution to the enforcement of change goals, i.e. to secure or to regain the management's power. For this purpose 60 PR-agencies in Germany have been polled, as to how they assess the possibilities and reality of change communications. The result illustrates a torn of the agency scene between service and consulting claims, which emphasizes the question, if (internal) communication means the organization of messages and its delivery or also becomes part of behavioral economics with the idea to control the power of management.