Individual Readiness for Organizational Change and Its Implications for Human Resource and Organization Development

Individual readiness for organizational change reflects the concept of unfreezing proposed by Lewin (1947/1997b) and is critical to successful change implementation. Understanding the conditions conducive to individual readiness for organizational change, instead of the more traditional focus on resistance to change, can be useful for designing and implementing effective human resource and organization development (HROD) interventions. In this conceptual article, we examine the concept of individual readiness for organizational change as well as its relationship to change strategies and organizational culture. A review of literature on change strategies and a learning culture suggests that individuals are more likely to have higher levels of readiness for organizational change when (a) they experience normative-reeducative change strategies and when (b) they perceive their work environment to have the characteristics associated with a learning culture.