Antecedents to willingness to participate in a planned organizational change

Abstract This field study examines factors contributing to employees’ openness to participate in a planned change within a national insurance company. Drawing from recent meta‐analyses indicating that both job characteristics (JCM) and social information processing (SIP) models contribute to job attitudes, a model of factors pertaining to the change is hypothesized and tested using path analytic methods. Results indicate employees receiving “quality” information about the change and having a high need for achievement viewed the change favorably. Contrary to expectations, employees’ anxiety about the change did not influence their attitude about change. These findings are discussed in light of JCM and SIP research and their implications for research on organizational change.