Organisations Ethical environment, Change Management and Commitment: The Role of Change Readiness, Resistance, and Employees’ Withdrawal

Abstract
To deal with the cynicism in the process of organizational change is always a big challenge to the change managers. To overcome this, managers have to figure out Change Resistance tendencies that would lead to Employees’ Withdrawal. This study investigated the consequences which organization have to face as a result of employees’ resistance during the change process and how to change process affect the employees’ performance and their emotions. In this regard, we proposed a theoretical framework, arguing the role of Organisations Ethical environment in enabling Change Readiness and curbing Resistance to change. Lower resistance would decrease employee’s withdrawal from the change progress and ultimately leads to organizational commitment and effectiveness. For this, we modified Aslam et. al. (2015) model of organizational cynicism, and integrate the perceived organization effectiveness model of Jones and Ven (2016). The ethical environment was measured by Supportive Leadership, Organization Fairness, and Employee Participation. Change Readiness was measured by Dispositional Resistance to Change, Trust in Change Leaders, Job Insecurity. Dimensions of Resistance included Behavioral Resistance and Affective Resistance. Empirical validity was established by conducting a survey using a close-ended questionnaire. Data were collected from 229 respondents mainly from financial institutions of Karachi, which includes top banks and financial services provider firms. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation modeling. The result suggested that Supportive Leadership has a significant and positive effect on both Dispositional Resistance to Change (DRC) and Job Insecurity. Similarly, Organization Fairness also seems to impact DRC. Organization Fairness along with participation also positively affects Trust in Change Leaders. Both DRC and Trust in Change Leaders positively and significantly affect both Affective, and Behavioral Resistance to change. Similarly, Job Insecurity also leads to Affective Resistance. Consequently, Behavioral and Affective Resistance affect Job Satisfaction. Interestingly, Affective Resistance in a positive way. Affective Resistance also leads to Employees’ Withdrawal Behavior that subsequently affects job satisfaction. Lastly, both forms of resistance along with job satisfaction, also have a significant positive effect on both Organizational Commitment and effectiveness. The findings would help us is able to know the reasons for employee’s resistance and its impact on the organization and employees.