Leaders’ characteristics and

behavior and employees’

resistance to organizational
change
Shaul Oreg
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Background on dispositional
resistance to change (RTC)
Dispositional Resistance to Change (RTC)
• Within a given context, individuals often react
differently to change. Some like it. Others do
not.
 Development of the RTC construct
• Initially established through a series of 7 studies
 Exploratory study – identifying factors (Study 1)

Replication of construct’s structure (Studies 2-3)

Establishing construct validity (Studies 3-4)

Establishing concurrent validity (Studies 5-6)

Establishing concurrent and predictive validity (Study 7)

(Oreg, 2003, JAP)

 Four-factor structure
1. Routine seeking (e.g., I'll take a routine day over a day full
of unexpected events any time)

2. Emotional reaction (e.g., When I am informed of a

change of plans, I tense up a bit)

3. Short-term focus (e.g., Changing plans seems like a real

hassle to me)

4. Cognitive rigidity (e.g., Once I’ve come to a conclusion,

I’m not likely to change my mind)
 RTC outcomes
• Overall, RTC has been found to correlate with
reactions to change situations in a variety of
contexts. e.g.:
– Employees’ reactions to organizational change (Oreg, 2006)
– Consumers’ adoption of innovation (Nov & Ye, 2008)
– Occupational choice (Oreg, Nevo, Metzer, Leder & Castro, 2009)
– Task performance (Oreg, in preparation)
– Followers’ change attitudes (Oreg & Berson, 2011)
 RTC’s Nomological Net
Followers’
attitudes
Self Direction Universalism
toward
Stimulation
Benevolence
change
Hedonism
Conformity

Tradition
Occupational
Achievement
Choice
Power Security

RTC Sensation
Risk
Reactions to
seeking
seeking Task
specific performance
changes

Tolerance
for
ambiguity Product
Big-Five adoption
 The need for cross-cultural validation
• Does the trait represent meaningful individual
differences in other cultures?
• Does the trait’s structure replicate across
cultures?

• Does the trait share its

meaning across cultures?

P ie te r B ru e g h e l th e E ld e r, Tow er of
Babel
 Validating RTC across cultures
(with Mahmut Bayazıt, Maria Vakola, Luis Arciniega, Achilles Armenakis, Rasa
Barkauskiene, Nikos Bozionelos, Ivana Ferić, Yuka Fujimoto, Luis González, Jian Han,
Hilde Hetland, Martina Hřebíčková, Marina Kotrla Topić, Hitoshi Mitsuhashi, Boris
Mlačić, Sandra Ohly, Per Øystein Saksvik, Ingvild Saksvik, Karen van Dam)

(Oreg et al., 2008, JAP)

 Country Town N Lang. Religion (majority) %♀ mean Age (SD)
Burwood and
Australia St. Lucia
251 English 30% Atheist 67 21.09 (3.61)

China Beijing 194 Chinese — 56 20.72 (1.09)

Croatia Zagreb 246 Croatian 81% Roman Catholic 83 21.43 (1.79)

Czech Rep. Brno 224 Czech 50% Roman Catholic 78 22.49 (2.10)

Germany Braunschweig 206 German 51% Protestant 49 23.03 (4.35)

Greece Athens 386 Greek 87% Greek Orthodox 60 20.97 (2.31)

Israel Haifa 241 Hebrew 83% Jewish 82 24.35 (3.21)

Japan Tsukuba 337 Japanese — 23 19.71 (1.62)

Lithuania Vilnius 212 Lithuanian 96% Catholic 77 20.31 (1.67)

Mexico Mexico City 265 Spanish 82% Catholic 51 20.62 (2.19)

Netherlands Tilburg 205 Dutch — 80 20.22 (3.45)

Norway Bergen 266 Norwegian 67% Christian 74 23.24 (4.40)

Slovakia Bratislava 171 Slovakian 50% Catholic 54 21.40 (1.10)

Spain Salamanca 288 Spanish — 59 21.90 (1.55)

Turkey Istanbul 241 Turkish 98% Muslim 39 21.04 (1.52)

UK Durham 204 English 95% Christian 45 19.22 (1.83)

US Auburn, AL 264 English 49% Christian 50 21.19 (2.38)

Total / Mean 4201 60.41 21.35 (2.37)

 Validating the RTC scale across cultures

• Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis for

establishing measurement equivalence
• Construct validation through relationships
between RTC and personal values
• Confirmatory Smallest Space Analysis
 Tests of model fit – Confirmatory factor analyses
Country α χ2 (107) RMSEA CFI GFI
Australia .82 172.56 .050 .93 .93
China .85 170.07 .055 .94 .91
Croatia .84 159.88 .045 .97 .93
Czech Rep. .84 184.24 .057 .92 .91
Germany .77 131.36 .033 .97 .93
Greece .72 227.29 .054 .93 .94
• CFAs in each of Israel .85 193.42 .058 .93 .92
Japan .75 199.46 .051 .91 .93
the 17 samples Lithuania .77 171.39 .053 .92 .91
Mexico .79 216.74 .062 .92 .90
Netherlands
• Fit was Norway
.85
.84
177.59
218.21
.058
.063
.94
.92
.91
.91
adequate in all Slovakia .79 184.28 .065 .90 .89
Spain .81 165.97 .044 .95 .94
samples Turkey .77 188.86 .056 .90 .91
UK .78 190.22 .062 .90 .90
US .83 160.90 .044 .95 .94

Mean .80 183.08 .050 .93 .92

 Tests of measurement equivalence
• Configural (same scale structure) and partial
metric invariance (same item loadings)
established.
• Metric invariance established when relaxing
loading constraints for reverse-coded items
(items 4 & 14).

• Scale appears to take on equivalent meanings

across samples.
 RTC and Leadership
(with Yair Berson)

• RTC has been linked with individuals’ change-

related reactions in a variety of contexts
• Could one individual’s RTC influence another’s
reactions?
• Specifically, does leaders’ RTC influence
followers’ reactions to change?

(Oreg & Berson, 2011, PPsych)

 Leader characteristics
 Well-established role of leader personality
 Leader “Big-Five” traits and organizational
outcomes (Judge & Bono, 2000, 2002)
 Leader values and organizational outcomes
(e.g., Sosik, 2005; Berson, Oreg & Dvir, 2008)

 Few studies on leadership as antecedent of

employees’ reaction to change
 Leader characteristics and followers’
reactions

 Leaders’ characteristics influence follower

reactions through leaders’ choices and what
they choose to emphasize (e.g., Miller et al., 1982, 1988;
Berson, Oreg & Dvir, 2008).

 In turn, these choices and behaviors become

reflected in the organizational culture, which
impacts followers’ attitudes and behaviors.
 Leader characteristics and followers’
reactions to change
 When focusing on reactions to change,
leaders’ openness and conservation values,
as well as RTC, constitute good candidates for
predicting employees’ reactions to change.

RTC
Hypotheses 1-2
Leader Values

Conservation
Leader’s Dispositional
Resistance to Change
Openness

Hypothesis 2
Hypotheses
1a and 1b Organization
Level

Individual
Level

Employees’
Resistance to Org.
Reform
 Leader behaviors
 Leadership, and in particular transformational
leadership, has key role in times of change (Boal &
Hooijberg, 2000).

 Transformational leaders help reframe

followers’ perceptions of change to view it as
an opportunity rather than threat (Conger & Kanungo,
1998; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993)

 Stimulate and inspire followers by offering a compelling

vision of future changes in the organization (Bass, 1985).
 Use intellectual stimulation and challenge employees to
accept innovative solutions and to challenge the status quo
(Bass, 1985; Berson & Avolio, 2004).
 Leader behaviors (2)
 Limited research linking leader behavior with
employee reactions to change (Bommer et al., 2005; Herold
et al., 2007).

 Replication of main effect of transformational

leadership on followers’ reactions
 Hypothesis 3
Leader Values

Conservation
Transformational Leader’s Dispositional
Leadership Resistance to Change
Openness

Hypothesis 2
Hypotheses
1a and 1b Organization
Hypothesis 3 Level

Individual
Level

Employees’
Resistance to Org.
Reform
 Leader behaviors (3)
 We suggest that beyond its main effect,
transformational leadership will also moderate
relationship between followers’ personality and
their resistance to change:
 Transformational leadership as a
strong situation

 Established links between employee personality

and reactions to change (Law & Woodman, 1995; Oreg, 2006)
 Much discussion of person X situation
interaction (Mischel, 1968, 1977)
 Evidence for weaker personality-behavior
relationships under strong situational cues:
“some situations are so strong…that everyone
behaves similarly” (Stewart & Barrick, 2004, p. 67).
 Transformational leadership as a
strong situation (2)
 Transformational leaders motivate followers to
transcend their personal orientations at work
(Bass, 1985) and harness followers’ self-concept by

leading them to identify with a collective goal,

such as a change in the organization (Fiol, Harris, &
House, 1999; Shamir, et al., 1993).

 Accordingly, they provide employees with a

strong situation, muffling the effects of
individuals’ dispositions.
 Hypotheses 3-4
Leader Values

Conservation
Transformational Leader’s Dispositional
Leadership Resistance to Change
Openness

Hypothesis 2
Hypotheses
Hypothesis 4b 1a and 1b Organization
Hypothesis 3 Level

Individual
Level

Employee’s Employees’
Dispositional Resistance to Org.
Resistance to Change Hypothesis 4a Reform
 Method
 Study of 75 schools in the context of an
impending organizational reform

 Two sources of data:

 Principals (n=75) reported RTC and values
 Teachers (n=586) reported their RTC,
reactions to the impending change, and
leaders’ transformational leadership
 Results
 Aggregation indexes supported the appropriateness
of aggregating transformational leadership ratings.

 Analyses using HLM

 The null hierarchical model indicated significant

between-school differences in resistance to the
reform (γ00=2.93, df=74, χ2=124.06, p<0.01).
 Results – predicting teachers’ resistance
Model 1
Variable Estimate () s.e.

Level-1 Predictors
Intercept 2.92** .05
Teacher’s gender .00 .11
Teacher’s age -.00 .01
Teacher’s tenure -.01 .01
Teacher’s dispositional resistance

Level-2 Predictors
Principal’s gender .21† .11
Principal’s age .01 .01
Principal’s tenure -.00 .01
School size .00 .00
Principal’s conservation values
Principal’s openness values
Principal’s dispositional resistance
Transformational leadership (aggregated)

Cross-level Interaction
Transformational leadership (aggregated) X Teacher’s
dispositional resistance

Total R2 .01

† p < .1, * p < .05, ** p < .01

 Results – predicting teachers’ resistance
Model 1 Model 2
Variable Estimate () s.e. Estimate () s.e.

Level-1 Predictors
Intercept 2.92** .05 2.92** .04
Teacher’s gender .00 .11 .03 .11
Teacher’s age -.00 .01 -.00 .01
Teacher’s tenure -.01 .01 -.00 .01
Teacher’s dispositional resistance

Level-2 Predictors
Principal’s gender .21† .11 .22* .10
Principal’s age .01 .01 .01 .01
Principal’s tenure -.00 .01 -.01 .00
School size .00 .00 .00 .00
Principal’s conservation values -.07 .13
Principal’s openness values -.21† .12
Principal’s dispositional resistance .17* .07
Transformational leadership (aggregated) -.30** .11
Cross-level Interaction
Transformational leadership (aggregated) X Teacher’s
dispositional resistance

Total R2 .01 .08

† p < .1, * p < .05, ** p < .01

 Results – predicting teachers’ resistance
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Variable Estimate () s.e. Estimate () s.e. Estimate () s.e.

Level-1 Predictors
Intercept 2.92** .05 2.92** .04 2.92** .04
Teacher’s gender .00 .11 .03 .11 .15 .08
Teacher’s age -.00 .01 -.00 .01 .00 .01
Teacher’s tenure -.01 .01 -.00 .01 -.01 .01
Teacher’s dispositional resistance .60** .05
Level-2 Predictors
Principal’s gender .21† .11 .22* .10 .07 .09
Principal’s age .01 .01 .01 .01 .00 .01
Principal’s tenure -.00 .01 -.01 .00 -.01* .00
School size .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00
Principal’s conservation values -.07 .13 -.14 .13
Principal’s openness values -.21† .12 -.20† .10
Principal’s dispositional resistance .17* .07 .11* .05
Transformational leadership (aggregated) -.30** .11 -.15* .07
Cross-level Interaction
Transformational leadership (aggregated) X
Teacher’s dispositional resistance
-.21* .09

Total R2 .01 .08 .28

† p < .1, * p < .05, ** p < .01

Results
 Supported Model
Leader Values

Transformational Leader’s Dispositional

Leadership Resistance to Change
Openness

Hypothesis 2

Hypothesis 4b Hypothesis 1b Organization

Hypothesis 3 Level

Individual
Level

Employee’s Employees’
Dispositional Resistance to Org.
Resistance to Change Hypothesis 4a Reform
 Implications for managing change

• Acknowledge role of leader personality and its impact

on followers
– Relevant for both selection and leadership training
– Current investigation of mechanisms through which leader
personality is reflected in followers’ responses (e.g.,
organizational climate)

• Leadership style as a means of helping resistant

employees overcome their predispositions
Thank you!