| The twenty-first century requires organizations to successfully implement changes rapidly in order to remain competitive (Bronson, 1991; Tetenbaum, 1998). Research suggests that employee affective commitment to change may be vital to the successful implementation of organizational changes because of its connection to employee behavioral support for change (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002; Machin, Fogarty, & Bannon, 2009; Meyer, Srinivas, Lal, & Topolnytsky, 2007; Shin, Taylor, & Seo, 2012). The present study examined factors influencing affective commitment to change and behavioral support for change. Specifically, this study examined the roles of organizational justice and cynicism in the development of affective commitment to change. Five hundred full-time workers who had experienced an organizational change completed an on-line survey. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were then used to analyze the study data. Consistent with past research, results indicated a positive relationship between affective commitment to change and behavioral support for change. Moreover, the results suggested that procedural justice fully mediates the relationship between degree of employee participation and affective commitment to change and partially mediates the relationship between change communication and affective commitment to change. These mediations were not moderated by organizational cynicism as expected, but organizational cynicism was found to have a direct effect on procedural, informational, and interpersonal justice. Lastly, change justification was found to have a direct effect on affective commitment to change. These findings suggest that the degree of employee participation, how well an organization communicates with employees, and the extent to which an adequate change justification is provided, during a change may have an impact on how affectively committed employees will be to that change. Furthermore, given the connections found between organizational cynicism and organizational justice components, organizational actions prior to a change may also influence employee affective commitment to change. |
