Study of organizational change and its impact on organizational commitment in some selected it organizations in northern India

Abstract

The Information technology (IT) sector in India is currently thriving with new entrants in the private sector. To survive in the competitive era, the organizations have to understand the importance of relevant organizational change and its impact on important factors like organization commitment. Organisational change has a deep and long-lasting effect on the employees’ commitment. As a result, to suggest the measures to cope with the change initiatives and to increase the effectiveness of the change initiatives, the foremost aim is to examine the concept of organizational change within different change levers, various initiatives taken to manage the change and understand the impact on organizational Commitment. Organizations today realize that if they have to survive and grow, they have to bring in relevant changes within different change levers like technology, marketing, quality, cost, strategy, structure, managing people and leadership. These changes have to be managed effectively. It is seen that when change process is not managed properly people resist change and organizations have to pay heavy price. It is important to examine how IT companies are managing change initiatives in all these eight levers. For managers, the major issue in organizations is to deal with reasons and factors that initiate organizational change, processes characterizing change initiatives and the steps taken to manage these change initiatives with in every change lever. Sparse literature is available in assessing the outcome of change in IT companies of India, especially covering change levers. Globalization, deregulation and digitalization have brought many changes. Thus, it is important to cover all these aspects of change and understand how the IT organizations are responding to these changes. The main objective of the study was to understand the relationship between management of change initiatives taken in various organizational change levers and their association with organization commitment. The different variables in the study include: appropriateness of change initiatives, change initiatives taken within the change levers and organizational commitment. A questionnaire prepared by Malhotra & Kaur, (2007) was used for understanding the appropriateness of change initiatives and the change initiatives taken within the change levers. The first part of questionnaire deals with the questions related to areas in which change has been brought, reasons for bringing the change, methods used by the management to

implement and manage these change initiatives and steps used by the management for bringing organizational change. The second part of the questionnaire emphasized on the change initiatives taken within the change levers i.e. pressures leading to change initiatives, reasons for resistance to change initiatives, steps taken to remove resistance, impact of change initiatives and suggestions taken to cope with the change were analyzed. The change focuses on eight change levers, viz.: Technology, marketing, quality, cost, strategy, structure, managing people and leadership. For organizational commitment a scale given by Allen and Meyer (1997) covering three types of organizational commitment: affective, normative and continuance commitment has been used. The affective commitment measures an employees’ emotional attachment to, identification with and involvement in the organization. The normative commitment measures pressure on an employee to remain with the organization resulting from organizational socialization. The continuance commitment refers to commitment associated with the costs that the employee perceive are related to leaving an organization. Perception of employees’ regarding the change initiatives were examined from the perspective of gender and three levels of managerial hierarchy, viz. junior, middle and senior level. Empirical results of correlation analysis highlight that the change initiatives taken in all the eight levers are significantly correlated to organization commitment. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling suggest a positive and significant association between the organizational change initiatives within eight organizational change levers and the organizational commitment in the selected IT organizations. The research will add value to organizations to understand the importance of effective management of change. The research includes all the 8 change levers crucial for change process and is first of its kind in the IT companies. Managers of organizations must understand that their employees must perceive reasons or pressures for bringing changes, reasons for resistance to change initiatives, steps taken to remove change initiatives and impact of change initiatives in different change levers in right perspective. The study will help the policy makers of organizations to focus on the effective change initiatives for bringing changes in each change levers for better results in organizational commitment.