Public organizations have been constantly asked to strengthen competitions through changes. Recently the government announced 'a plan for advancement of public organizations' as part of changes, attempting to develop effective management skills in pub...
Public organizations have been constantly asked to strengthen competitions through changes. Recently the government announced 'a plan for advancement of public organizations' as part of changes, attempting to develop effective management skills in public organization. The governmental policy signals large-scale changes that have never happened before such as private management, abolition and amalgamation, reorganization and etc for most public organizations. However, since personnel management, namely a person, is a key factor in organizational management, it can be said that successful changes depend on voluntary participation of members and cooperation, namely commitment. As member's commitment to change means 'individual intentions to take appropriate actions in order to conduct successful performance for organizational changes, it is linked directly with individual supports to organizational changes. Therefore, for successful changes of public organizations, the levels of member's commitment to change should be considered and the factors that influence those commitments should be examined. Under the circumstances, this study attempts to examine the influential factors of commitment to change.
However, despite the importance of commitment to change, since relative studies on those issues, especially, studies on influential factors of commitment to change have not been sufficient, the studies on public organizations are far fewer than expectation because previous studies mainly focused on organizational commitment as well as the concept of commitment to change was introduced recently based on the studies related to organizational commitment. Therefore, the studies on commitment to change should refer to the studies about organizational commitment. However, as commitment to change better explains member's behaviors in the condition of organizational changes, it is meaningful to attempt to study and it is important that this study provides a fundamental knowledge to further studies as well as provides an opportunity to build organizational strategies.
In this study, in order to examine the influential factors of commitment change, major factors were selected and study models were constructed based on previous studies and theological discussion. Major factors such as efficacy, change's characteristics of change, and social supports represent individual characteristics, situational characteristics, and organizational characteristics that recently received attention in commitment studies. In addition, study models mainly consisted of the influences of subordinate elements of those factors on overall commitment change and subordinate levels of commitment to change. Furthermore, in order to verify the reliability of the models, positive researches were conducted for 514 members at 16 public organizations scheduled for reorganization in 'a plan for advancement of public organizations' and SPSS 12.0 for Window was used to analyze the results of the study. Concretely, the reliability and validity of measurement tools were evaluated by exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach`s alpha coefficient and regression analysis was applied to verify the models. But, in order to examine the results according to the types of organizations while the models are verified, additionally, regression analysis was conducted after dividing samples into semi-governmental organizations and public organizations.
The results of this study are as followings:
First of all, the influences of each factor on whole commitment to change and affective, continuance, and normative dimensions appeared differently. Also, different influences of the factors were observed between semi-governmental organizations that emphasize on public service and public enterprises focusing on commercial values. However, as the proportion of semi-governmental organizations was high, similar results were observed in comparison with the results of the study for whole samples. Sometimes, although there were some differences in the factors that had significant influences or the intensity of influences of the factors was different, it is understood that it showed the results of the study for whole samples, adding the results of the analysis for public enterprises. And, the factors that had significant influences mainly exist in whole commitment to change and affective commitment to change. Eventually, as it is noticed that differentiated influences of each factor clearly appear when they are divided by subordinate dimensions, a certain kind of commitment should be determined and the influential factors should be considered while seeking plans of commitment to change. In addition, considering that each factor appears differently when the influences on the subordinate dimension of commitment to change reflect the characteristics of organizations, it is necessary to prepare distinctive strategies for each organization.
Next, based on the analytic results for whole samples, the influences of each factor on commitment to change are as follows: Firstly, efficacy had significant influences on whole commitment to change and affective commitment to change. While self-efficacy and group efficacy had positive (+) influences on affective commitment to change, influential direction was in conformity, on the other hand, since self-efficacy had negative (-) influences on whole commitment to change, the direction was not in conformity. It is noticeable that the only factor that had negative (-) influences on commitment to change was self-efficacy and the negative (-) influences of self-efficacy was confirmed in continuance commitment to change. However, higher influences of self-efficacy were observed in continuance commitment to change than in affective commitment to change.
Based on the perception that cost were generated when members with high self-efficacy tended to refuse to participate in organizational changes rather than wish to participate in the changes, it can be interpreted that self-efficacy had more influences on cognitive thinking than member's psychological stages. In addition, it showed that as self-efficacy increased, continuance commitment to change decreased since respondents thought they had lots of alternative plans or few side-bets, therefore it is understood that members at the organizations had high educational backgrounds and were experts in the fields. Furthermore, it is assumed that their organizational experiences that they worked for the organizations that had a tendency of both private enterprises and public organizations played a key role in the determination.
Therefore, since it is not beneficial to both the organizations and individuals to eliminate alternative plans the members established, a strategy should focus on increasing their side-bets. As side-bets include self-investment, organizational special training, existing social relations and etc, the organizations need to manage personnel in a variety of ways.
Secondly, as other significant influential factors were the quality of change, the intensity of change, organizational supports, and work duration, they all had positive (+) influences on commitment to change. The quality of change had influenced on whole commitment to change and affective and normative commitment to change except continuance commitment to change and especially, huge influences on affective commitment to change. On the other hand, the intensity of change had influences only on continuance commitment to change. Therefore, the organizations should allow members to recognize the benefits that can be achieved from change vision and changes rather than the influential range or degree of change.
In addition, while organizational supports had wide influences on commitment to change except continuance commitment to change, supervisor's supports had no influences. Hereupon, it is considered that the plans of commitment to change should focus on full supports by organizations rather than supports through supervisors.
Finally, as work duration was a factor that had wide influences on commitment to change except affective commitment to change, work duration was the only factor that influenced demographic statistic variables. It is common that as work duration is long, members tend to have a strong affection to organizations or a sense of loyalty or equality increase, therefore, it is natural that the levels of affective and normative commitment to change increase. However, in this study, no relations between work duration and affective commitment to change were observed. Therefore, it is assumed, in this study, that members were frequently disappointed with organizations while working or the organizations failed to provide sufficient experiences in a sense of loyalty or equality. Accordingly, with regard to consideration of commitment to change, organizations need to make every effort to increase an opportunity to communicate with members to understand their disappointments and dissatisfaction or to change the atmosphere in the organizations to build a strong relationship between the organizations and members.