Translating Dispositional Resistance to Change to the Culture Level: Developing A Cultural Framework of Change Orientations

Abstract

A fundamental societal challenge is to balance the desire for growth, development, and progress on the one hand and the need for stability and maintenance of the status quo on the other. To better understand how societies deal with this challenge we employ the personality trait of dispositional resistance to change to conceptualize and empirically establish the concept of cultural change orientation. With data from individuals in 27 countries (N = 6487), we identify three culture‐level change orientation dimensions (routine seeking, affective reactance, and cultural rigidity) and interpret their meaning through their relationships with established cultural frameworks (e.g. GLOBE, Hofstede, Inglehart, and Schwartz). We thus propose a new culture‐level framework and test hypotheses about relationships between change orientation dimensions and national indexes of economic, technological, social, and environmental change. Our findings demonstrate meaningful differential relationships between the three change orientation dimensions and these societal outcomes. Copyright © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology

Effective communication during organizational change: a cross-cultural perspective

“…Italy) tend to have a low tolerance for ambiguity and risk-taking. Accordingly, Oreg and Sverdlik (2018) observe that this dimension also reflects a culture's orientation toward change. High uncertainty avoidance cultures have a proclivity for following standard operating procedures, rules, and regulations.…”

An exploratory analysis of the interactions between the determinants of migratory flows

“…The influence of culture on migration can be studied, taking into account, the indirect effects of culture on societal development. In this regard, studies (Krys et al, 2020;Oreg & Sverdlik, 2018;Skvarciany & Tereštšenkov, 2016) have shown the significant impact that culture has on social progress. For instance, Dan's (2017) study aimed at identifying links between cultural dimensions defined by Hofstede and Schwartz and social progress defined as social progress index.…”

Testing M-Payment for Utilities in Saudi Arabia Barriers and Opportunities for E-Government

“…As Oreg, and Sverdlik, (2018), suggested, resistance to change is often due to fear of altering the traditional way of doing things, repetitive habit, lack of resources, threat to authority and power, fear of unknown results are the reasons behind more resistance towards change in all the societies. Different researches highlight different reasons behind resistance for change (Oreg, and Sverdlik, 2018). Some suggest that social, personal economical factor influence resistance, while other suggests vague relation between personal and organizational goals.…”