Understanding the Change-Cynicism Cycle: The Role of HR

Abstract

Employee change cynicism is an unintended consequence of organizational change, which can undermine the effectiveness of change initiatives. Based on social information processing theory, we examine the impact of two human resource roles (administrative expert and strategic change agent) on the relationship between the quantity of organizational change and employee change cynicism. Using multilevel data from 1,831 employees in 70 organizations, we find employees who are exposed to more organizational change report higher levels of change cynicism. However, the strength of the organizational change–cynicism relationship is affected by the role of HR in the employees’ organizations. When HR undertakes an administrative expert role, change is more likely to generate change cynicism. When HR undertakes a strategic change agent role, change is less likely to generate change cynicism. Our results suggest that organizations need to think carefully about the role of HR during organizational change and encourage HR to adopt a strategic change agent role. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Perceived human resource system strength and employee reactions toward change: Revisiting human resource's remit as change agent

“…Indeed, previous research has established that the HR department has an important role to play in supporting organizational change (Alfes et al, ; Caldwell, ; Conway & Monks, ; Ulrich, ). However, prior research has suggested that HR's change agent role involves change content or change implementation (Alfes et al, ; Brown, Kulik, Cregan, & Metz, ; Kim & Ryu, ; Long et al, ). In contrast, our findings suggest that, aside from making a contribution via these two facets of change, HR can also contribute to successful change by ensuring the context is change‐ready.…”

How do cynical employees serve their customers? A multi-method study

“…Employees, who experience a lot of interruptions, may become increasingly doubtful that all these interruptions are necessary and attribute negative motives to the interruptions (cf. Brown, Kulik, Cregan, & Metz, 2017). They may form the belief that others at work are self-serving and are putting their own interest above the interests of the employee (Wilkerson, 2002), resulting in cynicism.…”

Why Do Employees’ Perceptions of their Organization's Change History Matter? The Role of Change Appraisals

“…While all three sets of factors influence organizational change outcomes (Armenakis & Bedeian, ; Rafferty & Restubog, ), the role of the change context has been ignored (Herold, Fedor, & Caldwell, ). The lack of attention directed toward understanding the role of the internal change context on employee responses to change represents a lost opportunity for change agents and human resource managers who are in a unique position to use this knowledge to influence this context (Brown, Kulik, Cregan, & Metz, in press; Schumacher, Schreurs, Van Emmerik, & De Witte, in press).…”