An exploration of the relationship between readiness for change and organizational trust in Turkish public schools

Abstract

Readiness for change is one of the constructs that fosters positive behaviours, attitudes and thinking towards new adjustments on the part of employees. As one of the internal context variables, trust acts as a catalyst for supportive behaviours in times of change and uncertainty by reducing change related resistance and stress. Based on this understanding, this study explores the predictive value of organizational trust for cognitive, emotional and intentional readiness for change among a group of primary and secondary school teachers in Turkey. The data from 603 public school teachers were collected using the Omnibus T-Scale and Readiness for Change-Cognitive Emotional Intentional Scale. Taking each dimension of readiness for change as a criterion variable, three sets of predictors were defined for three separate hierarchical regression analyses. The results provided empirical evidence concerning the relationship between intentional, emotional and cognitive readiness for change and perceived faculty trust in colleagues and in the principal after statistically controlling for the school level and teacher demographics at primary and secondary level public schools. The results were interpreted within the scope of the current literature as well as structural and functional characteristics of Turkish education system.

Keywords

Organizational change readiness for change organizational trust public schools

Introduction

The human element has commonly been indicated as the key ingredient in successful change interventions. Despite this, organizations tend to over focus on the financial and/or material elements of change and ignore the human factor (Beer and Nohria, 2000; Mohrman et al., 2003). Disregarding the human side (Clegg and Walsh, 2004) and lack of supportive attitudes for change on the part of employees (Bouckenooghe, 2009) are some of the most common reasons for the failure of change interventions. Thus, one of the major critical factors for sustainable and successful change is the necessary modification in the individual’s behaviours, attitudes and thinking towards the new adjustment (Porras and Robertson, 1992). The human factor has also been stressed for successful achievement of change and development in educational organizations (Demirtaş, 2012). For example, Akşit (2007) reported a low success rate in terms of educational changes in Turkey and identified the perceptions of the practitioners as a critical component for the desired change outcomes. Starr (2011) indicated that, although change is frequently encountered in schools, many change interventions fall short of their target or are eliminated without any significant progress. In line with these arguments, research by organizational change has highlighted the pivotal role of supportive employee reactions towards change for potentially successful outcomes in both business (Armenakis et al., 1993; Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002; Wanous et al., 2000) and educational organizations (Fullan, 2009; Piggot-Irvine, 2010).

It is undeniable that organizational change brings uncertainty for those who will be affected by the change outcomes (Lines et al., 2005). This uncertainty is regarded as the fundamental source of resistance (Burke, 2008). It is posited that the way individuals generally deal with this uncertainty determines their conclusions regarding the potential outcomes of the change (Eby et al., 2000). Therefore, resistance can be counteracted by creating readiness for change (Self, 2007; Self and Schraeder, 2009); this involves developing employees’ positive beliefs and emotions regarding the proposed changes and consequently changing their behaviours from negative to positive ones (Bouckenooghe et al., 2009). Despite the growing consensus on the importance of creating readiness for change for the desired change outcomes, in the literature there is a scarcity of reports on research conducted in educational settings. A recent review by Weiner et al. (2008) revealed that the field of readiness for change is dominated by studies conducted in health and business organizations; however, from 1990 to 2007 there were limited studies conducted in educational settings. Also, in the literature there is a dearth of research on the relationship between readiness for change and employees’ perceptions on the internal context of the organization (Jones et al., 2005). Indeed, trust is argued to be a context variable related to attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of individuals within the change environment (Eby et al., 2000; Oreg et al., 2011; van Dam et al., 2008). Further, trust is suggested to be an emergent state which develops throughout the change process due to evolving individual understandings of changing situations, relationships and observations (Sloyan and Ludema, 2010). Therefore, an individual’s level of trust is suggested as a determining factor of individual responses towards change and, depending on its presence or absence, results in a shift within the range of attitudes from aggressive resistance to passive resistance, apathy, support, involvement and commitment.

The fact that trust is one of the most overlooked aspects, particularly in bureaucratic organizations (Bottary, 2003) as in the case of the Turkish Education System (TES), and regarded as one of the most widely acknowledged factors for empowering employees’ supportive change behaviours (Oreg et al., 2011), necessitates the examination of the predictive value of trust variable for public school teachers’ readiness for change in Turkey. Building on this body of literature, this study aims to explore the relationship between organizational trust and readiness for change among a group of primary and secondary school teachers in Turkish public schools.

Readiness for change

Readiness for change is generally regarded as the key for successful change efforts since it creates the positive energy needed by employees and it is the initial step for the desired change outcomes (Bernerth, 2004). Although various definitions have been proposed to explain readiness for change, one of the definitions cited and adopted by many change scholars was that of Armenakis et al. (1993) which proposed readiness as being ‘reflected in organizational members’ beliefs, attitudes, and intentions regarding the extent to which changes are needed and the organizations’ capacity to successfully make those changes’ (1993: 681). For that reason, readiness becomes the cognitive signal of employees’ supportive or opposing behaviours towards the proposed changes.

In accordance with the definition of readiness, recent research on the structure of attitudes highlighted the importance of investigating individual responses towards change under three distinct but related dimensions: intention, emotion and cognition (Piderit, 2000). Although this three-dimensional framework was generally agreed on, in the change literature there is still controversy over whether individual cognition precedes their behaviour or vice versa. Although Burke (2008) supported the precedence of behaviour over cognition, the cognitive emotional model of Liu and Perrewé (2005) suggested that cognitions and emotions are linked together to develop change related behaviours and attitudes. Indeed, it is suggested that readiness for change is manifested in the same three dimensions (Bouckenooghe et al., 2009) with positive responses along these dimensions being argued to yield supportive reactions (Sloyan and Ludema, 2010). Intentional readiness is defined as the energy and effort individuals direct towards the success of change interventions, and manifests itself in the actions of individuals (Oreg, 2006). On the other hand, cognitive readiness is suggested to indicate the individual’s beliefs concerning the outcomes of the change efforts for the organization, themself and their colleagues (Bouckenooghe et al., 2009) in relation to the question ‘will it be beneficial?’ (Oreg, 2006: 76). Finally, the emotional dimension is delineated as the feelings that the members of the organization exhibit in response to proposed changes (Nikolau et al., 2007).

Unlike resistance, readiness for change has a positive connotation with the assumption that negative employee reactions are expected and potentially stem from change related issues (Choi and Ruona, 2011). Hence, readiness for change is argued to be a more valid and useful construct to extrapolate individual attitudes towards change than resistance, which generally entails opposing actions that impede change interventions (Burke, 2008). Therefore, how to create readiness for change has become an issue of interest among change scholars and transmitting the change message to all employees is regarded as one of the most effective methods to nurture readiness (Armenakis et al., 1993). This is also considered to be vital in sustaining employee motivation for the last two stages of the change process model: adoption and institutionalization (Armenakis and Harris, 2002). The subsequent issue that emerges is the content of the change message to develop employee readiness. The five integral dimensions of the change message are suggested to be: discrepancy, appropriateness, self-efficacy, principal support and personal valence (Armenakis et al., 1999). Furthermore, these items address the concerns, needs and beliefs of employees and reduce the uncertainty caused by the proposed changes.

The increase in the prevalence in change efforts in many types of organizations signifies the necessity to explore the factors promoting readiness for change. The four-dimensional framework of Holt et al. (2007) has been utilized to explore the factors related with readiness for change; change-specific content, change implementation process, internal context of the organization and the change recipients’ attributes was also adopted in the current study. First, in terms of change content, Self (2007) noted that the nature of change is highly influential in supportive or resistive employee behaviours. For example, the response to revolutionary changes is generally low readiness and high resistance because of the fundamental alterations accompanying these changes. In terms of the internal context dimension, organizational commitment (Kwahk and Kim, 2008; Madsen et al., 2005), organizational culture and climate (Jones et al., 2005) and the change history of the organization (Bouckenooghe and Devos, 2008) are some of the variables related to readiness for change. Interpersonal relations with peers and leaders are also considered to be vital in creating readiness for change since these relations shape the individual’s interpretations of internal context including the change process (Bouckenooghe et al., 2009). Since interpersonal relations have a critical role, trust is another necessary contextual factor in accomplishing readiness for change. Trust acts like a catalyst in enacting behaviours in times of change by reducing change related resistance and stress (Martin, 1998). Moreover, the presence of trust in the organization is argued to be a factor promoting support and cooperation for the change interventions (van Dam et al., 2008) while lack of trust is regarded as one of the major sources of resistance on the part of the employees (Karim and Kathawala, 2005). Trust in peers (Eby et al., 2000; Rafferty and Simons, 2006) and trust in the leader are also internal context variables empowering employee readiness (Rafferty and Simons, 2006). The two supporting factors for the process factors are quality of change communication and participation in decision-making (Bouckenooghe and Devos, 2008). Finally, in terms of individual factors, readiness for change is substantiated to be related with perceived personal competence (Kwahk and Kim, 2008), self-efficacy for change (Cunningham et al., 2002; Rafferty and Simons, 2006), resilience (Çalışkan, 2011) and preference for working in teams (Eby et al., 2000).

Organizational trust

Many researchers have developed an interest in trust in order to shed light on the formation and progression of relationships over the years. It is delineated as ‘a person’s or group’s willingness to make themselves vulnerable to another person or group, relying on the confidence that the other party exhibits the following characteristics or facets: benevolence, reliability, competence, honesty, and openness’ (Hoy and Tschannen-Moran, 1999: 189). Although defined by various scholars, all trust definitions intersect on one common theme of ‘vulnerability’, which is the basis of all trusting relationships (Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 1998). This vulnerability indicates that the trustor risks losing things of value as a result of the betrayal of the trustee (Hoy and Tschannen-Moran, 1999; Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 2000).

In general, trust literature has concentrated on three reference groups in the search for trust in school organizations (Hoy et al., 2002). Recently, trust in clients such as students and parents, has been added as the fourth reference group in these investigations. Therefore, faculty trust in a school organization, in the principal, in colleagues and in clients constitutes the four major elements of school organizational trust (Goddard et al., 2001; Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 2000). First, trust in the school is regarded as a critical element for effective communication (Hoy et al., 2002). Subsequently, a trusting relationship between the school leader and the teachers is also identified as being essential for different positive school level outcomes. According to Tarter et al. (1995), teacher trust in the principal results in more effective schools while it is an indicator of positive organizational school climate (Hoy et al., 1996). Furthermore, a trusting relationship between the school staff and the principal allows change in a school to progress smoothly (Moos and Kofod, 2009). Trust in colleagues, on the other hand, is associated with teacher professionalism (Tschannen-Moran, 2009) which, in turn, leads to an increase in students’ academic achievement (Tschannen-Moran et al., 2006). Teacher trust in colleagues was also found to play a significant role in teacher collaboration and it is argued to be vital, particularly in times of reform (Tschannen-Moran, 2001). In addition, Bryk and Schneider (2003) stressed the importance of teacher trust in the clients and supportive relations with parents in reducing the risk perceived in exploring new adjustments. In this way, the working and dysfunctional aspects of the reform can be shared within a trusting atmosphere in the school so teachers can feel safe in their new explorations. Finally, teacher trust in students and parents is found to boost students’ academic achievement through the supportive learning atmosphere created by the teacher in the classroom and the increased willingness of students to learn more (Goddard et al., 2001). Further, teacher–parent trust has also been shown to be highly influential in supporting collaborative relationships between school and the students’ families, which empowers student achievement and development (Adams and Christenson, 1998). In fact, teacher trust in clients is concluded as the most influential trust dimension pertaining to collaboration in a school setting (Tschannen-Moran, 2001).

There are many benefits to creating trust-based relations. However, violating trust and creating distrust is dangerous to the organization and the process of change. Government mandates, change interventions and lack of resources are some of the major reasons of distrust at schools (Petersen, 2008). According to Fox (1974), the augmentation of rules and strict applications in school organizations also lead to distrust. Irrespective of the cause, distrust in a school is associated with less commitment and reduced loyalty together with increased dishonesty and cheating (Kramer and Cook, 2004). Furthermore, distrust in a school setting inhibits progress in the change process since the new implementations and equivocalness brought by the changes can be perceived as a threat to the present habits and practices (Zimmerman, 2006).

Context and purpose

The reforms conducted in Turkey towards the end of the 1990s helped the TES to accomplish significant gains in educational attainment across different segments of society including the disadvantaged ones. However, recent analyses on TES highlighted several issues including quality, effectiveness and equity (World Bank, 2011). These issues have become major forces driving numerous large and small scale changes in the system. Some of the major change interventions initiated in TES are: adopting a constructivist curriculum, incorporating technology into schools (including the distribution of 8 million tablet PCs to students) and restructuring the levels of primary education. According to Fullan (2009), these change interventions are a ‘large-scale reform’ since these changes affect all the public schools in the system. However, as many scholars have posited, it is difficult to argue whether these changes are the direct consequences of the rational calculations on forces of change. Various scholars underlined the politicized nature of change interventions in TES and excessive influence of the political ambitions of the government on the current educational changes (Argon and Özçelik, 2008; Güven, 2007; Kurt, 2011). Examining these interventions closely, it can be argued that large-scale interventions in Turkey lack a clear underlying strategy. Therefore, inconsistent educational policies shaped with external forces, the new system reform and other changes implemented concurrently, and discontinuity in the implementation of these changes, are the potential reasons that the real needs of TES and key stakeholders, including teachers, have been neglected. Under these circumstances, documenting how the internal context of the schools relates to their readiness potentially becomes a critical scholarly concern and forms part of the background to the creation of a policy for successful change implementations. Based on this argument, this study reveals the relationship between intentional, emotional and cognitive readiness for change and perceived faculty trust in the principal, in colleagues and in clients after controlling for the school level and teacher demographics in Turkish public schools.

Method

Sample

To address the research questions of the study, the data was gathered from the public primary and secondary schools in Ankara, Turkey. Two-stage cluster sampling was utilized for the sample selection. Following the selection of four school districts in Ankara, 53 public schools were randomly selected from those districts. The teachers working at these schools constituted the accessible population, and 603 teachers voluntarily participated in this study. Of the participants, 52.6% were from public secondary schools and 47.4% were from public primary schools. The majority of the participants were female (66%) with ages from 40 to 49 (39.6%) and from 30 to 39 (33.8%). Just under half the participants reported having teaching experience of 10 to 19 years (46.1%), 28% had taught for 20 to 29 years, and the remaining quarter of the teachers (25.9%) had more than 29 years experience. In terms of change experience and change related in-service training, 79.9% of the teachers reported that they had not participated in any change project; however, 93.3% reported that they had attended in-service training related to change .

Measures

The two data collection instruments utilized to investigate the hypothesized relationship were the Readiness for Change-Cognitive Emotional Intentional (RFOC-CEI) Scale (Kondakci et al., 2013) and Omnibus T-Scale (Hoy and Tschannen-Moran, 2003). These two scales were combined with a demographic form to constitute the data collection method.

Readiness for change-cognitive emotional intentional (RFOC-CEI) scale

This was developed to gauge school organizational members’ readiness for change at individual level using a 5-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) (Kondakci et al., 2013). In the initial validation process, the results of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed 12 items loaded on three dimensions labelled intentional, emotional and cognitive readiness by the authors. The reported reliabilities in terms of Cronbach’s Alpha were 0.87, 0.67 and 0.87 for the intentional, emotional and cognitive readiness for change dimensions, respectively.

Within the scope of the current study, the scale was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using AMOS 18 software to ensure the factor structure emerged from EFA. The CFA results revealed significant chi-square (χ² = 206.40, df = 49) which is expected with large sample sizes (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007). Therefore, other fit indices of Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI) were reported in the current study (Brown, 2006). Following the recommendations of Arbuckle (2007), two error covariances were included in the model with relatively large modification indices in order to decrease the chi-square statistics. After these modifications, the yielded RMSEA value of 0.073, with lower value of 0.063 and upper value of 0.083 at 90% confidence interval, indicated a mediocre fit (Brown and Cudeck, 1993). The CFI and NNFI indices also indicated a good fit (CFI = 0.966, NNFI = 0.954) by exceeding the recommended value of 0.95 (Brown, 2006). Based on the promising results of CFA, new reliabilities for the sub-scales of 12-itemed RFOC-CEI Scale were calculated in terms of the Cronbach alpha values. Results indicated that the reliability scores had improved and became 0.90, 0.75 and .87 for intentional, emotional and cognitive readiness dimensions, respectively.

Omnibus T-scale

This scale was developed to measure teachers’ perceptions of school organizational trust in different reference groups (Hoy and Tschannen-Moran, 2003). The original scale comprised 26 items which required teachers to identify their level of trust in their colleagues, clients (students and parents) and school principal in terms of five aspects of trust: benevolence, reliability, competency, honesty and openness.

The scale was adapted to Turkish by Özer et al. (2006). During the adaptation process, the scale was subjected to EFA and the results indicated 20 items loaded on the same three factors. However, unlike the original 6-point scale, the Turkish adaptation of the scale gauged the perceived organizational trust through a 5-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). In terms of Cronbach’s Alpha, the reliability scores calculated for the Turkish version of the scale were 0.86, 0.82 and 0.70 for trust in principal, trust in colleagues and trust in clients dimensions, respectively.

In this study, CFA was conducted to ensure the three-factor structure of the scale for the current sample. The results demonstrated significant chi-square (χ² = 772.43, df = 167); however, the RMSEA value of 0.078, with lower value of 0.072 and upper value of 0.083 at 90% confidence interval, suggested mediocre fit for the model (Brown and Cudeck, 1993). CFI and NNFI values (CFI = 0.92, NNFI = 0.91) also revealed an acceptable model since these values were close to 0.95 (Brown, 2006). Therefore, three factorial structures of the scale was also accepted for this study.

Data analysis

Since this study sought to explore relationships between the predictor and criterion variables, and was designed as a correlational research, hierarchical regression analysis was used. In the first step, school level, in the second step, teacher demographics, and in the final step, perceived organizational trust, dimensions were included in the analyses to predict the intentional, emotional and cognitive readiness for change dimensions, respectively. The school level and teacher demographics (i.e. gender, years of experience, in-service training and attending any change project) were checked in these analyses since these variables have the potential to have an impacts on the outcome variables. The rationale behind this argument is based on the discussion conducted by Oreg et al. (2011) concerning employee demographics being regarded as factors influencing reactions towards change. Furthermore, school culture referred to as an internal context variable affecting individual’s reactions to change by Oreg et al. (2011) is found to change with school level in the context of the Turkish school (Arslan et al., 2005). Categorical variables were dummy coded and included in three analyses as control variables as follows: school level as primary and secondary school (PS = 0; SS = 1); gender as female and male (F = 0; M = 1); having an in-service training and attending any change project as ‘yes’ and ‘no’ (Y = 0; N =1).

Results

Descriptive statistics and inter-correlations

Means, standard deviations and inter-correlations for continuous variables employed in this study were calculated and are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Means, standard deviations, and inter-correlations.

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Intentional readiness	3.94	0.87	–	0.64**	0.84**	0.34**	0.40**	0.21**	−0.01
2. Emotional readiness	4.17	0.94		–	0.57**	0.23**	0.26**	0.08	0.02
3. Cognitive readiness	4.11	0.93			–	0.32**	0.35**	0.14**	−0.02
4. Trust in principal	3.70	1.08				–	0.63**	0.46**	−0.04
5. Trust in colleagues	3.56	0.88					–	0.50**	−0.04
6. Trust in clients	3.03	0.71						–	0.15**
7. Experience	18.32	8.16							–

**p < 0.01.

As shown in Table 1, except for the correlation between emotional readiness and trust in clients dimensions there are positive and significant correlations within and between the dimensions of the two constructs employed in the study. Experience, on the other hand, did not correlate with any variables apart from the trust in clients dimension.

Repeated-measures ANOVA analyses

In order to assess whether there were significant mean differences within the three dimensions of readiness for change and organizational trust variables, two separate repeated-measures ANOVA were run and the results are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Results from the repeated-measures ANOVA.

Source	df	SS	MS	F	η²
Readiness for change
Readiness groups
Greenhouse-Geisser	1.56	15.51	9.22	29.12*	0.05
Error
Greenhouse-Geisser	920.63	313.63	0.34
Organizational trust
Trust groups
Greenhouse-Geisser	1.90	143.89	75.92	180.21*	0.24
Error
Greenhouse-Geisser	1114.41	469.51	0.42

* p < 0.05.

For both analyses, upon the recommendation of Stevens (2002), the Greenhouse-Geisser correction was made since it is a relatively conservative correction if Mauchly’s test of sphericity is violated. With the Greenhouse-Geisser correction, the result for readiness for change groups revealed a significant F value (F(1.57, 922.64) = 29.12, p = 0.00) with partial eta squared = 0.05. This suggested that there was a statistical difference across three readiness groups. Pairwise comparisons indicated a significantly lower mean of intentional readiness (M = 3.94) than the other two readiness dimensions with greater mean scores (Table 1). For the organizational trust groups, the results indicated a significant mean difference across the three groups as well (F(1.90, 1117.91) = 180.21, p = 0.00) with partial eta squared = 0.24. Pairwise comparisons yielded a significant mean difference among the three organizational trust groups with the trust in principal dimension with the highest mean (M = 3.69) and the trust in clients dimension being the lowest one (M = 3.03) (Table 1).

Regression analyses

Before running the hierarchical regression analysis, the required assumptions of multicollinearity, normality of errors, homoscedasticity, independence of errors and influential observations suggested by Field (2009) and Hair et al. (2010) were separately checked and validated for three analyses.

Since three separate hierarchical regression analyses were conducted, the Bonferroni correction was performed and the alpha level was set as 0.017 (0.05/3) for each analysis. Table 3 shows the results of the three hierarchical regression analyses after the entry of all independent variables.

Table 3.

Results of the hierarchical regression analysis.

Step and Variable	B	SE B	β	R²	ΔR²	Adjusted R²
Intentional readiness
Step 1
School level	−0.17	0.07	−0.10	0.01	0.01	0.01
Step 2
Gender	−0.07	0.08	−0.04	0.02	0.01	0.01
Experience	−0.00	0.01	−0.03
In-service training	−0.03	0.16	−0.01
Change project	−0.17	0.09	−0.08
Step 3
Trust in colleagues	0.33	0.05	0.33*	0.19*	0.18*	0.18
Trust in principal	0.12	0.04	0.15*
Trust in clients	−0.05	0.06	−0.04
Emotional readiness
Step 1
School level	−0.04	0.08	−0.02	0.00	0.00	−0.00
Step 2
Gender	−0.09	0.09	−0.05	0.01	0.01	-0.00
Experience	0.00	0.01	0.03
In-service training	0.01	0.17	0.00
Change project	−0.12	0.10	−0.05
Step 3
Trust in colleagues	0.27	0.06	0.25*	0.09*	0.08*	0.08
Trust in principal	0.10	0.05	0.12
Trust in clients	−0.14	0.06	−0.11
Cognitive readiness
Step 1
School level	−0.24	0.08	−0.13*	0.02*	0.02*	0.02
Step 2
Gender	−0.02	0.08	−0.01	0.02*	0.01	0.02
Experience	−0.01	0.01	−0.05
In-service training	−0.11	0.17	−0.03
Change project	−0.16	0.10	−0.07
Step 3
Trust in colleagues	0.30	0.06	0.28*	0.17*	0.14*	0.15
Trust in principal	0.15	0.04	0.18*
Trust in clients	−0.11	0.06	−0.09

*p < 0.017.

For the intentional readiness dimension, the inclusion of school level and teacher demographics as the predictor resulted in almost no variance in the outcome variable; however, with the inclusion of perceived organizational trust variables, the new model explained 19% of the variance, which indicated significant improvement in R² . Accordingly, the F-test results indicated that the first two models were not significant, but the final model significantly predicted the teachers’ intentional readiness for change (F(8, 570) = 17.07, p = 0.00) with the significant contribution of trust in colleagues (t(570) = 6.43, p = 0.00) and trust in principal (t( 570) = 2.89, p = 0.00) dimensions (Table 3). Unstandardized regression coefficients (b-value) of these predictors also suggested a positive relationship with the outcome variable as being positive (Field, 2009), yet the trust in colleagues dimension makes a stronger unique contribution with the largest standardized beta coefficient of 0.33 when compared with 0.15 for the trust in principal dimension.

The results of the hierarchical regression analysis for emotional readiness indicated that the first two models accounted for almost no variance in the criterion variable. The final model, on the other hand, with the inclusion of three perceived organizational trust variables explained 9% of the total variance with a significant improvement in R² (Table 3). Although the first two models were not significant predictors of teachers’ emotional readiness, the combination of variables in the final model significantly predicted the outcome variable (F(8, 572) = 7.05, p = 0.00), with only faculty trust in colleagues significantly contributing to this prediction (t(572) = 6.43, p = 0.00). The b-value also indicated positive relationship between the dimensions of faculty trust in colleagues and emotional readiness for change (Field, 2009).

For the last dependent variable of cognitive readiness for change, the results revealed that the first model including school level as the only independent variable is significant (F(1, 576) = 9.62, p < 0.017) with school level’s significant contribution in this prediction (t(576) = −3.10, p = 0.00). The b-value being negative suggested that primary school teachers’ (PS = 0) cognitive readiness for change is higher than their secondary level counterparts (SS = 1). With the inclusion of teacher demographics in the second step, the results indicated that the second model also significantly predicts the criterion variable (F(5, 572) = 2.87, p < 0.017) and explained 2% of the total variance. However, no predictors significantly contributed in this model. Similarly, the last model, in which three trust dimensions were added, was a significant predictor of teachers’ cognitive readiness for change (F(8, 569) = 14,06, p < 0.017) with faculty trust in colleagues (t(569) = 5.38, p = 0.00) and faculty trust in principal (t(569) = 3.44, p = 0.00) significantly contributing to this prediction. The inclusion of these three variables in the model also resulted in a significant increment in R² by 14% from Step 2 to Step 3 (Table 3). The highest standardized beta value of trust in colleagues dimension was 0.28 this suggested that this variable had the strongest unique contribution in explaining teachers’ cognitive readiness for change.

Discussion and conclusions

This study was conducted to substantiate the relationship between readiness for change and perceived organizational trust in Turkish school context. The results provide empirical evidence on the relationship between intentional, emotional and cognitive readiness for change and perceived faculty trust in the principal and in colleagues after controlling for the school level and teacher demographics in Turkish public schools.

In the analysis employed, school level and teacher demographics are treated as the antecedents of teachers’ readiness for change in the readiness dimensions of intention, emotion and cognition. The results indicated a significant contribution of the school level for teachers’ cognitive readiness for change but the remaining demographic variables did not show any significant prediction for any of the readiness dimensions. This finding implies that teachers in primary schools have more positive beliefs than their counterparts in secondary schools regarding the positive outcomes of the change efforts for themselves, their colleagues and their organizations. This result reaffirms previous results which suggested that primary schools have a stronger culture than secondary schools in terms of collaboration, commitment and willing compliance to change (Arslan et al., 2005). The likely explanation for this finding can be that close and supportive relationships among teachers at primary schools, on account of smaller school size and greater numbers of classroom teachers, might potentially promote their collective efficacy to deal with the uncertainty and new demands brought by the change and this may also support positive change related attitudes.

In accordance with previous research on the relationship between readiness for change and trust (e.g. Eby et al., 2000; Rafferty and Simons, 2006; van Dam et al., 2008), this study hypothesized that perceived organizational trust in different reference groups is a significant predictor of teachers’ readiness for change in three dimensions. The preliminary analysis on the relationship between predictor and outcome variables indicated meaningful correlation among the variables focused on in the current research except for the relationship between emotional readiness and faculty trust in clients. This finding may potentially stem from inadequate parental involvement in schools in Turkey and the teacher participants’ consequent assessment of parents and students as non-emotional in-group. Furthermore, the initial analysis on the mean differences of readiness dimensions indicated that teachers’ intentional readiness is meaningfully lower than their cognitive and emotional readiness. This means that, although participants have relatively positive beliefs and emotions towards the proposed changes, they are not willing to invest effort for the sake of the change. This finding reaffirmed the previous discussion of Liu and Perrewé (2005) on the cognitive emotional model of organizational change in the way that change receivers’ concurrent cognitions and emotions precede their behaviour outcomes. In terms of the trust dimension, teachers were reported to have a meaningfully higher level of trust in their principal contrary to the lower level of trust in clients. Unsurprisingly, inadequate school–family relations, particularly in rural school districts in Turkey, and the hierarchical school structure might be the potential sources of low faculty trust in clients and high trust in the principal.

Subsequent and more detailed analyses mainly supported the hypothesized relationship, in that perceived trust in colleagues and in the principal are influential in making sense of teachers’ intentional and cognitive readiness for change. Similarly, the results of the study revealed that teachers’ trust in their colleagues is also significantly associated with teachers’ readiness in the emotional dimension, unlike the other two trust dimensions. However, the findings did not signify the expected positive relationship between readiness for change and teachers’ trust in clients in the context of the Turkish school.

Among all antecedents explored, faculty trust in colleagues is the only and most influential trust dimension that meaningfully contributed to understanding three dimensions of readiness for change. These results suggest that decreased trust in colleagues undermines cognitive, emotional and intentional readiness, which may result in the augmentation of other negative attitudes, such as resistance and cynicism. Furthermore, cultural values, such as uncertainty avoidance and collectivism/individualism, provide an insight on the significance of faculty trust in their colleagues. Hofstede et al. (2010) categorized the culture of Turkey as having low individualism and high uncertainty avoidance. Considering these dominant cultural values, in Turkish schools the teachers’ emotional involvement within group is high because in such collectivity cultures the in-group or the ‘we’ is the major source of support in the face of challenge. As a challenging process, organizational change interventions force people to seek emotional in-group support. Moreover, this finding reaffirmed previous studies on the importance of school internal context and interrelationships for desired change outcomes (Bouckenooghe et al., 2009; Eby et al., 2000) and collaborative atmosphere in times of change (Bryk and Schneider, 2003; Tschannen-Moran, 2001). In other words, a supportive atmosphere for the new adjustments and quality of sharing among teachers potentially reduces the ambiguity they experience and promotes their self-efficacy to deal with the change. In the presence of trust, teachers might reveal their problems genuinely and ask their colleagues for help; thus, teachers act as informal mentors for each other when they encounter problems in the implementations of the new changes and it is likely that they also learn from each other.

Furthermore, in line with studies that found significant relationship between trust in the principal and change accomplishment (Moos and Kofod, 2009), in this study trust in the principal also yielded significant relationship with readiness for change in intention and cognition dimensions. This finding implies that teachers who trust in their principal tend to believe in the value of change interventions and are likely to support and embrace them. This finding, in fact, makes sense when the highly centralized structure of Turkish educational system is considered. Because of the top-down nature of the changes implemented by Ministry of National Education (MONE), and lack of participation in the decision-making process, teachers tend to rely on the information they receive from their principal to reduce the uncertainty in times of change. In the presence of distrust, teachers might be left with unanswered questions; hence, they might not believe in the value of the change efforts for themselves and their school and therefore not embrace them. In contrast, the findings revealed a lack of a relationship between the teachers’ emotional readiness and their trust in the principal. This finding is not surprising in the Turkish school context since teachers’ feelings regarding the proposed changes in Turkey are generally neglected and they are obliged to fulfil the requirements of the changes even though they harbour negative feelings.

On the other hand, no significant relationship was reached between three readiness dimensions and teachers’ trust in their clients. In contrast to findings suggesting that this is the most critical trust dimension in promoting collaboration at school (Tschannen-Moran, 2001), in the Turkish school context the faculty trust in clients dimension did not produce change supportive attitudes on the part of the teachers. The lack of a relationship among these constructs may not be caused by teachers’ real opinions on the insignificance of school–family relations. A possible explanation for these unexpected findings might be the inadequate relations between the school and the parents in Turkey. The data within the scope of this study were collected from diverse school districts with different socioeconomic status, and in Turkey socioeconomic status is one of the most influential determinants of parental involvement at schools. Therefore, inadequate interaction and communication between teachers and families, particularly, in some disadvantaged school districts, might be the reason for teachers’ poor evaluation of their trust in parents and students.

The results of the study provide implications for schools and MONE in terms of creating more effective change implementations. Firstly, organizational trust emerged as a critical factor in creating readiness for change; yet, trust in colleagues is the most influential trust dimension in promoting intentional, emotional and cognitive readiness of teachers. Therefore, rather than individualism, a supportive and collaborative school culture, in which teacher communication and interaction are empowered, is vital in times of change. Thus, school principals should invest in creating an internal environment in their schools based on trusting relationships. Moreover, since trust in the principal is the secondary dominant trust dimension supporting teacher readiness, school principals, as being change agents at schools, should be open and honest with their teachers, provide help when needed and support the improvement of communication channels in order to reduce the ambiguity caused by change and the feeling of lack of a route map for effective change implementations.

In addition, this study also added support for the multi-dimensional structure of readiness for change and the presence of different factors increasing or reducing them. Therefore, Piderit’s (2000) three-dimensional framework was empirically tested to be valid for the Turkish educational context. This model also bears a practical implication for change agents in such a way that for effectively dealing with resistance to change, the readiness dimensions reported to be low by teachers can be supported, in particular, by investing in their trust in their colleagues. Therefore, appropriate strategies can be developed by MONE and school principals to deal with the potential negative teacher attitudes.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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