Abstract
While the importance of supervisors’ communication for the successful implementation of organisational change is often emphasised, evidence regarding the actual dimensions of change communication and the reaction of change recipients is scarce. As communication is highly context and culture specific, this study included participants from Germany and India. To meet these research aims, we conducted focus group discussions (FGD) with overall 50 graduate students with work experiences from Germany and India. We identified key dimensions of informative, empathic and participatory change communication that are of high importance for change recipients. The German and Indian participants had similar expectations regarding the informative and empathic dimensions of change communication. However, interestingly, their assessment of the actual participation differed substantially, with consequences for their emotional responses. The findings emphasise the crucial role of supervisors’ communication for employees’ emotions in times of change. Supervisors thereby need to consider the diverse dimensions of their communication and stimulate employees’ expectations regarding information, empathy and participation with different communicative activities and approaches. This study provides important insights into organisational change communication by analysing its key dimensions, linking it to employees’ emotions and considering the cultural context.
Keywords
Introduction
Change processes are critical for a company’s profitability, competitive advantage and even survival. For a successful change to occur, the support and collaboration of organisational members are essential. To gain this support, communication is considered as one of the most crucial elements and as an important facilitator in promoting positive change responses from employees (Tanner & Otto, 2016; van Vuuren & Elving, 2008). While previous research has focused on the content or nature of communication, surprisingly little research has explored employee perceptions (Jones, Watson, Gardner & Gallois, 2004). As Lewis, Schmisseur, Stephens and Weir (2006) note, research should move from a process-oriented focus (e.g., emphasis on media and frequency of change communication) to an assessment of how employees develop a sense of and react to change communication. The direct supervisor, thereby, is the most important communicator, because of the established trust and relationship and the frequent formal and informal occasions for dialog and interaction with and between employees (Allen, Jimmieson, Bordia & Irmer, 2007). However, surprisingly supervisors are rarely considered as change communicators in current studies (Hill, Seo, Kang & Taylor, 2012). Hence, in this study, we examine which dimensions of supervisors’ communication are crucial in times of change. Additionally, we adopt an employee perspective in response to the frequent call by scholars (Bordia, Hunt, Paulsen, Tourish & DiFonzo, 2004; Lewis et al., 2006).
Pettigrew, Woodman and Cameron (2001) already discussed the need for more cultural comparative studies in the field of organisational change and criticised the lack of context or cultural environment in the developed frameworks, theories and approaches. Since then, further studies have investigated organisational change beyond Western cultures (e.g., Hempel & Martinsons, 2009; Rees & Johari, 2010). Moreover, a number of studies compared cultural differences related to organisational change and development (e.g., Kirsch, Chelliah & Parry, 2012). Most of these studies provide evidence for cultural differences in terms of perception, reaction and understanding of organisational change (Alas & Rees, 2006; Kirkman, Chen, Farh, Chen & Lowe, 2009). Consequently, they call for a careful consideration of cultural and societal contexts. While these previous studies focus on the change process, leadership style or psychological factors, the communication during change has not been examined within its cultural context or between cultures. To consider the possible cultural influences in the assessment of supervisors’ change communication, we conducted our studies with German and Indian participants. A comparison between Germany and India is particularly interesting due to the major cultural (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman & Gupta, 2004) and economic differences.
To meet the research aim, we designed focus group discussions (FGD) to identify key communication dimensions and the emotional responses of change recipients. Our study provides several important contributions to the field of organisational change and communication. First, we systematically examine commonly agreed-upon characteristics of change communication dimensions from the employees’ perspective. Second, we particularly study employees’ emotional responses and thus provide evidence for the impact of the identified dimensions on the variety of employees’ emotions. Finally, we consider possible cultural effects by examining the responses of German and Indian participants. Hence, we contribute to a more nuanced perspective of change communication by considering employees’ cultural background and emotional responses to change.
Employees’ Perspective on Supervisors’ Change Communication
As uncertainty management theory suggests that communication helps employees to cope with uncertainty in a given situation, which results in positive responses (Lind & van den Bos, 2002). In line with this theory, studies provide evidence that change communication reduces uncertainty, facilitates openness and positive attitudes towards change (Bordia et al., 2004) and thus plays a vital role during change processes (Johansson & Heide, 2008; van Vuuren & Elving, 2008). Not surprisingly, change agents consider communication problems as one of the most critical threats for the change implementation (Lewis, 2000). Particularly during and after radical changes, communication is an essential component of organisational members’ sense-making and sense-giving processes (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Weick, 1995). Communication during change should therefore not be understood as just an instrument to forward information, but instead as a powerful element for organisations and leaders to provide and develop sense-making, social interaction and understanding.
From an employee’s perspective, the direct supervisor is the most important communicator during change (Allen et al., 2007). Supervisors are responsible for providing information, explaining decisions and convincing their team of the importance, urgency and necessity of planned changes to motivate their employees. This can be a challenging task, especially as top management usually develops the change vision (Gersick, 1991) and supervisors find themselves in an unfavourable sandwich position to implement the changes and, at the same time, being the most affected by the planned changes. Thus, the ability to communicate was ranked as the most important competence for change agents, and 78 per cent of the surveyed employees expected their supervisor to actively communicate the change vision (Capgemini Consulting, 2015).
Although the importance of communication during change and the role of the supervisor are well discussed in literature, there is surprisingly little knowledge about the actual dimensions of change communication from an employee’s perspective. While previous research has gained important insights about the process of communication (Lewis, 1999), the quality of communication (Paterson & Cary, 2002; Wanberg & Banas, 2000) and communication in top management teams (Hedman & Valo, 2015), we specifically focus on the employees’ perceptions of and reactions to supervisors’ change communication.
In addition, the consideration and examination of cultural contexts remain understudied and under-represented in organisational change research (Shin, Taylor & Seo, 2012), and in particular, the assessment of change communication within its cultural context is lacking in current literature. Hence, in this study, we examine whether change communication dimensions are perceived as culturally dependent. In our study, we particularly focus on participants from Germany and India for two major reasons. First, these two countries are in different stages of their economic development. While Germany is a developed country with an established economy and saturated markets, India opened its markets in 1991 and since then has been ranked among the fastest growing developing countries. Second, with regards to cultural studies, these two countries differ in their essential value orientation (House et al., 2004). Thus, our aim for this study is to identify key dimensions of organisational change communication from the employees’ perspective and employees’ emotional response to change initiatives. We additionally raise the question of how a person’s cultural background impacts the assessment of and response to change communication.
Method
We utilised a qualitative explorative approach, as recommended by scholars when engaging in multidisciplinary examination of new research fields in an international context (Doz, 2011). As focus groups enable the collection of valuable information via active interaction between the participants (Krueger & Casey, 2014) benefitting from inspiring each other’s thinking around the specific topic by questioning each other and explaining themselves (Morgan, 1996), we conducted FGD with German and Indian business students, who mostly had relevant working experience. For the FGD, we developed a case study describing the restructuring process of a fictitious electronics company, for which we used well-documented company case, such as the case of Sony (Gupta & Perepu, 2010). After the participants read the description of the company and the organisation-wide change project, they studied the supervisors’ communication through reports and pictures of three team meetings. In these meetings, the supervisors explained the change vision, the implementation and the consequences of these changes for the employees and the department.
To test the applied case study in both cultural contexts, we conducted manipulation checks with German and Indian participants prior to the main data collection. For this reason, we interviewed participants about the content, the comprehensiveness and the comprehensibility of the described change.
Data Collection
Four German discussion groups with 23 and four Indian discussion groups with 27 participants were held in the native language of the German participants and in English for the Indians. All groups received the case study and a short introduction by the moderator. After reading the case and making sure that everyone understood the content, we asked an evolving set of open-ended questions to all groups. Semi-structured FDG guidelines listing the central themes were used. On average, the FGD lasted from 1.5 to 2 hours. Anonymity and confidentiality were guaranteed. All FGDs were recorded for later analyses. We documented the discussions and distributed a questionnaire asking for demographic data. We used the data of these various sources to increase the validity and reliability of our results (Yin, 2016).
Sample
The participants were enrolled in graduate programmes related to business administration. A total of 73 per cent of the participants were female, and the age ranged from 20 to 28 years for the overall sample, with an average age of 24 years (SD = 2.00). Totally, 74 per cent of the participants already gained work experience, of which 31 per cent had worked for more than 2 years. Business students were particularly suitable for two reasons. First, we focus on the recipients’ demand for supervisor communication. Experienced workers may only relate to their experienced change processes and to how their supervisors communicated and behaved. Business students have enough experience to understand the situational context but are not tied to one specific organisational culture and context. Second, the described situation requires a certain amount of business-related knowhow. Thus, we decided to include graduate-level business students and MBAs.
Data Analysis
We analysed the data by applying content analysis and extracted the themes suggested by the material. The first stage of the analysis process included data processing by developing and combining the audio record, additional notes on the main arguments and the information provided by the questionnaires. A deductive-inductive code development process was chosen (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006). With regard to the research purpose, we decided on two major categories beforehand: change communication and emotions. By analysing the material, we developed sub-categories, added to other categories. The next step consisted of an initial coding of one German and one Indian FGD by two independent scholars. After each scholar identified the most prominent themes emerging from the material, they discussed the initial coding by comparing categories and sub-categories. They then continued coding the remaining interviews in the same manner. During this process, new codes were included as they emerged during the further coding stages and the results of the two scholars were directly compared to identify similarities and differences (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Ultimately, a total of 91 different codes were produced, and in the following stage, they were reduced into abstract categories (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). In the final stage, the major categories were identified, renamed and again aggregated to develop central aspects relevant to the research aim.
Previously, possible particularities in the coding systems were clarified to minimise the error variance as proposed by Krippendorff (2013). This resulted in an acceptable reliability of the coding system (ICC = 0.81). Because grammatical errors in the transcription process can limit the credibility of the findings (Yin, 2016) as well as the legibility, the inserted quotations have been grammatically corrected from their original state. During all stages of analysis, we used the software MAXqda 11 to ensure consistency, accountability and comparability.
Results
The findings reveal that there are specific dimensions of supervisors’ change communication that are relevant from the change recipients’ perspective, leading to a variety of different emotional responses to the introduced changes. Figure 1 shows the main themes and their predominate sub-categories.
Dimensions of Change Communication
We identified three major change communication dimensions: informative, empathic and participatory. Similarities and differences between the Indian and German groups were noticeable, as will be elaborated below.
Informative change communication: One important factor for the change communication mentioned in all FGDs is how informed the recipients felt. This dimension was often the first comment made about the supervisors’ communication. Participants discussed how well informed they felt, which information was relevant to them and what was missing (mainly more information about job security). Both German and Indian participants agreed on the importance of this dimension. Their evaluation of the supervisors’ approach in the scenario indicated no conspicuous differences between the groups. The participants emphasised the importance of being informed and that they were pleased with the degree of information provided by the supervisor to reducing uncertainty and fear. For instance, an Indian participant said,
They are providing them [the employees] with all the facts about the restructuring to the employees. So that the employees are able to identify what is taking place in the organization, and how it will affect them.
In addition, most of the participants emphasised the centrality of the use of different channels to disseminate relevant information. Most discussion groups accordingly praised the diverse media use described in the scenarios. Thus, the informative dimension can be categorised as a basic requirement for organisational change communication. Recipients expect to be informed and to receive the relevant facts about the change initiative to reduce uncertainty and fear and to anticipate the impact they will feel from the change initiative. They also favour the use of different information channels to receive this information.
Empathic change communication: The second dimension of change communication frequently identified is the personal and emotional tone of the supervisors’ communication. Participants indicated reiteratively their desire for a personal speech from their supervisors, particularly the German participants. This desire includes the expectation that the supervisor will address the obstacles that the team may face, the possible negative effects, the raised fear and uncertainty in the team as well as other relevant personal topics beyond just facts and information about the change process. Throughout the German FGD, the participants emphasised that they would like to be addressed more personally by their supervisors, particularly in a change situation with high perceived uncertainty. One German participant stated that,
But I simply miss the human level. Yes, the personal level is missing
Most of the German participants expressed a strong urge to talk about their emotional state in a more personal and casual style instead of having the supervisor taking a purely information-driven communication approach. In addition, they asked for personal statements from their supervisor (i.e., his opinions and views) rather than just stating facts about the planned change.
This strong urge was not as clear in the Indian FGD. However, the tendency was similar. For example, one of the Indian participants stated that,
He [the supervisor] said that he will be providing all the facts and figures and the information. But, this is not what the employees want. So, he should have shown a little more concern towards the employees. Not towards the change. […]
This statement again describes the participants’ demand for including personal issues in the change communication.
Participatory change communication: The third identified change communication dimension is the degree of participation. Following the two dimensions mentioned above, the opportunity to participate in the communication was one of the most discussed topics, but it is also one of the most controversial. While the German participants directly identified insufficient participation opportunities, the Indian participants expressed an opposing evaluation and praised the participatory communication approach. Although both groups understood participatory communication as an approach in which the employees can ask questions, give and receive feedback and be actively involved in the communication process, their evaluation of the supervisors’ actual communication in the case study diverged considerably.
A great majority of the German participants claimed that the communication approach was top-down, with only a few or no chances to get involved. As one participant criticised,
What I noticed is that the participation is missing, which was mentioned in the beginning. They [the management] said that they want to involve us, but now they only delegate top-down.
The lack of participation clearly triggered various different, mainly negative, emotions, such as demotivation, anger, fear and uncertainty. Most German comments regarding the supervisors’ communication expressed dissatisfaction with the top-down approach, indicating that this dimension is particularly crucial in assessing supervisors’ change communication.
In contrast to the German group, the Indian participants perceived opportunities to participate within the communication and complimented the supervisors’ approach. As one of the participants stated that,
So everything is being discussed with the employees. So they [the employees] will feel a sense of belongingness, because this is a kind of participative decision-making. They are being taken into account. What they think is important for the company
This statement shows the fundamentally different evaluation of the participatory dimension. Thus, cultural differences became apparent. First, the German participants were more sensitive about participation as their Indian colleagues, and second, the German and Indian groups reveal a different understanding and expectation of participatory and top-down communication.
In addition, the group discussions revealed that the German sample discussed the supervisors’ communication in much more detail than their Indian counterparts. While the German participants emphasised the importance of their supervisor’s appropriate communication, the Indian participants included the perception of benefits and disadvantages of the change initiative for themselves and for the company in their argumentation more often. Hence, the German participants related much more of their evaluations to the supervisors’ change communication than the Indian participants did. This is particularly valid for the participatory dimension of change communication. As a result, German and Indian participants differed not only in their assessment of the degree of participation, but also in the significance of supervisors’ change communication in terms of their emotional response.
Emotional Reactions
The participants used various different emotional expressions to explain their feelings regarding the introduced changes. We divided these reactions in two categories, positive and negative emotions. Additionally, similar emotions or synonyms for emotional expressions, such as fear and anxiety, were combined into a single category. The most frequently identified emotional reactions were feelings of uncertainty, confidence / hope, stress, pressure and fear.
The German FGD expressed much more negative emotions and used them to underline their argumentations more often than their Indian counterparts. All German participants emphasised the high perceived uncertainty in the change setting as well as resulting stress and pressure, with consequences for their commitment, motivation and support. Indian participants also expressed uncertainty or stress due to the introduced change. However, they expressed less fear and were less demotivated and frustrated than their German counterparts. Not only the dimensions of change communication were interpreted and understood differently but also some emotional responses, in particular pressure, showed differences. While for German participants, pressure was perceived as negative and decreased motivation, Indian participants explained that pressure was seen as a chance to prove themselves in a competitive environment, as this statement from an Indian participant illustrates:
We are meant to, you know, work work work. And we are especially good at working under pressure
To understand how the supervisors’ change communication was linked to employees’ emotional expressions, we performed further analyses with the aid of MAXqda. For this purpose, we analysed all segments in which codes related to both the change communication dimensions and the respective emotional expressions were present. This analysis revealed that supervisors’ communication is a major contributor to employees’ positive or negative feelings about the change. While most participants rated the informative change communication dimension positively, negative emotions were consistently present due to a sense of job insecurity, which led to a high degree of uncertainty. Moreover, participants argued that a personal speech by the supervisor would reduce emotions such as demotivation, uncertainty, fear or pressure. The expressed emotions regarding this dimension were balanced. The participatory dimension, however, was associated with mainly negative emotions, primarily as a result of the very negative perception of the German FGDs, who spent much more time on discussing the negative impact of the supervisors’ ‘top-down’ approach. In contrast, the Indian FGDs praised the participatory approach, agreed on the importance of involved feelings and did not engage in further discussions on the topic. In conclusion, the analysis suggests that the dimensions of supervisors’ communication contribute to different emotional responses, which underlines the importance of a differentiated framework of change communication.
Discussion
This study examined supervisors’ change communication by accounting for employees’ expectations and evaluating their emotional reactions. In doing so, this study suggests that there are three particular dimensions of change communication: informative, empathic and participatory. Prior literature has discussed one or another of these dimensions (e.g., Allen et al., 2007; Russ, 2008). With this study, we provide empirical evidence for the role of these dimensions in employees’ emotional responses by including two samples of different cultural groups to assess their overall importance.
Both German and Indian participants placed importance on receiving continuous information about the change process, including personal opportunities or limitations that will accompany the change. This type of information will allow employees to act early and develop a backup plan to reduce uncertainty. Previous research on change communication has largely focused on this dimension, which is emphasised by a great number of studies using the scale of Miller, Johnson and Grau (1994) to ask for the quality of change information (e.g., Paterson & Cary, 2002; Wanberg & Banas, 2000). Our results confirm the Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) (Berger & Calabrese, 1975), which explains how information is useful for reducing perceived uncertainties. Even if uncertainty is not always negative (Brashers, 2002), this study revealed that the distressing nature of uncertainty demands a high level of informative communication by the supervisor. Although most of the German participants expressed a high degree of distressing uncertainty and thus had higher demands for the supervisors’ communication, the Indian participants were ‘positively uncertain’. The occurrence of pressure as a result of the perceived uncertainty emphasises the different responses to change.
The second dimension is the empathic tone of the communication. The analysis demonstrated that participants demanded a personal tone to better address the raised fears, uncertainties and worries. While previous research acknowledges that supervisors should be responsive of their employees’ emotions (Groves, 2006), this aspect has been neglected within prior studies of change communication. When a supervisor expresses emotion and shows interest in the worries and fears of his/her employees, he or she is providing important reference points for sense making (Pye, 2005). German participants clearly stated the necessity of empathic change communication by their supervisor, while the Indian participants had the same tendency, their expectation and urge for more personal and emotional communication was not expressed with the same intensity. This difference could be a result of the higher uncertainty avoidance tendency of German employees (House et al., 2004).
The findings of the FGDs suggest that, in particular, participatory communication by supervisors is a critical and controversial dimension. While German and Indian participants agreed on the positive effect of involvement and participation, their understanding and evaluation of actual communications diverge considerably. The literature on change communication, largely Western dominated, tends to value a participatory communication strategy as the better approach (Lam, Chen & Schaubroeck, 2002). Nevertheless, this study underlines that there is no uniform model of participatory change communication. Instead, evaluations of the degree of participation depend on the recipients’ expectations and are based on their cultural background. This phenomenon can be explained by cultural differences as depicted by the results of the GLOBE study (House et al., 2004). While the Germanic European cluster to which the German culture belongs scores highest in participatory leadership, the Indian culture scores quite low in this area (Dickson, BeShears & Gupta, 2004). In addition, one of the key values in German culture is the concept of participation (Chhokar, Brodbeck & House, 2007), which has resulted in powerful work councils and legal rights at the workplace. German employees are used to being regularly included in decision-making throughout their working life and stress the participation attribute in a supervisor, while Indian employees have a greater value for safety as a leadership attribute (Dorfman, Hanges & Brodbeck, 2004). Nevertheless, the Indian employees also perceive participative leadership in a positive manner (Chhokar et al., 2007), as suggested by the FGDs in this study, it is the expectation regarding the degree of participation that considerably differs between the German and Indian participants. This finding supports the benefitting role of a participatory approach (Helpap, 2016) but also shows that context-specific communication approaches are needed.
Further, we find evidence that German and Indian participants value the impact of communication differently. The study indicates that supervisor’s change communication is much more discussed among German than Indian participants. The Indian participants included the perceived benefits and disadvantages resulting from the change initiative for the company and themselves in their overall response to the introduced change. Most of the German participants, however, were focusing more on the department and individual level, while the direct supervisors’ role seemed to be much more vital for them than for their Indian counterparts. This has important implications for the role of supervisors’ in international change projects, because employees’ expectations regarding their supervisors’ role and function as communicator can differ considerably. In addition, emotions can differ in their meaning and in their effect to employees. While most of the German participants felt that pressure is negative because they have to exhibit their talents again and have to perform on new job tasks, the Indian participants mostly viewed pressure as something positive because it motivates employees to give their best and perform better in times of change.
These findings reveal two important issues. First, they underline the importance of a sophisticated and nuanced framework of supervisors’ change communication. While current literature does not further differentiate between specific aspects, this study provides evidence that particular dimensions of change communication are relevant for employees and that these generate different sets of emotional responses. Second, this study suggests that employees thereby possess different expectations and understandings, in particular regarding participatory communication. This is an important contribution to the current debate, which has largely neglected the diverse responses of different employee groups. This research study develops important insights and expands current frameworks in the field of organisational change and communication with regards to emotional responses from a German and Indian perspective. Altogether, our findings indicate the importance of communication as a relevant component of leadership by the direct supervisor in today’s business settings as characterised by continuous change.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the New-Delhi Institute of Management and the Chitkara University for their generous help with the data collection.