The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

Research has shown that managerial communication can facilitate employees’ support for organizational change; however, the reasons for variations in employees’ evaluations of change communication have yet to be investigated. This study examines how participatory and programmatic change communications influence the change commitment and resistance intention of recipients while taking into consideration their power distance orientation (PD orientation). We conducted an experimental simulation study with 263 German employees, mostly of lower hierarchical status. The findings reveal that participatory communication is more likely to lead to change commitment than programmatic communication, particularly for employees with low PD orientation. Employees were more likely to commit to the change vision when the leader’s communication approach met the employees’ expectations regarding their PD orientation, suggesting that there is a moderating effect. In addition, a moderated mediation analysis revealed that PD orientation has an indirect impact on employees’ resistance intention through their level of change commitment.

Despite the increasing interest in emotions at work, there is still a need for more research that focus on the antecedents of emotions in organizational change contexts. Moreover, literature on the subject considers leadership and trust to be fundamental when dealing with change processes. Taking into account both ideas, it is proposed here that authentic leadership (AL) perception can influence followers’ trust and emotions during change. To test these hypotheses, we gathered and analyzed the experience of 102 Spanish human resource managers using structural equation modeling based on partial least squares. Findings show that AL is directly and positively related to followers’ trust in the leader and the experience of positive emotions. Furthermore, we found that trust mediates the relation between AL perception and the experience of negative emotions. Based on these findings, some practical implications are proposed, such as the implementation of training initiatives in order to provide human resource managers with a better understanding of the AL concept and facilitate different actions that could be carried out by them so as to contribute to trust building.

This study is based on intentional change theory and supports cognitive-emotion and social complexity perspectives regarding positive and negative affect. We examine how a coaching experience guided by a specific theoretical approach within a leadership development program at a European business school influences cognitive-emotional processing of MBA students with regard to their levels of personal vision comprehensiveness and strength, goal-directed energy, and resilience. A within-subjects pre–post Non-Equivalent Dependent Variables design with a total of 76 students was conducted using survey methods. A rigorous analysis sheds light on how intentional change theory–based coaching enhances individual self-development processes. Participants stated higher levels of personal vision, goal-directed energy, and resilience postcoaching. A series of moderator effects were identified regarding the quality of the coaching connection (i.e., overall emotional saliency) and the general self-efficacy of participants. Implications concerning how coaching processes may be enriched through the establishment of high-quality coaching connections are discussed.

The author explores effects of functional diversity on group creativity under varying group longevity. When group members have worked together for a long time in functionally diverse groups, they are expected to show stronger information processing and weaker categorization processing. Knowledge sharing and group cohesion are examined as mediating mechanisms through which functional diversity enhances group creativity as group longevity increases. Analysis of a sample of 155 workgroups demonstrates that group longevity positively moderates the relationship between functional diversity and group creativity through moderating the effects of functional diversity on two mechanisms of knowledge sharing and group cohesion.

Organizational theatre interventions have become established as a pervasive and influential arts-based method of dialogic organizational development, yet their effects are controversial and contested. While they have been praised for their potential as a tool of empowerment, they have also been criticized for their possible use as a more or less insidious form of control. This article explores and evaluates such claims and counterclaims, supported by an in-depth longitudinal quasi-experimental field study of customer service staff in a regional Australian bank. The results of the field study not only indicate that organizational theatre interventions may increase both empowerment and control but also suggest that the outcomes may be more lightweight than supporters have hoped and critics have feared. The article outlines the implications of these findings for future research and practice.