Toward an understanding of a healthy organizational change process: A three-wave longitudinal study among university employees

© 2019 American Psychological Association. This study aimed to improve our understanding of what constitutes a healthy organizational change process among university employees. Positive attitudes and proactive participation toward organizational change were presumed to affect and be affected by personality resources measured via core selfevaluations and work-related motivational well-being (vigor). The study used 3-wave longitudinal data collected in 2 large Finnish universities during their recent process of organizational change (N = 926). Structural equation modeling was used to establish the direction of the relationships between the variables. The results showed that high levels of both core self-evaluations and vigor were associated with more favorable perceptions of organizational change: employees high in core self-evaluations and vigor were more satisfied with the changes and the information provided about the changes, and were also more likely to be actively involved in the change process. It was further found that positive attitudes to change mediated the relation between vigor and core self-evaluations: vigorous employees perceived the organizational changes more positively, which in turn strengthened their internal self-evaluations. Overall, these longitudinal results show that, among university employees, core self-evaluations and vigor are both important resource factors influencing perceptions and reactions to organizational changes.