Users' Individual Communicative Responses to Intraorganizationally Implemented Innovations and Other Planned Changes

Abstract

Although innovations traditionally have been treated as having consistent effects on whole organizations, previous scholarly literature suggests that users demonstrate important individual differences in responding to change programs. The results of an empirical study of users' communicative responses regarding intraorganizational-implemented innovations and other planned changes are reported here. A list of users' individual communicative responses was empirically developed and analyzed by means of multidimensional scaling to reveal the conceptual structure underlying the responses. The results indicate a threedimensional structure of users' responses. Subsequent analyses confinmed interpretations of the three dimensions of behavior as "positive versus negative," "decided versus undecided," and "self-focused versus other-focused."