Positioning Change Recipients’ Attitudes Toward Change in the Organizational Change Literature

Abstract

This article reviews the literature on attitudes toward change. This narrative review of 58 journal articles published between 1993 and 2007 indicates that there is a need for a more complete typology of attitudes toward change that also fully captures the core essence of this concept. By means of content analysis we first examined the conceptual overlap between the eight attitude-related constructs included in this review and the working definition of attitudes toward change. Second, the concept “attitudes toward change” was described along four major theoretical lenses: (a) nature of change, (b) level of change, (c) positive—negative view on change, and (d) research perspective. This conceptual review not only summarizes the current state of research but also offers a more complete typology of attitudes toward change, and highlights directions for possible future inquiry.