The Role of Change Content, Context, Process, and Leadership in Understanding Employees’ Commitment to Change: The Case of Public Organizations in Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Abstract

In times of financial austerity, public organizations are forced, either by internally motivated goals or externally mandated policies, to implement reforms and changes to cut back on expenses. While organizational change happens with increasing magnitude and frequency in public sector organizations, much of public management research concerning organizational change has mainly focused on change at the sector or national level. This study, on the contrary, focuses on a more micro-level and individual perspective by investigating the simultaneous influence of content, context, process, and leadership on employees’ affective commitment to change (ACC) in a non-Western, Islamic setting. To test the study’s hypotheses, data were collected from a sample of 147 employees in five public sector organizations that recently witnessed major structural changes in Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Regression results reveal that process-related variables and transformational leadership behavior of direct supervisors enhance commitment to change while employees’ negative perception of his or her change history (a context-related factor) impedes commitment to change. The findings support the external validity of previous findings in Western, non-Islamic settings, and, thus, would increase our understanding of organizational change theories in non-Western settings.