Le changement organisationnel : la prédiction des comportements de soutien et de résistance par le biais des préoccupations
For over 50 years, researchers have been interested in resistance to change. However, despite several years of research, it remains unclear which variables can predict resistance and support behaviours. The aim of this thesis is to fill this gap by identifying variables that can explain both support and resistance behaviours during a major organizational change.   The stages of concerns’ model (Bareil, 2004a, adapted from Hall & Hord, 2001) is an interesting option for this purpose since it includes many current knowledge and can be adapted to various changes. Thus, the main objective of this thesis is to ascertain to what extent support and resistance behaviours can be predicted by stages of concerns, taking into account affective commitment to change as a mediator variable and the actor’s role and the progress of the implementation as moderator variables. To this end, a study was conducted with teachers, professionals and directors of a school board in Quebec, implementing a reform causing major concerns of different intensities and various behaviours, ranging from resistance to support.   The path analysis performed with two independent samples (n = 464 and n = 171) indicates that the first stages (focused on the employee, on the organization and on the change) are positively related to resistance behaviours and negatively related to support behaviours. Conversely, the last stages (focused on experimentation, on collaboration and on continuous improvement) are negatively related to resistance behaviours and positively related to support behaviours. Thus, the further along the sequence of stages of concerns, the more supportive behaviours increase and resistance behaviours decreases. Also, affective commitment to change can act as a mediator variable in this relation.  Moreover, regression analysis indicates that the stages of concerns explain more variance in supportive behaviours of change agents as they explain more variance in resistance behaviours of employees. We also note that it is in early implementation that the stages of concerns explain the most variance in support and resistance behaviours.   Finally, a third sample (n = 143) follows the evolution of participants who completed the questionnaire twice. The t-tests report no significant difference between the two measurement time, and this for both preoccupations and support and resistance behaviours. We note that when the stages of concerns do not change, support or resistance behaviours remain the same.   In sum, these results indicate that we can now predict both support and resistance behaviours with the stages of concerns. In addition, this study permitted to know when this model is the most appropriate and who benefits the most of it. To generalize these results, it would be appropriate to replicate this research in another organization implementing a different major change.
Organizational change Stages of concerns Support to change Resistance to change Affective commitment to change