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Organisations must innovate and successfully implement change if they are to remain competitive in today's global marketplaces (Rafferty, Jimmieson, & Armenakis, 2013). Without such adaptation, organisations risk becoming outdated, inefficient and uncompetitive (Firoozmand, 2013). However, change is not a guarantee of survival, as change can be so disruptive that it can destroy the organisation (Abrahamson, 2000). Clearly, managers need to understand change processes if they are to ensure success. As employees are at the heart of successful change (Goodman & Loh, 2011), and seem to experience change in individual and unique ways (e.g., Bouckenooghe, 2010), it is important to understand the factors that influence employees' readiness to change, as such an understanding should help managers design more effective change implementations.
Readiness to change has been defined as the state of a workforce where they can enter the ‘unfreeze’ stage (Lewin, 1947) and begin the transformational process (Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder, 1993). Research into employees' readiness for change has often focused on their perceptions of the change (Claiborne, Auerbach, Lawrence, & Schudrich, 2013). For example, it has long been recognised that organisational change is likely to fail without a change in employees' beliefs (Björkman, 1989). Indeed, Rogers (2003) suggested change recipients' beliefs need to be swayed to achieve successful change. If employees do not believe in the necessity and appropriateness of a change, in their abilities to cope with the change, that there are potential benefits of the change or that managers support the change, they are more likely to resist (Armenakis, Bernerth, Pitts, & Walker, 2007).
Many variables have been suggested as precursors to employee readiness to change, including internal locus of control (Lau & Woodman, 1995), self-efficacy (Cunningham et al., 2002), coping styles (Ashford, 1988), sense of control (Bordia, Hunt, Paulsen, Tourish, & DiFonzo, 2004), dispositional affective states (Oreg, 2006), assessments of coping with the change (Judge, Thoresen, Pucik, & Welbourne, 1999), commitment (Madsen, Miller, & John, 2005) and trust in the organisation (Kiefer, 2005). However, the literature has largely ignored the effect perceived values-congruence has on employee readiness to change, despite arguments that the values of the future organisation need to align with personal values to create readiness to change (Branson, 2008).
In order to better understand what values-congruence is,...