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Keywords Organizational change, Organizational culture, Malaysia
Abstract This study investigates the influence of organizational culture on attitudes toward organizational change in Malaysia. Based on the work of Coffee and Jones and Dunham et al., a structured questionnaire was developed and self-administered to 258 companies listed in the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturing directory. The results showed that there is an association between organizational culture and the affective, cognitive, and behavioral tendency of attitudes toward organizational change. The findings also showed that different types of organizational culture have different levels of acceptance of attitudes toward organizational change. This means that certain type of organizational culture could facilitate the acceptability of change, while other types of culture could not accept it. The implications of this research are also discussed.
Introduction
Change is the movement away from a present state toward a future state (George and Jones, 1996) or generally a response to some significant threat or opportunity arising outside of the organization (Gilgeous, 1997). Today, the business environment is changing fast. The changes in technology like computerization and e-commerce have created a quantum leap in data communication, work processes and the way of doing business. With the impending move toward globalization and liberalization of markets, organizations have to be prepared to cope with the rapid changes in the business dynamics. Every organization must submit to the varying demands and changes in the environment. Changes within an organization take place in response to business and economic events and to processes of managerial perception, choice, and actions where managers see events taking place that indicated the need for change (Pettigrew, 1985).
Many organizations found change to be a real challenge. The change process in each organization is unique in each situation, due to the differences in the nature of the organization, the nature of the business, the work culture and values, management and leadership style, and also the behavior and attitude of the employees. Further, the risk of failure is greater as people are generally resistant to changes. For some, change may bring satisfaction, joy and advantages, while for others the same change may bring pain, stress and disadvantages.
According to Linstone and Mitroff (1994), there were three factors to be considered in implementing change processes, that is the...