Employee attitudes toward organizational change: resistance vs readiness

Relevance. The article discusses the prospects for research paradigms shift in the study of employee attitudes towards organizational change. The transition from the traditional economy of production and consumption of material goods to the economy of knowledge, then to the economy of impressions, and in the very near future - to the digital economy, which took place during the last decades, and marks the full-scale deployment of the fourth industrial revolution, forces modern organizations to constantly change. The systemic nature of an organization assumes that transformations in any of its areas of activity are reflected in all other components. The leadership of every organization needs to be able to manage the process of change. At the heart of the change process are, first of all, changes in the interactions among employees of the organization.

Objectives. The purpose of the article is to trace how traditional ideas about the basic principles of organizational change management are changing. As a replacement for the traditional vector of management efforts aimed at timely diagnosis and subsequent overcoming of staff resistance to the changes being introduced, there comes an understanding of the possibility of identifying and supporting the psychological readiness of employees for organizational changes. 

Results. The growing concept of Positive Organizational Scholarship abandons the traditional interpretation of the relationship between change and resistance that needs to be overcome. It focuses on the positive perception by employees of organizational changes, on creating such conditions when change becomes a way for employees to unleash their potential, self-actualization and personal growth. The indicated change in research paradigms is traced in the article on the material of a number of empirical studies carried out with the participation and under the scientific guidance of the author. The studies were initially devoted to the study of socio-psychological factors of personnel resistance to organizational changes, and then to the identification of socio-psychological prerequisites for the formation of psychological readiness of employees for organizational changes. These studies were accompanied by the development and testing of appropriate methodological tools.

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