"Organizations do not change. It is the individuals in organizations that change their behaviours." (Seijts & O'Farrell, 2003, p. 2).
The world is constantly changing around us and the hypercompetitive business environment requires companies to frequently adapt to these changes by implementing new strategies. Uncertainty of what consequences these changes will have on the organization in general and the individual specifically, are reasons why humans seem to resist changes by nature. Changes often require people to change their behaviour. There seems to be a tendency of ignoring the emotional perspective on changes and this might explain why most changes only have a mediocre outcome (eg. Kotter, 1995, pp. 96-97). Organizational changes have become "the norm rather than the exception" (Müller, 2003, p. 2) and it is widely studied within the field of management theory. However, the change effects on emotions are sometimes ignored by managers (Seijts & O'Farrell, 2003, p. 2) and there also seems to be a lack of research being done within this area (eg. Brundin, 2002, p. 20). We therefore thought it would be interesting to investigate this link more carefully.
Research Topic
In this term paper, we will review the linkage between emotions and organizational change. Our research topic is:
How are emotions linked with organizational change?
- an attempt to determine if emotions matter in the process of organizational change and if so: give insight on how managers could approach these emotions.
Methodology
This term paper provides a literature review on human emotions within organizational change processes. We discovered many interesting articles written about the subject in our initial phase of gathering information. Therefore we felt, a literature review would give us the opportunity to examine these more carefully than what would have been done when performing an empirical study. In addition, a survey or interviews would have been hard to operate due to the complex subject of emotions. Time limitation was another reason to our choice of research method.
The part of gathering information can be seen in three stages. First we read the assigned literature on emotions, provided from the course website. Secondly we searched for additional articles that could help us to answer our research question. In addition we found relevant literature in the reference lists of articles we used. A number of articles were collected and discussed within the group. According to our judgement about their relevance to our topic we chose to include seven articles in our term paper. We aimed to find articles with different perspectives in order to find a satisfying and comprehensive answer to our research topic.
In our search for useful articles and papers, we used several databases. These were grouped in the "Samsök" function which is a part of the Umeå University Library search engine. We find this search method to provide reliable results. We used key words when searching such as emotion, organizational change, change and organization. During the search process, the notation of the number of times an article was cited and the citing articles relevance to our topic was always considered.
We evaluated the relevance of the different articles versus our research topic and decided to choose the following articles:
Emotions in Motion -The Strategic Leader in a Radical Change Process (2002) by Ethel Brundin
Ethel Brundin is a very reliable source, being a leading scholar in this field in Sweden. In addition to this it was one of the articles provided by the course instructors. This article gave an insight that research on emotions in organizational contexts was really needed by the time the article was written. It also provided a management perspective as well as deeper understanding of rationality in counterpart of emotions.
Emotion in the Workplace: A Reappraisal (1995) by Blake E. Ashforth & Ronald H. Humphrey
Like the Brundin article, this was also provided by the course instructors and therefore gives it credibility even though it is 15 years old. We got a deeper understanding from this article too, regarding the development of emotion studies in management. The article covers rationality and emotion in comparison.
The Emotional Rollercoaster of Organizational Change (2009) by Roy Kark Smollan
This is a PhD thesis covering our research topic thoroughly. It gave us most of all inspiration and proof that the research has developed from the times of Ashforth & Humphrey. It is very recent work and gives many good connections between emotions and change.
Engage the Heart: Appealing to the Emotions Facilitates Change (2003) by Gerard H. Seijts & Grace O'Farrell
This article reflects mainly on the, in the organizational change field, leading scholar J.P. Kotter's work from the mid 1990's. It adds the aspect of emotion reviewed by other scholars to organizational change discussed by Kotter.
Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail (1995) by John P. Kotter
This article was a preview of his famous book "Leading Change". It gave us more insight on the findings of "The Heart of Change". Kotter is a very reliable source due to him being one of the leading scholars in the field of managing organizational change. Even though the paper is 15 years old it provides us with important research. A good proof of that the article still is relevant is the republication of it in Harvard Business Review in 2007.
Understanding the Emotional Experience of Organizational Change: Evidence from a Merger (2002) by Tina Kiefer
Kiefer provided us with a traditional perspective on how emotions are perceived during organizational change. Bringing in this article gave further credibility to the last article written by her and her colleague:
Understanding Emotions in Organizational Change: The Role of Identity in Ongoing Change Process (2003) by Tina Kiefer & Werner R. Müller
The last article picked is in fact a work paper used for discussion in a forum at LSE (London School of Economics) web page. We felt it was useful when connecting emotions to social identity which we wanted more input on for our term paper. It provides a linkage between the individual's identity and emotions during organizational change. Because this work paper was used at LSE and partly written by Kiefer, who has other published articles on the subject, we felt we could rely on it.
Regarding the recommended literature from the course instructors we chose not to include Emotion and Organizing by Stephen Fineman (1999) because we could not get hold of it from the library.
After reading the selected articles, we discovered four themes which we later will focus our review and discussion on:
The influence of emotions on social identity during changes
Emotions effect on rationality during organizational change
Errors linked to emotions during organizational change
Useful tools for managers to influence emotions during the change process
WHY?
Literature Review
Here follows short summaries of the seven articles we chose to provide the reader with a greater context of the findings in the analysis later on.
Emotions in Motion -The Strategic Leader in a Radical Change Process (Brundin, 2002)
As the title reveals, the article focus on the role of strategic leaders throughout a radical change process. For eighteen months, two strategic leaders were followed in their real time setting as part of a longitudinal study. This study aims to create an understanding of the link between emotions and rationality in times of uncertainty/during radical change processes, the author claims that earlier research in the area of strategic change processes overlooked this link and views the manager's role as rational and separated this from emotional influences. This view is challenged through the article and research results show that strategic leaders are just as affected by emotions as others. In an attempt to exploit verbally expressed and non-verbally experienced emotions, the study takes a communicative approach. By doing so, the author criticizes the lack of research in the field of emotional influences on management practices. The main argument for that critique is the difficulty of finding a clear link between emotions and organizational profitability; it even suggests that this link should be considered negatively. By doing so, the author assumes that the implication of emotions in the change process can't be separated from the adoption of organizational changes.
In conclusion, the article describes that the role of strategic managers is not only to formulate and plan strategies, but also to make sense of strategies in processes where communication plays a crucial role, in order to manage emotions. Leaders need to take responsibility and show emotional commitment to organizational strategy.
Emotion in the workplace: A reappraisal (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995)
The article defines emotions as a subjective feeling state. They divide these feeling states into basic emotions like joy or anger, social emotions like shame or guilt and such related constructs as affects sentiments and moods. Emotions are to be considered a part of everyday organizational life and can vary from frustration to joy, a sense of dissatisfaction or commitment. One of the main reasons to conduct this research was the lack of focus on emotions in the dynamics of organizational life.
Emotions are to be considered a part of everyday organizational life and can vary from frustration to joy or a sense of dissatisfaction or commitment. One of the main reasons to conduct this research was the lack of focus on emotions in the dynamics of organizational life.
Emotions are often seen as the opposite of rationality and have therefore been negatively perceived to the extent that only a limited range of emotional expressions are deemed socially acceptable. The authors recognized at least four overlapping institutional mechanisms that have emerged to regulate the experience and expression of emotion in organizations.
These include neutralizing emotion, buffering emotion, prescribing emotion and normalizing emotion. They also argue that emotionality and rationality are connected and support that argument by illustrating applications to motivational leadership and group dynamics. Furthermore, they emphasize the emotional connection to work or the work context is very important, even though an individual may be strongly motivated and psychologically involved in the organization. Additionally, arguments that management can evoke emotions to create values with the aim of achieving organizational goals are described.
Positive emotions can be stimulated and made contagious in organization so as to promote social identity, sense of community within organization and lead to task effectiveness. In conclusion, Ashforth and Humphrey stress on the complementarities between emotionality and rationality suggest that emotionality should not be viewed as the opposite of rationality.
The Emotional Rollercoaster of Organizational Change: Affective Responses to Organizational Change, their Cognitive Antecedents and Behavioural Consequences (Smollan, 2009)
Emotional rollercoaster is a thesis by a PhD student in Auckland, New Zealand, published in 2009. The thesis addresses the links between emotions and change based upon a widely explored literature review and interviews. In several chapters, he addresses topics that are related to our topic. He explains the several types of emotions that are researched and the relations between emotions and other physical statuses people could be in. Furthermore the change aspect is widely explored trough a literature review as well.
It starts with describing several types of emotions and why they appear. These several types of emotions are linked to other researched emotions and causes. The author also explains what type of emotional approaches exists and continues the story by going into emotions in organizations, what is usually perceived, what is desired and what seems to be reality. By doing so he also addresses organizational change and takes emotion into consideration.
By describing organizational change, he also describes several types of roles that people could have within the change process and what type of emotions could possible appear.
Engage the Heart: Appealing to the emotions facilitates change (Seijts & O'Farrell, 2003)
The article is an overview of seven works, mainly based on John Kotter's eight steps framework. The authors make an attempt to explain the title trough three main activities, identifying reasons why organization change usually fails, demonstrating errors that are rooted in organizational behaviour which influence the change process and thirdly argue that change efforts are more often succeeding when emotions and cognition are included, something of which leaders have not recognized the importance of.
The authors discuss the behavioural point of view within organizational change and the assumption that most errors appear due to a lack in managerial behaviour. The article assumes change can be realized when exploited on individual level so personal understanding of change urgency arises. By doing so, they suggest several crucial steps. Firstly, leadership trough coaching is required. It means pointing out the ideal road of the change process and inspire involved people to change consistently. Secondly, the authors discuss the shift within management frameworks, from engaging the mind to engaging the heart, which is including emotions. The article ends with Kotter's eight steps from the "Leading Change" framework which emphasises communication when delivering information to both individuals and groups.
Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail (Kotter, 1995)
The author of the article after witnessing small and big organizations go through a change process for which some failed and others succeeded, proposed that successful organizations go through a series of stages during the change process. He argued that leaving out some of the stages does not produce a successful result. He outlined eight major steps that an organization should consider when going through transformational change. These steps include:
Establishing a sense of urgency
Forming a powerful guiding coalition
Creating a vision
Communicating the vision
Empowering others to act on the vision
Planning and creating short terms wins
Consolidating improvements and producing still more change
Institutionalizing new approaches
Errors or problems may arise if each individual step or level is not properly managed or implemented before moving on to the next step.
Understanding the emotional experience of organizational change: evidence from a merger (Kiefer, 2002).
The author starts with the statement that emotions are traditionally seen as the cause of problems transpiring during execution of change, rather than expression of the underlining difficulties. Kiefer however, argues this view on emotion from a psychological approach. The article is based on empirical studies of a merging company, and tries to find the new ways of looking at emotions during change and tends to present a framework to enhance understanding emotional experiences of change. These experiences are used to describe the emotions and relate cognition and behaviours that occur during the change process. Emotions are viewed as result of the change process and play a significant role.
Three assumptions and limitations of literature on emotions and organizational change are discussed, as well as the limitations of this literature that mainly suggests that emotions can be viewed at as stress or resistance that need to be decreased. Alternative theoretical approaches to understand emotions during organizational change are also addressed. By doing so, the author argues that emotions should be viewed at as part and parcel of the individual and social experience of change. This can be realized trough three steps. Firstly the recognition that emotion is an important component for construction of meaning during change, secondly that emotions need to be perceived as an integral part of adaption and motivation and thirdly emotions are approached as a social phenomenon. A framework in which the interpretation of individual and group interaction related to emotional events during change emerged from this empirical study. The article concludes that from a psychological perspective, emotions are not dysfunctional but helps individuals to adapt to difficulties in change processes.
Understanding Emotions in Organizational Change (Kiefer & Müller, 2003)
The article is basically a research paper. The authors used an "open question survey" method in an attempt to give an overview of the linkage between emotions, identity and organizational change. The research mainly covered the "how" and "why" organizational changes tend to be experienced emotionally. The survey was divided in three parts. Firstly, they argue the relationship of emotions and identity, secondly concerning the relationship between identity and organizational change and thirdly, a description about the role of identity as a constructive process in dealing with emotions during organizational change. Two main issues emerged. Negatively, and positively experienced identity-relevant issues in the context of organizational change.
The article also tries to answer the indistinctness why change is experienced negatively. They researched that it would be because of the perceived lack of respect and appreciation for previous and ongoing achievements and secondly the impossibility for employees to feel authentic related to the organization. The results shift attention to management and the implementation and communication of organizational changes. The authors finalize with the belief of enhanced understanding for negative experiences and the impact of these experiences on the change process.
Analysis
We will now highlight the relevant reasoning's from the chosen articles. Connections between the articles will also be pointed out. Our analysis will be divided into our four lenses regarding social identity, rationality, managerial errors which explain failure and managerial tools to prevent these errors to occur.
The influence of emotions on social identity during changes
After reading articles literature, we came to an understanding that there is a relation between emotions of an individual at work place and person's social identity. According to Social Identity Theory, every individual wants to be in a group or society to have its specific identity to express their self, including variables like feelings, behaviours, moods and emotions (eg. Kiefer & Müller, 2003). If we talk about emotions in organizations related to the social identity, then we can say that individual work behaviour is very much influenced by their own experience at work place ultimately changing the attitudes at jobs which includes job satisfaction on the top. It means that emotions have an influence on the satisfaction level of the individual at work place. If we see emotions in another aspect in regard with identity and behaviour, we can say that emotions are the individual's indicators defining the events happening in the organizational/individual's change process. (Kiefer, 2002, p. 44) Emotions in organizations are also the individual's beliefs and traditions in relation with a particular society. In case of a particular individual in a situation, emotions are really helpful in creating important values and beliefs. If we talk in organizational context, emotions in work place are in the important indicators about the individual's place in a certain group or department (Kiefer & Müller, 2003, p. 4) Emotions also give the indication to the individual about the most important environmental factors within the organization such as behavioural actions or variables like anger, anxiety which may lead the individual/employee to improper work or job dissatisfaction (Smollan, 2009, p. 14). Another perspective of emotion in organizational context is leader's emotions. Seijts and O'Farrell talk about how the change process can be perceived in two different ways. Firstly, the change can occurs when the one see the opportunities in front of him, i.e. sees the light. He then changes his behaviours and strategy which ultimately leads his organization and his employees through a change process to a profitable situation. Secondly, leadership can change behaviours when leader experience the pain, losses and mistakes, i.e. when they feel the heat. (2003, p. 1) Strategic leaders have also great influence on emotions of individual, group and at the unit levels which creates different identities in organizations like high level and low level identities among the employees. (Brundin, 2002, p. 14)
Emotions affect on rationality during organizational change.
So, in times of organizational change, what does the literature highlight to be the impact of emotions on rational thinking?
The literature seems to agree upon that emotions influence the everyday life of employees and therefore, their potential of thinking and acting rational. Emotionality is mentioned as the opposite to rationality (eg. Smollan, 2009; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995) and the overall conclusion in all these articles seems to be that during organizational change, emotional influences on rationality will be even greater. Even though the theories about emotions influence on rationality are probably applicable on individuals of any position within the organization, the majority of our articles are taking an employee perspective. Reiss (1994 in Kiefer, 2002, p. 41) states that changes are often perceived to be a threat and individuals therefore fear and oppose them. As a result, emotional barriers are developed which affects the individual's potential to embrace rational arguments for the implementation of the change (Kiefer, 2002, p. 41). We did choose one article that had the manager perspective on change. In this article, Brundin stress that emotions do affect managers capability to think and act rational in times of turbulence (2002, p. 13). This is interesting, as the conventional view of organization is mentioned as "rationally ordered, appropriately structured, and emotion free life spaces, where the right decisions are made from the right reasons by the right people, in a reliable and predictable manner" (Kersten, 2001 in Smollan 2009, p. 30). However, rationality is not always something good. This is highlighted by Ashforth and Humphrey, which states that antisocial acts on behalf of the organization might be justified by norms of rationality (1995, p105).
Errors linked to emotions in times of organizational change
When changing an organization many mistakes are made. It is important to learn from these errors in order to be able to compete in the competitive business environment of today. Change is a process with steps which cannot be skipped. If change does not go through the process properly, satisfying results will not be produced. The errors identified can often be explained by under-communication, lack of goals and lack in managerial team-building skills. (Kotter, 1995, pp. 96-97) Another aspect on why change efforts fail is that the idea of organizational change is an illusion. The change lies in that the individuals change their behaviour; it is not the organization that is changing (Seijts & O'Farrell, 2003, p. 2). Emotions are viewed as the main obstacle for organizational change. It is so because organizational change affects the social identity that comes with being employed (Kiefer & Müller, 2003, p.1). The same view Kiefer discussed in 2002, that emotions often get the blame rather than the understanding they need (p. 40). Consistently in the articles, lack of management and poor emotional concideration during the change process are blaimed for the failures. Seijts & O'Farrell raise the question of why leaders ignore guidelines available when it is clear that change efforts needs to learn from experience. When the reasons of change is presented only by facts and reasoning, few employees will feel motivated. That is why leaders has to appeal to an emotional response making the employee wanting to change. (2003, p. 2)
The perception of change depends on the perceived outcome of the change. It is when the employees estimate the outcome for themselves that emotions are firstly educed and appraisal occurs. Later on a different set of emotions are felt when the employees evaluate if the process used to make the decisions was fair. (Smollan, 2009, p. 31) Kotter discuss eight mistakes that can easily be made in change process. These errors can also be turned into success factors if managed properly as steps on the way to organizational change. (Kotter, 1995, p. 103). The eight errors that Kotter highlights are;
1. Not making people realize the change is needed. This is where the motivation is needed and a reason for change is built up. This step is on where 50% of all failures occur. The reasons for this Kotter argues to be peoples fear of stepping out of their comfort-zones, fear of committing to a long-term strategy that might not generate profit at first and lack of good leaders that can actually bring the change forward. A bad business is therefore easier to change than a good one, even if both need it. If all things are good, people do not see the reason to change. At least 75% of the management of a company must think that the organizational change is needed; otherwise the change process will have problems later on.
2. Not creating a powerful coalition sharing the commitment to the change. Old hierarchy and bonds must be overlooked since the guiding coalition need human resources from all hierarchical levels of the organization. If a group like this with strong leadership is not the hub of the change, the efforts will soon come to a halt.
3. The change lacking a vision. This vision should be the picture that is easily communicated to different stakeholders.
4. Failure to communicate in efficient way. When the transformation process proceeds the need of many supporters of the vision is crucial. Otherwise problems arise such as some manager's act the opposite of the vision and people refuse to change because they do not see the meaning of it.
5. Failing to remove obstacles. Many obstacles only exist in people's heads, though some are for real and should be removed. The structure of the company might be one obstacle, for example having too narrow job-descriptions. Another obstacle can be a person not committing to the vision.
6. Failing to create short-term goals that keep up the spirit of the organization in the change process. First one or two years into a change results are starting to show.
7. Declaring the "war" won at sight of first improvement. Although it is important to keep everyone motivated through showing the change actually improves the organization it is not good to jump to conclusions when it comes to stating the change being successful. After five to ten years, when the change is deeply embedded in the company's culture, then victory can be declared. Otherwise the focus fades and the changes made slowly changes back to the old way.
8. Failing to anchor change in organizations culture. When the changes become the norm the change is realized. Change can easily be undone if the vision is not kept and communicated.
(Kotter, 1995, pp. 97-103; Seijts & O'Farrell, 2003, pp.1-2)
Useful tools for managers to influence emotions during the change process
From the literature most of the researchers in the field of organizational change have looked into emotions and argued whether it is a problem in the process of change implementation, as some authors have criticized how emotions are perceived during change process. From the literature, we noticed Kiefer's opinion that information available on organizational change views emotions often as stress and resistance that needs to be reduced (Kiefer 2002, p. 40). Other writers have also mentioned the issue of rationality and emotion in the organizational life, as it has been discussed above (eg. Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995). All these writers look at how the issue of emotions in organizational life change have been addressed and call attention on it.
Research on organizational change has usually been concerned with the negative reactions to change including factors such as stress, lack of understanding and reluctance to the change which bring negative implications like low performance and motivation (Kiefer & Müller, 2003 p. 3). Kiefer also mentioned in her other article about emotions and its strong influence on job performance (Kiefer, 2002).
Writers like Kotter (1995), Kiefer (2002) and Seijts and O'Farrell (2003) have tackled this issue of organizational change and what managers should do during the change process. Despite some steps on how to implement a successful change (Kotter, 1995, p. 2). Kiefer (2002) and Seijts & O'Farrell (2003) went further to include the subject of emotions during change. What were common in all the three articles were communication and managers responsibilities, and commitments as tools to address these issues. Individuals can express a variety of positive and negative emotions in the process of organizational change and that these emotions can be attributed to different events (Kiefer, 2002, p. 45). Seijts and O'Farrell (2003, p. 3) call on leaders as agents of change to use their vision and charisma, passion, guidance and their emotion to lead change, and they should possess skills to create commitment to new courses of action. Also, Kiefer (2002) appealed to mangers to take a look at emotional experience of the change process and to take a closer look and analysis of the situation. In the case of communications and commitment all the three articles emphasised on the need for it. Kiefer (2002) argues that if emotions are expressed and communicated during change, it will influence individuals, teams, organizational climate and social construction of change. Seijts and O'Farrell proposed eight steps of leading change frameworks that could be the solutions to the Kotter's eight mistakes earlier discussed. (Seijts & O'Farrell, 2003, pp. 4-5; Kotter, 1995). These are:
1. Make the change understandable and give proof to why it is needed. By only presenting facts the engagement will not appear. The employees need to be able to see why the change is needed.
2. It is preferable to be attentive when choosing which employees should be a part of the guiding coalition. People having both the organizational and personal attributes of leadership can create the understanding from the employees that is needed. Since the support of the employees is needed it is good to have people in the guiding coalition to make people engaged and persuaded of the change. A strong bond within the group is also good to have and team building activities is recommended.
3. Create a vision that pictures the goal of the change. It is with the vision the employees become engaged and feel for the change. After working for a while, the guiding coalition should have developed a strategy aimed to the vision. The vision should be able to be communicated and understood in maximum five minutes.
4. Communicate everything is a truly important step. To avoid problems it is important to use all available communication channels and not just have one big meeting informing people without letting them respond. To make people understand and feel engaged communication is essential. Everything that is happening should be explained so that misunderstandings and gossip are avoided. Be sure to know what makes the employees anxious and try to relieve that anxiety through simple communication.
5. Listen to employee's feelings, both the positive and negative, otherwise they will become obstacles. There is constructive criticism to be found in employees airing of feelings. If a leader does not encourage the employees to talk, soon the only things he or she will get to hear are the things the employed thinks the leader wants to hear.
6. Make sure that the employees are given confidence through celebration of small wins. Short-term goals that are reachable keep the job fun, the employees motivated and thus the change productive. Without the wins the employees do not see the evidence of the good about the changes. It is though important these are actively and not passively created wins.
7. Do not stop to vision a better future. Keep on making sure that the employees are shown that the change needs to continue and that they feel the need themselves. This could be done with new examples proving there is yet another level to reach.
8. What people say about how things are done becomes how things are done. That is why the image of how things should be can be kept through the creation of stories regarding actions and behaviours that are essential for the organization. It is also important to show how the improvements came about so that people understand what ways of doing things are important to keep. Crucial is also to make sure the next line of management knows the history and why certain things were changed. The conclusion is then that the change cannot ever stop, instead it needs constant maintenance.
(Seijts & O'Farrell, 2003, pp. 4-5; Kotter, 1995, pp. 97-103)
Discussion
This term paper aims to investigate the link between emotions and organizational change on what has been documented in the literature concerning this topic. After studying the literature we realize that emotions is a complex topic, and so is the context of organizational changes, which makes it difficult to get any clear answer regarding how managers should relate to emotions in the process of change. Almost all the articles have used different approaches regarding emotions and how they chosen to relate it with organizational change. These different explanations make the whole subject very complex as we have to rely on various views to create a link between emotions of individuals and organizational change in different articles.
From the analysis we realize that emotions seem to play an important role in the process of changes at both individual and group level. Individuals strive for social identities in order to relate their emotions and behaviour to other group members. As changes tends to affect the group dynamics, this develop an uncertainty and resistant toward the change as individuals are afraid of losing their identity. This mechanism can be crucial to consider. Due to that changes that are marginal for the organization as a whole, can have a great impact on the individual. For an individual to accept the change, they need to be convinced within their heart that the changes are actually going to be beneficial to them as individuals, not only for the organization as a whole. When the heart is convinced, individuals will like to contribute and identify themselves with the new organization. Therefore the emotions linked with the change are really crucial in order to succeed.
It is also important to highlight that emotions affect emotions. With this we mean that the interaction between individuals within a group will be influenced by the emotional state of members. As members interact and express their emotions, it affects everyone's experience and attitudes towards the change. This is something that we feel is really important to highlight as we recognize these phenomena of shared emotions, i.e. members catching other member's emotions, to occur during all group interactions. In times of organizational change, managers therefore need to identify and deal with the emotional response of all employees, in order to implement the changes affectively.
We have noticed that managers seem to strive for acting rationally during the process of change. A rational approach can be seen as the most efficient way as emotionality can be considered being time consuming and result in biasness and favouritism. Managers therefore act rational and expect their employees to respond rational during the process. However, we are convinced that excluding the emotional aspect from the process is a shortcut that will not lead to a successful change in the long run. Neither managers nor employees can go through the process of change without getting influenced by emotions.
As analyzed above, the change itself creates emotional barriers that need to be overcome in order for members to engage in the process. Managers therefore need to consider different tools to overcome these barriers. In our findings, poor communications seems to be the main issue that explains why so many changes fail. Involving employees in the process in an early stage will hopefully enable them to understand the benefits of the change and therefore will more likely act more rational during the process. Communication needs to be clear and all members should be able to express both negative and positive emotions in order to sort out any kind of misunderstanding about the change. With this being said, we would like to raise the question if rationality really is something desirable during the change process? Or is it just an illusion about a state that can actually never exist? We suggest that including, and allowing, emotions during the process is a way of expanding the scope and we think that this is the way to create successful changes.
Conclusion
In this terms paper we aimed to determine if emotions matter in the process of organizational change. We are now convinced that such a link does exist, and organizations will be benefited when considering individual's emotions while implementing changes. Individuals often perceive changes with uncertainty. The fear of losing one's social identity is strongly linked with uncertainty and the individual therefore creates emotional barriers that affect the changes.
Our term paper was also supposed to give managers insight in how to approach this emotion. Therefore we searched, and found, errors and tools that may explain and help managers during this change process. Communication seems to be crucial in both cases. It is important that the climate allows employees to express their different emotions and by clear communication during the process this will underpins this.
Limitations and future research
The discussion is based on a selection of articles within the field of organizational change. We therefore can criticize our judgment of which articles are most relevant for our research topic. The choice of research method, literature review, can also be questioned. The choice forced us to rely on the validity of other people's research instead of getting our own empirical input. Our discussion is due to the methodological choice based on the views of the authors in the articles solely and do not have an empirical to back up their findings. It would have been interesting to do a qualitative research on the topics, such as interviews with managers and employees about their emotions during organizational change. Time limitation was the primary reason of the choice of research method. We can also criticise the fact that conclusions that we made are based on many reasoning from the articles instead of actual theories. However, we feel that the lack of generally accepted theories shows the necessity of further research within this area. We therefore have the following suggestion of future research.
1. We request more research that is specifically focused on the link between emotions and organizational change.
2. As emotions are going to be an integral part of organizational change, we suggest that research can be done on emotions of individuals and groups and how theses emotions can play a role in change process.
3. The relation between rationality and emotionality could be further investigated.
general theories not existing, just reasoning.
Rationality and emotionality are topics that need to be considered during change process.
rationality vs emotionality
