Changing attitudes about change: longitudinal effects of transformational leader behavior on employee cynicism about organizational change

Summary :Using longitudinal data collected in two waves, nine months apart, from 372 employees, this research is an empirical assessment of individual-level change within an organizational setting.
Specifically, strategies used by change implementers were operationalized as six transformational leader behaviors, and then hypothesized to influence employees’ cynicism about organizational change (CAOC). A combination of social learning theory, and communication
research served as the theoretical rationale to explain transformational leadership’s hypothesized effects. As posited, transformational leader behaviors (TLB) generally were associated with lower employee CAOC. Further, the direction of causality was consistent in suggesting that the TLB reduced employee CAOC. A discussion concerning the ethical use of TLBs and recommendations for future research are provided. Copyright#2005 JohnWiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction
The topic of organizational change has been an active area in management research for decades.
Despite its consistent attention, the change literature has seemingly little empirical data to advance research and inform practitioners in the area of process change, or actions undertaken to enact change (Armenakis & Bedian, 1999). That is not to say that it has been completely ignored; however, the general focus has been on conceptual change models, the context of change (i.e., factors underlying successful change efforts; e.g., see Baer & Frese, 2003) and factors relating to organizational effectiveness (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999). This rings particularly true for the leadership literature in which studies typically show a single ‘snap-shot’ of leaders’ influence on followers and conclude that leadership is effective or not. Given the difficulty of collecting valid data that demonstrates utility of leadership over time, the gap in the literature is accordingly understandable. Nonetheless, evidence regarding theinfluence of leadership behavior over time is seminal to evaluating the overall utility of any particular leadership style. Thus, we see a strong need for empirical evidence from longitudinal research testing the efficacy of leader behavior on employee attitudes over time. Although we are expressly interested in leadership, we think it is important to link leadership to the larger context of organizational change since leadership influence on followers represents organizational change at the individual level.
Kanter, Stein, and Jick (1992) provide an organizing framework for examining the consequences of strategies used by change implementers on the outcomes experienced by change recipients. In the current study, these two categories are operationalized by transformational leader behavior (i.e., strategies used by implementers) impacting the cynicism about organizational change of employees (CAOC; i.e., attitudes of the change recipients toward change). Further, so that the relationships can be better understood, we used a longitudinal research design (i.e., cross-lagged panel) that allows for the exploration of change across time, as well as the direction of those relationships.
Through Kanter et al.’s (1992) framework, we examine whether or not change implementers’ strategies have the influential positive effects upon change recipients hypothesized by leadership researchers. Put simply, we are interested in understanding whether transformational leader behavior reduces

Mass Media Coverage

Professor J. Scott Armstrong

Supporting a question that the Harvard Business Review judged “too dangerous, too impractical,” Scott Armstrong fights for social responsibility. Teaching a course with an average enrollment of six, he brings the issue to Wharton. Associate Professor of Marketing J. Scott Armstrong spoke with the journal recently.
Armstrong’s background is as diverse as the courses he teaches. With graduate degrees from Carngie-Mellon and M.I.T., he has taught at the Stockholm School of Economics and worked as a surveyor’s assistant and steelworker. His research ranges from the abstractions of factor analysis to the practicalities of the graffiti problem.
His outlook on the traditional system of American education is dark. “People have no idea when they're learning anything,” he notes. Hence he believes that no course should be required in an institution, and he has worked on projects to eliminate grading.

Tourism Management Journal Ratings : A Report of an Examination of the Perceptions of Journal Quality v

Approach

Identification of Journals
Twenty-eight journals were evaluated in this study including journals directly servicing tourism management and those journals that published research relevant to tourism management. This list was determined through the input of academics at the institution undertaking the research. All journals included in the study published manuscripts according to the accepted peer review process.

Population
A sample of academics was framed by including all tourism management academics at the rank of professor and associate professor in Australia and New Zealand plus, using a judgement sample, determining a cohort of senior lecturers within Australia and New Zealand. In Europe, North America and Asia, a judgement sampling technique was also used to construct a list of academics at the rank of professor and associate professor. To be included in this sample, academics had to be dedicated to tourism management research, teaching and/or a managerial role responsible for tourism management programs, and have current or past editorial board experience in one or more of the journals in the field. Consequently, twenty academics were
deemed to meet the study criteria.

Instrument Design
This study has been based on the weighting criteria developed by Polonsky and Whitelaw (2005). The four criteria used by Polonsky and Whitelaw include:

• Prestige of Journal;
• Contribution to Theory;
• Contribution to Practice; and
• Contribution to Teaching.