What’s in it for me? Compliance toward change comes with Personal Valence

For today’s organizations, survival and growth depend on responding quickly to the changes occurring in the environment. Effective execution of change programs depends to a considerable degree on the extent to which their employees value change. Therefore, making them understand that change is beneficial for them is imperative for enactment of any change program. Grounded in the theory of planned behavior, this research aims at examining the direct impact of personal valence on employees’ compliance toward change. Further, change readiness and commitment to change are proposed as sequential mediators between personal valence and compliance toward change. Self-administered questionnaires were utilized to collect primary data. The selected 583 respondents were officer-ranked employees in financial institutions, as well as media and telecom in the Punjab province and Islamabad, Federal Capital Territory of Pakistan. To test the hypotheses, PROCESS macros are employed for measuring the effects of mediation. The findings supported the hypothesized relationships of the study that personal valence directly influences compliance toward change. Moreover, change readiness and commitment to change also mediate, in sequence, the relationship between personal valence and employees’ compliance toward change. These findings establish that for the effective implementation of change programs in an organization, it is indispensable that employees must perceive the change program as beneficial and valuable to them. Limitations and future research avenues regarding this study are also discussed accordingly.