Communication satisfaction as moderator of the relationship between organizational commitment and willingness to participate in planned organizational change : a case study in two Thai organizations

Abstract

Previous studies tend to focus on how to increase the degree of employees’ willingness to participate in change by recognizing the importance of communication or employees’ commitment as the mean to promote change in the organizations. Questions concerning how employees’ commitment and communication satisfaction function during the change process require more critical examination. This study was interested in discovering what the interrelationship are among three variables with communication satisfaction hypothesized as mediating the relationship between organizational commitment and willingness to participate in planned organizational change.

A case of culture change being implemented in two large organizations in Thailand was the site for collecting the data for this study. Three-hundred sixteen participants from the two organizations rated questionnaires in order to provide quantitative findings for the research hypotheses. The instrument used in this study include Meyer and Allen’s Commitment Scale and Down and Hazen’s Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire. The respondents also completed the Willingness to Participate in Change Scale which was developed based on Miller, Johnson, and Grau.

Findings from the questionnaires revealed that when measuring organizational commitment and communication satisfaction in the Thai context, the dimensions should be regrouped and renamed. It was also found that organizational commitment has low relationship with the degree of willingness to participate in change in the Thai context. This relationship somewhat varied by types of employee commitment, nature of willingness to participate in change, and differences in organizational realities. Furthermore, the results of an analysis of variance revealed that communication satisfaction did not serve as the moderator of the relationship between organizational commitment and the willingness to participate in change in the Thai context.

Ten interviewees from the two host organizations were also recruited to provide qualitative findings for the research questions. The comments made by the interviewees provided additional information regarding the factors that affect the degree of organizational commitment and communication satisfaction in the Thai employees.

This study highlights the importance of organizational commitment and communication satisfaction in shaping the degree of willingness to participate in change by providing detailed and comparative analyses between the two organizations. This study also includes general implications by noting recommendation both for the management of any enterprises and for further research.