Shift Happens During Change: Appraisal Shifts and Employee Proactive Support for Organizational Change

Employees’ self-initiated and active behaviors to improve organizational change design and implementation (i.e., proactive support) are a critical determinant of effective organizational change. Despite organizational change being an inherently dynamic phenomenon, research has largely adopted a static view with little attention to the temporal development of employee responses to change. We build on appraisal theory to examine how shifts (increases vs. decreases) and stability (consistently high vs. low) in employees’ appraisals of work-related benefits of change are associated with proactive support over time. Using cross-level polynomial regression with two-wave survey data (Study 1; n = 267) from a technology firm undergoing change, we find the highest levels of proactive support when employees experience an increase in work-related benefit appraisals between Time 1 and Time 2, compared to all other patterns including a stable pattern of high benefits over time. Results further show that even a decrease in benefit appraisals, compared to consistently low benefit appraisals, predicts higher levels of proactive support for change. The relationships between shifts in benefit appraisals and proactive support are largely replicated in Study 2, an experiment (n = 523). This study also illustrates that positive emotions help to explain why the experience of shifting appraisals matters for employee proactive support for change. Our research highlights the role of temporal shifts in appraisals and provides important implications for organizational change-related theory, research, and practice.