Advanced Research Methods

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

What categories of injustice are perceived by the change managers and employees?

What are the behavioural and emotional reactions or responses to these perceived injustices?

How are the change recipient and the change leader influenced by the perceived injustices?

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

Hello XYZ, please take your seat and make yourselves comfortable. Thank you for coming down here to talk to me and I hope that this interaction that we are going to have would be pleasant and interesting for the both of us. The aim of this research is to find out what kinds of injustices are perceived by the change managers as well as the employees and how they respond to these forms of injustices. The reason I have asked you to come is to know from you some of your personal experiences during the change process in this organization. I probably expect this interaction to last for about 20-30 minutes, and before we start with this interview process, I would like to confirm if you are comfortable in taking part in this research interview? If at any time, you want to stop the interview or you feel the question that I asked is hard for you to answer, please feel free to say the same to me. The whole purpose of this interview will be for research and will be highly confidential, so you can be well free to answer my questions. Do you have any questions for me before we start with the interview?

As you know this company has been going through a few organizational changes in the last couple of years:-

1. How fair were the outcomes of the change?

2. Did this have any emotional impact on you?

3. How satisfied were you by the processes of change?

4. What were your reactions to the change process?

5. Were you satisfied with the information you were given about the change?

6. What do you think could have been improved regarding the information provided to you about the change?

7. How fair was the communication between you and your manager, or the change manager?

8. Do you think the manager could have interacted with you in a better way?

9. Were you asked by the management to provide your opinion in the decision making?

10. Can you mention an instance or a situation which made you feel insecure in this company and how did you react to that situation?

Thank you for sharing with me your personal experiences regarding the organization change. That is all the questions I have for you. Do you have any questions that you want to ask me? Thank you for coming and it was my pleasure talking with you.

ABSTRACT

Employees facing the organizational change frequently experience negative emotions when they assume or encounter injustice which can lead to decreased productivity, resistance to change, absenteeism and turnover. This research aims at analyzing the nature of emotions recorded by the respondent and to investigate how these emotions are provoked by the perceptions of the different types of injustice: distributive, informational, interpersonal and procedural. A sequence of interviews, with those engaged in different roles in the change initiatives at multiple hierarchical levels and in distinct organizations, indicated the bitter effect of the perceived injustice and the associated negative emotions such as frustration, anxiety, anger and guilt. The emotions were likely to be more for the ones experiencing the change and somewhat moderate for the ones leading and managing the change. This research will be gathering data through interviews with multiple respondents selected from different organizations who may be the change recipient (victim or survivor) or a change leader (change manager).

INTRODUCTION

Theoretical Foundation:

This research follows a social constructionist dais as it has been mostly employed in the studies of emotions, change and organizational justice. 'Social constructionism emphasizes the hold our culture has on us; it shapes the way in which we see things (even the way in which we feel things!) and gives us quite a definite view of the world' (Crotty, 1998, p. 58). Schwandt (2003, p. 307) notes affect and values as the two visible features of social constructionism that are significant to perceptions of justice: 'A general assumption of social constructionism is the knowledge is not disinterested, apolitical, and exclusive of affective and embodied aspects of human experience, but is in some sense ideological, political and permeated with values'. The concept of fairness is partially built from the multiple social forces the people are being exposed to (Lamertz, 2002; Tyler & Bies, 1990), such as in education (Mayhew & Fernandez, 2007), law (Thibaut & Walker, 1975), sports (Mahony et al., 2006) and religion (Cole, 2009). They also can differ across ethnic, national and religious boundaries (Cole, 2009).

In the literature on organization justice, the relational model of Tyler and Lind (1992) demonstrates that the perceptions on procedural injustice are build up by exclusion from groups that establish one's status. Tyler and Bies (1990) indicate that the managers often intentionally try to develop the perception of fairness via impression management tactics. Nevertheless, the employees may not always consume the managerial constructions and their personal dissertations create a different reality (Bean & Hamilton, 2006). The sense of fairness has also been articulated into Leader-Member Exchange Theory. According to Scandura (1999), the crossroad of procedural and distributive injustice induces unfavorable outcomes that weaken the social relationship between the member and the leader. In the case of an organization, this can cause an employee to realize that his or her value to the organization (or manager) has decreased. Lamertz (2002) conducted a survey in an organization that had gone through considerable reorganization and downsizing and discovered that the employees perception of the change was party dependent on the justice judgments expressed by his or her peers and partly on the level of relationship between the employee and the manager.

In the literature of social constructionism of emotions,