Managing employees’ commitment towards change: The influence of leadership gestures

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2023-07-04
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en
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Employees’ commitment towards change is crucial for successful change initiatives. However, managers lack wisdom on realizing desired employees’ commitment, and how leadership gestures could contribute to the enhancement thereof. The aim of this study is to provide an answer to the research question: How should employees’ commitment towards change be managed, and how can leadership gestures influence this? The goal of this qualitative deductive study was to obtain a clear understanding of these relationships at the employee-level in practice. Therefore, data was collected and analyzed by conducting interviews with six nurses and six managers from a Dutch hospital. Managers fulfill a crucial role in ensuring boundary conditions, change management model and components, for employees’ commitment. However, this does not guarantee success. Leadership gestures can positively influence normative commitment, mostly through the sense of community. The strongest impact is on affective commitment, which is also the most preferred. To maximize the insights of this study, more focus should be on gestures, more awareness should be created, practice-oriented training should be provided, and there should be continuous consultation to ensure correct application. By enhancing the context of this study, through more extensive research, knowledge for business practice will be broadened and improved.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen
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