1. Why change management fails:
The data is in
Midwest Academy of Management
October 3, 2014
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2. About Ron Koller

3. Acknowledgements
Dr. Rick Fenwick (instigator)
Dr. Paula Fremont (chair)
Dr. Angela Bruch (committee)
Dr. Suzanna Reynolds (committee)
Dr. Diana Wong (EMU & MAOM member)
Dr. Greg Huszczo
Dr. James LeBreton
Dr. Therese Yaeger & Dr. Peter Sorensen
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4. 3 learning points
1. Resistance is no longer Change’s biggest
enemy
2. Too much of a good thing (i.e. commitment)
is a bad thing
3. Nonlinear statistics portray organizational
psychology phenomenon (i.e. behavior) more
accurately than linear statistics
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5. Agenda
1. 4-component Commitment Model
2. Literature
3. Methodology
4. Results
5. Conclusions, implications, and
recommendations
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6. Commitment to change concept

7. To much of a good thing is bad
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8. Coetsee Nonlinear Model
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9. H1: Commitment < R + Compliance
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10. H2: Each Predictor Separately
Affective Commitment
to Change (AC2C)
Likert scale 1-7
6-items
Continuance
Commitment to
Change (CC2C)
Likert scale 1-7
6-items
Normative
Commitment to
Change (NC2C)
Likert scale 1-7
6-items
Supported by
Morin et al., 2013
Behavioral Support for
Change (BSC)
1-100 continuum
1-item
3 Predictors
1 Outcome
• Active Resistance
• Passive Resistance
• Compliance
• Cooperation
• Championing
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11. H3: Curvilinear Relationship
(together)
Behavioral Support for
Change (BSC)
1-100 continuum
1-item
3 Predictors
1 Outcome
• Active Resistance
• Passive Resistance
• Compliance
• Cooperation
• Championing
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12. H1: Practical Results

13. H2 Result
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14. H3 Result
NC2C x
CC2C
two-way
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AC2C
one-way
AC2C x
CC2C
two-way
NC2C
one-way
AC2C x
CC2C
two-way
AC2C x
NC2C x
CC2C
three-way

15. H3 Breakdown
Behavioral
Support for
Change
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AC2C
NC2C
AC2C x NC2C
two-way interaction

16. Limits of Linear Regression
Behavioral
Support for
Change
Linear can only
explain additive
contributions
Linear regression cannot explain what is REALLY happening
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SIMULTANEOUS contributions

17. No Δ in variance ≠ no contribution
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CC2C’s contribution
Is MASKED

18. Double the two-way interaction
NC2C x
CC2C
two-way
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AC2C
one-way
AC2C x
CC2C
two-way
NC2C
one-way
AC2C x
CC2C
two-way
AC2C x
NC2C x
CC2C
three-way

19. Recommendations
1. Practitioners:
 stop spending so much time worrying about resistance
 start paying more attention to compliance/ambivalence
2. Researchers:
a. Use (new) squared terms of predictor variables to run a
nonlinear regression
• how much commitment/resistance is optimal versus sub-optimal?
• what types of commitment/resistance are optimal versus sub-optimal?
b. Use the tools at http://relativeimportance.davidson.edu
to more accurately decompose the variance

20. What this study showed us
1. Resistance is no longer Change’s biggest
enemy (hypothesis 1)
2. Too much of a good thing (i.e. commitment)
is a bad thing (hypothesis 2)
3. Nonlinear statistics portray organizational
psychology phenomenon (i.e. behavior) more
accurately than linear statistics (hypothesis 3)
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