The Psychology of Resistance to Change: The Antidotal Effect of Organizational Justice, Support and Leader-Member Exchange

Nabeel Rehman; Asif Mahmood; Muhammad Ibtasam; Shah Ali Murtaza; Naveed Iqbal; Edina Molnár

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.678952

The Psychology of Resistance to Change: The Antidotal Effect of Organizational Justice, Support and Leader-Member Exchange

Front Psychol. 2021 Aug 2:12:678952. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.678952. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Nabeel Rehman¹, Asif Mahmood², Muhammad Ibtasam³, Shah Ali Murtaza⁴, Naveed Iqbal⁵, Edina Molnár⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Accountancy & Finance, The University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan.
² Department of Business Studies, Namal Institute, Mianwali, Pakistan.
³ Institute of Business & Management, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan.
⁴ Institute of Management and Organizational Sciences, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary.
⁵ Department of Business Administration, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.

Abstract

In today's business environment, the survival and sustenance of any organization depend upon its ability to introduce a successful change. However, in implementing a change, one of the biggest problems an organization faces is resistance from its employees. The current paper addresses this problem by examining the role of organizational justice dimensions in coping with the resistance to change through the intervening role of perceived organizational support (POS), leader-member exchange (LMX), and readiness for change (RFC) in a sequential framework. Data of 372 employees have been collected from the banking industry of Pakistan. The results obtained through the Partial Least Squares- Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach using SmartPLS suggest that distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice play a critical role in lowering the resistance to change through POS, LMX, and RFC, contributing significantly to the theory and practice. Furthermore, this study also discusses recommendations for future research and limitations associated with this research work.

Keywords: distributive justice; interactional justice; leader-member exchange; organizational justice; perceived organizational support; procedural justice; readiness for change; resistance to change.