Danielle Tucker

Imperial College Business School,

London

Dr Pamela Yeow

Kent Business School, University of Kent

Dr G. Tendayi Viki

Department of Psychology, University of Kent

Managing Organisational

Change and Trust: The

Importance of Ideological and

Casual Social Accounts

Contents

• Background

• Social Accounts Theory

• Case Study

• Experiment

• Conclusions and Implications

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Importance of Trust during Change

• Trust takes a long time to build up incrementally

• Psychological contract (e.g. Rousseau, 2004)

• Trust can reduce threat of uncertainty during

change (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998)

• Trust has been linked to Organisational

Commitment (e.g. Tyler 2003)

ICAP 2010, Melbourne

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Communicating realistic previews of change can help

to maintain trust (Schweiger & DeNisi, 1991)

Social Accounts

“Social accounts are the explanations one gives

another for the decisions and actions he or she has

made” (Cobb and Wooten, 1998: p75).

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ACCOUNT PURPOSE

CAUSAL Evaluation of the organisation’s need for change,

understanding of the current position of the organisation

IDEOLOGICAL Address the goals of the organisation and how these link to the

needs of the organisation

REFERENTIAL Show the changes in relation to the wider environment

PENITENTIAL Focus on the negative aspects of the change; apologies made,

explanations given and plans to resolve issues revealed

CAUSAL

• Internal & external forces

• Need for change

• Reasons become

transparent

• Exonerating

• Crisis?

IDEOLOGICAL

• Value of change

• Superordinate goals

• Core values

• Mitigating

• Procedural Justice

Causal and Ideological Accounts

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Causal and Ideological accounts present the ‘before’

and ‘after’ of the change

Case Study

• German manufacturing company changing to a

Toyota style of production facility

• N=129

• M=81; F=37; Age = 35.90 (mean)

• Field Questionnaire

• Scale to measure SA (see Tucker et al 2010)

• Trust and Organisational Commitment

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RQ: What is the relationship between causal or ideological

accounts and social account success or trust?

Social Account Success and Trust

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Social Account

Success

Referential

IDEOLOGICAL

CAUSAL

Penitential

Trust

Causal and Ideological accounts predict the

success of the social account and trust in managers

Trust as a mediator

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Ideological Accounts

Organisational Commitment

Trust - ideo

- trust

Experiment

• Hypothetical change situations

• Causal (N=57) or Ideological (N=59) account of announcement on

organisational change

• CAUSAL: “Our recent productivity has been lower than expected and we are failing

to secure new contracts with our clients. We feel that the organisation is unlikely to

survive unless a change is implemented.”

• IDEO: “Our goals are to increase productivity and to secure new contracts with our

clients for the future. We feel that there are opportunities for the organisation to reach

its long term goals by implementing these changes.”

• Total N=116; M=46; F=70; Age = 27.35 (mean)

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RQ: What is the difference between causal or

ideological accounts in their impact on trust?

Individual accounts

• No significant main effect of social accounts found –

why?

• Type of change (merger verses procedural change)?

• No significant main effect for type of change

• Presented in isolation?

• Causal presents crisis, ideological provides no

background

• Combined causal and ideological accounts were a

better predictor of trust (case study).

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Conclusion: Causal and Ideological accounts

should always be presented TOGETHER

Organisational Commitment

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PROCEDURAL

JUSTICE

TRUST

ORGANISATIONAL

COMMITMENT

CAUSAL

ACCOUNTS

IDEOLOGICAL

ACCOUNTS

Conclusions and Implications

• Causal accounts and Ideological accounts both have a role to play

in the successful communication of change.

• However, they are not effective when presented in isolation.

• Contrary to previous descriptions it is causal rather than ideological

accounts which have stronger relationship with procedural justice.

• Therefore, in an organisation where trust may be low, causal

accounts are crucial in maintaining organisational commitment

during change.

• Ideological accounts help build trust for the future.

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Thank you

Questions?

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