Role of Organizational Trust on Readiness for Change Academic Staff University in Facing Higher Education Governance Changes

Abstract

Universities are currently facing an era where the challenges of the competition are increasingly dynamic and complex. Changes in university governance to become more autonomous are needed so that universities can be competitive and dare to take innovations in education, teaching, and service management. Academic staff, which is one of the university's human resources, must be prepared as the first step for change. Readiness for change is one of the drivers for achieving the effectiveness of organizational change and needs to be reviewed before making organizational changes. During the change process, organizational trust is considered a critical factor to solve risks in the change process. This study aims to determine the role of organizational trust on readiness for change in university academic staff in the face of changes in higher education governance. The sample of this study amounted to 277 academic staff from one of the state universities in South Kalimantan who were selected using simple random sampling. The measuring instrument used is a scale of readiness for change from Holt and organizational trust from Cumming and Bromiley, and both are already adapted. This research was then analyzed using simple linear regression. The results of this study indicate that organizational trust plays an important role in readiness for change in academic staff. Thus, organizational trust needs to be increased and maintained to prepare university academic staff in the face of change.