The interplay between cognitive styles and organisational change

Abstract

In the process of organisational change, there are two broad categories of employees’ reactions: those who are open to change and those who have a difficult time accepting change in general, including organisational change. These differences can be linked to differences in cognitive style. Our hypotheses were tested and confirmed in two companies in different industrial sectors in Serbia (N=265). The results showed that cognitive style was a strong single predictor of general attitudes towards organizational change. We have proposed a procedure for obtaining the index of dispositional readiness for change, which is of critical importance for planning different strategies of change management.