Motivational climate and attitudes to change: a hospital study

Change can be highly motivating when it is perceived as results-oriented, well planned and well communicated. However, there appears to be a lack of evidence on the actual existence of such relationships between motivational climate and attitudes to change in management literature, especially under the specific conditions of health care organisations in Slovakia. Using a sample of 243 employees of the University Hospital Bratislava, the present study has investigated the validity of the assumption that: (i) low motivational climate will represent an inhibitor to change, and vice versa, (ii) the more attention is being paid by the organisation's management to implementation of change, resulting in the staff having positive attitudes to change, the higher the motivational climate within the organisation will be. The findings indicate that motivational climate of the hospital can be heavily influenced by the manner in which the change is being managed. Moreover, not only how change is being managed, but also how it is understood and accepted by the employees, as well as which outcomes the change results in, have significant effects on the perceived motivational climate. The results also show that to maintain the high motivational climate, thus stimulating desired behaviours in the staff, the hospital managers should keep, among other things, (i) encouraging the workers to make a creative contribution, (ii) informing them about the reasons why changes are being made, (iii) showing them how their work objectives relate to where the hospital is heading and that the cost of the current changes will not outweight the benefits, and (v) ensuring that adequate training is available to equip people for changes and giving them the support they need to cope with change. Last, but not least, the present study helps to demonstrate the importance of attitudes as a force that is powerful in determining work output. (Tab. 3, Ref. 37.)