Cynicism about organizational change: an attribution process perspective

The underlying attribution process for cynicism about organizational change is examined with six samples from four different organizations. The samples include hourly (n=777) and salaried employees (n= 155) from a manufacturing plant, faculty (n=293) and staff (n=302) from a large university, managers from a utility company (n=97), and young managers (n=65) from various organizations who were attending an evening MBA program. This form of cynicism is defined as the combination of Pessimism (about future change efforts) and a Dispositional attribution (why past efforts to change failed). Three analyses support this definition. First, an exploratory factor analysis (from the largest sample) produced two factors, one composed of Pessimism and the Dispositional attribution items and the second of the Situational attribution items. Second, the average correlation (across several samples) between Pessimism and Dispositional attribution is much higher (.59) than the average correlation between Pessimism and Situational attribution (.17). Third, scores on two different trait-based measures of cynicism correlate highest with the Dispositional attribution component of cynicism. A practical implication is that organizational leaders may minimize cynicism by managing both employees' pessimism about organizational change and employees' attributions about it. Specific suggestions for how this might be done are offered.