Purpose: The present study aimed to clarify the prospective effects of various types and frequencies of organizational changes on aspects in the psychosocial work environment.
Methods: The study had a prospective, full-panel, repeated measures design. Data were collected by self-administered, online questionnaires, with a 2-year interval between measurement occasions. Five types of organizational change were assessed – company restructuring, downsizing, layoffs, partial closure, and partial outsourcing. The effects of change on eleven, specific work factors were measured utilizing QPS Nordic. At baseline, 12652 employees participated, while 8965 responded at follow-up. Generalized estimating equations were utilized to estimate the effects of change taking place within the last 12 months or more than 24 months prior.
Results: Cross-sectional analyses, i.e., changes occurring within the last 12 months, showed all 11 work factors to be statistically significantly associated with the organizational changes restructuring, downsizing, and partial closure [coefficients ranging −0.28 to 0.04]. In the prospective analyses, i.e., the effects of change taking place more than 24 months prior, associations were no longer significant for a number of work factors, although all types of organizational change remained significantly associated with at least three work factors [coefficients ranging −0.14 to 0.05]. Following repeated organizational changes, statistically significant associations were shown for all 11 work factors [coefficients ranging from 0.39 to −0.04].
Conclusion: Following both separate and repeated organizational change, various psychological and social work factors were altered, with the most pronounced effects following repeated change. These results suggest the implementing organizational change, especially repeated change, may have an adverse effect on various parts of the psychosocial work environment. The negative effects of a company’s psychosocial working conditions may contribute to the adverse health effects often observed following such changes and help explain why many change initiatives fail to reach its intended results.
Introduction
Organizational change has repeatedly been associated with adverse effects on employee health []. Large-scale organizational changes, such as company restructuring, downsizing and outsourcing have been linked to somatic and mental health complaints, presenteeism and long-term sick leave [; ]. However, a thorough understanding of why organizational changes are associated with adverse health effects is still pending. Clarifying the repercussions of organizational change for workplaces and employees is an essential first step to preventing adverse health effects of and facilitating healthy, successful change. Prior meta-analytic studies have shown a wide range of psychological and social work factors, such as leadership, role conflict and ambiguity, job demands, control and job insecurity to predict employee well-being, health and sick leave [; ; ; ; ; ; ; ], as well as the change process and end-result [; ]. In order to elucidate whether extensive company change influence central aspects of the psychosocial work environment the present study aimed to clarify the effects of various types of organizational changes, separately and co-occurring as well as repeated over time, on 11 specific psychological and social work factors.
“Organizational change” pertains to the altering of structures, strategies, procedures or cultures of organizations []. The term encompasses both the process by which this happens [i.e., “how”] and the content of what is being altered [i.e., “what”]. By definition, change implies a shift in the organization from one state to another. This shift may be deliberate, with the aim of gaining or losing specific features of the organization to attain a defined goal, or it may be less deliberate, perhaps occurring as a consequence of developments outside the control of the organization. Moreover, during the change process, additional parts of the organization may be unintentionally affected, particularly when change is experienced as excessive []. Such unintended repercussions of organizational change may be both positive and negative [], and may be more likely when a large number of transactions are required to implement the change decision and many specialized problem-solving capabilities are invoked []. Either way, organizational change represents something novel and intrinsically unknown and uncertain for the organization and its members, which may disrupt existing structures and processes. Thus, organizational change can be experienced both as an opportunity to gain and as a risk of losing and may involve redesign of tasks and responsibilities that alter existing work content and –environment in various foreseen and unforeseen ways. Nevertheless, while prior studies have linked organizational change to somatic and mental health [; , ; ; ; ], less is known about repercussions of organizational change for psychosocial working conditions that are relevant to health.
A psychosocial work environment consists of organizational-, social-, and psychological factors which govern and define the content and quality of various aspects of work []. Organizational work factors include formal and structural conditions that regulate how work is carried out, e.g., employment contracts and work schedules. Social work factors comprise the relational aspects of a workplace, such as social climate, support from superiors and co-workers. Psychological work factors refer to individual-level aspects of work, such as perceived levels of autonomy, job demands and predictability. Prior studies have linked an organization’s psychosocial working conditions to both employee- and organizational outcomes [; ], such as worker health [; ; ; ; ; ; ; ], sick leave [] and company productivity [; ; ; ]. Despite the aforementioned awareness of the potential of organizational change to upset various organizational systems as well as employee health, few studies seem to have assessed effects of organization change on specific factors in the psychosocial work environment that are known to be associated with health. The present study assessed the effect of various types and frequencies of organizational change on 11 distinct work factors pertaining to job tasks [job control, job demands], job roles [role clarity, role conflict], leadership [fair-, empowering-, supportive leadership], social aspects [support from co-workers, social climate] and predictability [job predictability, future employability].
During change implementation, the organization attends to various change-related tasks in addition to the ordinary, day-to-day activities. In sum, this may increase the total amount of work and job tasks employees are faced with []. The need for management to exert control in the planning and implementation process may also leave less room for employees to influence their own job to the same extent as before, and may thus affect employees’ experience of their own job control during the process []. Hence, organizational change may be associated with increased job demands [i.e., the amount of work and time demands] and a decrease of job control [i.e., influence over decisions regarding one’s tasks, co-workers and clients]. When major shifts take place within an organization, the rearrangement of employee roles and responsibilities are often a central part of the process. Such rearrangement may result in employees facing conflicting demands, lack of resources to complete one’s additional assigned tasks or uncertainty related to the objectives and expectations of one’s new role []. Thus, large-scaled workplace changes could increase employee’s sense of role conflict [i.e., conflicting demands and lack of resources] and lower the sense of role clarity [i.e., clarity regarding a roles responsibilities and expectations]. The need for management to invoke tough and sometimes unpopular decisions, e.g., in a downsizing or layoff process, may also affect employees perception of management and superiors following organizational changes [; ; ]. When the consequences of change involve the potential loss of valued aspects such as specific tasks, collegial relationships or the very existence of one’s job, one may surmise that employee perception of management as just or fair could be affected. Moreover, changes initiated by external forces, e.g., market demands or technological innovation, and invoked by management may also leave less room for including employees in decision making and planning. Exercising an inclusive and empowering leadership style may thus be challenging during change implementation. The added demands given to managers in this process may also leave fewer resources and room for superiors to provide the support and attentiveness they normally are able to give their employees, which may affect employee’s perception of management as supportive. Hence, organizational change may lead to a decrease in employee perception of leadership as fair [i.e., equal treatment of employees], empowering [i.e., including] and supportive [i.e., attentive and present]. The relational aspects of the organizational may also be affected during extensive workplace changes, as the collegial composition may be rearranged or colleagues have to compete over new or remaining positions. As a result, social cohesion within the group may deteriorate and collegial support diminishes []. Thus, organizational change may be associated with a decrease in perceived support from co-workers and social climate as inclusive and trusting. Employees’ sense of predictability regarding both present and future job prospects could also be affected by exposure to extensive workplace changes [; ]. Change naturally involves some degree of uncertainty regarding the outcome and future. As extensive organizational changes often are management-driven with little employee involvement, uncertainty may be extra prominent. Furthermore, organizational change is often driven by changes in external factors such as globalization, market demands or technological innovation, which makes predicting the future jobs even more complex. Hence, organizational changes may be associated with a decrease in employee perception of short-term job predictability and future employability.
As the rate of organizational change is increasing, a larger part of the workforce is likely to experience multiple changes or repeated organizational changes during their careers, some of which they may deem excessive. To our knowledge, a limited number of studies have examined how exposure to repeated organizational changes influence specific factors in the work environment []. These studies have reported stronger effects following repeated change than separate change, but only on outcomes such as employee health and sick leave [; ; ]. Thus, one may speculate whether implementing multiple, repeated changes may also be associated with a stronger effect on psychosocial work factors than single change efforts [].
In developing targeted interventions aimed at reducing the potential adverse effects of organizational change on employee health, identifying the underlying mechanisms in this stressor-strain relationship is an imperative first step. Interventions aimed at reducing or alleviating the effect of risk factors in the work environment have shown the potential of such interventions to reduce depressive symptoms and absenteeism and to improve productivity both during and following organizational changes [; ; ]. The effect of organizational change on specific factors in the work environment may represent such a mechanism in which the work factors may either moderate or mediate the relationship between change and health. In order to illuminate the effect of various specific types of organizational change as well as repeated change on central aspects of the psychosocial work environment, the current study examined both the cross-sectional and prospective associations of separate and repeated organizational change with 11 specific psychological and social work factors.
Materials and Methods
Study Design
The study was a part of the project “The New Workplace: work, health and participation in working life” initiated and carried out by the Norwegian National Institute of Occupational Health [STAMI]. The project was conducted in line with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Data Inspectorate of Norway and the Norwegian Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics, Region South East [REC]. The study had a prospective, full panel study design, with data collected with a 2-year interval. Baseline data collected between 2004 and 2013, with follow-up 2 years later, respectively. All data were collected by a self-administered, online questionnaire. The participating organizations either contacted STAMI directly as a response to an invitation to participate in the study posted on the institute’s webpages, or on requesting assistance in a general work environment survey.
Subjects
A total of 66 Norwegian organizations participated in the study, representing both public and private sector and a variety of professions, company sizes and sectors.
Upon accepting to participate, information regarding the project was initially given at the company level. All current employees were invited to participate in the study and received an information letter by postal mail, containing a unique ID-code for accessing the online questionnaire. Respondents were allotted time during work hours to complete the questionnaire but also had the opportunity to complete the questionnaire at home. Respondents had the opportunity to log in an unlimited number of times to access to complete the questionnaire. Inclusion criteria for both the cross-sectional and prospective sample were completing all items for each individual work factor at both T1 and T2.
Predictor: Organizational Change
Specific Organizational Change
We assessed the effects of five distinct types of organizational changes. These were company restructuring, downsizing, layoffs, partial closure, and partial outsourcing. To clarify, “downsizing” refers to a temporary termination of job contract with the chance of rehiring, while “layoffs” refers to permanent termination of the job contract. Each type of change was assessed by a single item with a dichotomous response [“yes”/”no”] and inquired whether the organization in which the employee worked had implemented a specific type of change within the last 12 months. Examples: “During the last 12 months has your company undergone restructuring?,” and “During the last 12 months has your company undergone downsizing?”
Multiple Organizational Changes
To assess the effect of multiple organizational changes occurring simultaneously, a three-category predictor variable was created based on the five change items. The categorical predictor demonstrated whether employees had experienced [i] “No type of organizational change at baseline,” [ii] “One type of organizational change at baseline,” or [iii] “Two or more types of organizational change at baseline.”
Repeated Organizational Change
To assess the effects of repeated organizational changes, a four-category predictor variable was created based on the five change items. The predictor demonstrated whether employees had experiences [i] “No type of change at baseline or follow-up,” [ii] “At least one type of change at baseline, but none at follow-up,” [iii] “At least one type of change at follow-up, but none at baseline,” or [iv] “At least one type of change at baseline and at least one type of change at follow-up.”
Outcome: Psychological and Social Work Factors
The psychological and social work factors were measured by the General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work [QPSNordic] [; ]. QPSNordic is a validated questionnaire designed to assess a comprehensive set of social and psychological aspects in the workplace. The effects of organizational changes on 11, specific work factors were assessed. These were six psychological work factors [job control, job demands, job predictability, perceived future employability, role clarity, and role conflict] and five social work factors [empowering leadership, fair leadership, social climate, support from co-worker and support from superior]. Each factor was measured by multiple items, ranging from two to five items depending on the factor. Responses on all items were given on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from “1 = very seldom or never” to “5 = very often or always.” For each work factor, a mean score was calculated. For all work factors, Cronbach’s α was calculated at baseline and follow-up and were within the range of 0.71 [“role conflict“] to 0.88 and [“empowering leadership”].
Confounders
All analyses included the variables age, sex, skill level, and place of employment [private vs. public organizations] as potential confounders. Age was divided into three age groups, [i] “55.” Skill level was divided into five categories reflecting years of formal education required in various professions. The categorization was done using the Standard Classification of Occupations [STYRK], which is based on the International Standard Classification of Occupations [ISCO-88] and developed by Statistics Norway [SSB]. The five skill level categories were: [i] “15 years of education,” and [v] “Unspecified,” which included occupations requiring no formal education.
Statistical Analyses
Generalized Estimating Equations
The cross-sectional and prospective associations between the separate types and frequencies of organizational changes and the various work factors were estimated utilizing linear regression analyses by the Generalized Estimated Equations method [GEE]. The method is based on the generalized linear model and allows for the analyses of correlated observations, such as repeated measures or clustered data. In addition, the method allows for samples to have a non-normal error distribution on the response variable. The GEE approach was chosen as it accounts for the potential correlated responses within sample clusters, which fit the present data well as it was clustered within organizations [; ]. The GEE method gives a population parameter estimate based on the average of clusters in the data [; ]. Hence, the GEE method estimates the average response in a population-based on the average of clusters within a sample. The GEE analysis provides the option to predefine the anticipated correlation structure in the data, for instance independent, autoregressive, compound symmetry, or unstructured. In the present analyses, the unstructured option was chosen since no theoretical grounds were present to expect a specific correlation structure in the data. In addition, the unstructured option does not impose any constraints in the correlation structure in the analyses []. GEE has previously been widely applied in epidemiological studies where data have been correlated as the method may handle various types of prior, unidentified correlations between measurements [; ; ]. All analyses were run using IBM SPSS Statistics, version 24.0 [IBM, Armonk, NY, United States], with the level of statistical significance set to p < 0.05.
Cross-Sectional Analyses
In the cross-sectional analyses pertaining to specific, separate organizational changes, we ran both uni- and multi-variate regressions separately with each type of change as predictor and each type of work factor as outcome. In the analyses pertaining to the effects of multiple changes, we utilized the aforementioned three-category variable as predictor and ran the analyses for each work factor separately.
Prospective Analyses
In the prospective analyses, both uni- and multi-variate regressions were run separately with each type of change as predictor and each type of work factor as outcome. The analyses were run in two steps. In the first step, Model I, analyses were adjusted for age, sex, skill level and place of employment, while in step two, Model II, analyses were also adjusted for baseline levels of the work factor in question. In the analyses pertaining to multiple changes, we ran simple regressions with the three-level categorical predictor variable for each work factor separately. As in the analyses pertaining to specific changes, all analyses were conducted in two steps. Lastly, in the analyses pertaining to the effects of repeated change, we ran simple regressions with the aforementioned four-level categorical predictor for each work factor separately. These analyses were also conducted in two-steps.
Results
Baseline Characteristics
The mean age at baseline was 44.34 [SD: 10.5]. Of the included subjects 20.9% were under the age of 35, 61.9% were between the age of 35–55, while 17.2% were older than 55. Women constituted 54.7% of the sample. Skill level at baseline was as follows: >15 years of formal education 26.9%, 13–15 years 24.7%, 10–12 years 38.7%, >10 years 1.0%, and Unspecified 8.7%. For further details, see .
TABLE 1
Table 1. Sample characteristics.
Non-response Analysis
Women were less likely to be non-respondents [OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.66–0.78], along with employees aged 35–55 years [OR 0.82, 95% CI 0.74–0.91]. Respondents employed in private sector companies were also less likely to be non-respondents [OR 0.86, 95% CI 0.78–0.95]. As for skill level, respondents employed in jobs requiring 10–12 [OR 1.35, 95% CI 1.22–1.49] and