Organizational commitment, readiness, and response to change among hospital employees in a private hospital in Iloilo City

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the relationship between organizational commitment, readiness and response to change among hospital employees in a private hospital in Iloilo City. Specifically, this study sought answers to the following: describe the socio-demographic characteristics of hospital employees such as age, sex, educational attainment, length of service and nature of work; determine the level of organizational commitment of hospital employees; determine the level of readiness to change of hospital employees in terms of organizational valence, management support, change efficacy and personal valence; determine the degree of response to change of hospital employees in terms of compliance, cooperation, and championing behavior; determine if there is a significant relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and organizational commitment; determine if there is a significant relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and readiness to change; determine if there is a significant relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and response to change; determine if there is a significant relationship between organizational commitment and readiness to change; determine if there is a significant relationship between organizational commitment and response to change; and determine if there is a significant relationship between readiness to change and response to change. This study was conducted in a Private Hospital in Iloilo City last January 15-30 2013, where the target population was the 161 Hospital Employees. It is a descriptive relational study that involves the description of the socio-demographic characteristics of hospital employees, such as age, sex, educational attainment, length of service, and nature of work. The study also determined the employees’ level of organizational commitment, readiness to change, and response to change. Moreover, it involved the analysis of the relationship among these variables. The One Shot Survey Design was utilized. The generated data of hospital employees were processed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Frequency distribution and mean were used for descriptive analysis. To determine the relationship between variables, Cramers V and Gamma test set at 0.05 significance level were used. Majority of the hospital employees belonged to the age group of 21-29 years old and more than half of them were female (53.0 percent). A great majority of them were college graduates with less than three years of service in the hospital. In addition, most of the employees were under the Nursing Department. There’s a slightly higher percentage of employees whose level of commitment to the hospital is high (51.3 percent) than those with moderate level of commitment (48.7 percent). The level of organizational commitment of the hospital employees when taken as a whole was high with a mean of 4.05. Based on the mean score, the level of readiness to change of the hospital employees in terms of organizational valence was high (mean: 4.06). In terms of management support, change efficacy, and personal valence, the level of readiness to change of hospital employees was moderate. However, the level of readiness to change of the hospital employees when taken as a whole was moderate with a mean of 3.833. Based on the mean score, the degree of response to change of the hospital employees in terms of compliance, cooperation, and championing behavior was moderate. In addition, when taken as a whole, the degree of support of the hospital employees for change was moderate with a mean score of 3.78. Among the socio-demographic characteristics of the employees, only the length of service was found to be significantly related to organizational commitment, while only educational attainment was found to be significantly related to readiness to change. Moreover, there was no significant relationship between the respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics and degree of response to change. There was a significant relationship between organizational commitment and readiness to change with a p value of 0.000. Specifically, organizational commitment is significantly related to the four sub-categories of readiness to change such as organizational valence, management support, change efficacy, and personal valence. Moreover, it was found that there was a high correlation between organizational commitment and management support; organizational commitment and compliance; organizational valence and championing behavior; management support, compliance, and championing behavior; change efficacy, compliance and championing behavior; and personal valence and championing behavior. There was a significant relationship between organizational commitment and response to change with a p value of0.000. Specifically, organizational commitment was significantly related to the three sub-categories of response to change such as compliance, cooperation and championing behavior. There was a significant relationship between readiness to change and response to change with a p value of 0.000. Specifically, the four-subcategories of readiness to change were significantly related to the three sub-subcategories of response to change. When readiness to change was controlled, significant relationship was found between the respondents’ organizational commitment and response to change when they have moderate level of change readiness (p value= 0.045). However, no significant relationships were found when the respondents have low and high level of change readiness.

Based on the major findings of this study, the following conclusions were drawn:

The majority of the employees working in a private hospital in Iloilo City were young, female, college graduates, with less than three years of service in the hospital, and predominantly under the Nursing Department. The hospital employees had high level of commitment to their hospital. However, they had moderate level of change readiness. It seemed that they were not that prepared to accept changes in the workplace. In terms of the four sub-categories of change readiness, hospital employees highly believed that their hospital will benefit from the change initiatives (organizational valence). However, they don’t feel that their superiors support change initiatives (management support). Moreover, they were not that confident that they will be able to execute the tasks required by the change (change efficacy). And they don’t believe much that they will benefit something when change initiatives are implemented in the workplace (personal valence). The degree of support for change of the hospital employees was moderate. In terms of the three sub-categories of response to change, hospital employees show moderate compliance and cooperation to change. In addition, they were not “champions of change” yet. In terms of socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents, length of service was found to influence the level of organizational commitment. Employees who had longer tenure were more committed to their hospital than the less tenured. Meanwhile, educational attainment influences employees’ level of readiness to change. Employees who were more educated were more ready or prepared to accept changes in the workplace. However, these socio-demographic characteristics of hospital employees such as age, sex, educational attainment, length of service and nature of work do not affect their response to change. Organizational commitment directly influences readiness and response to change and their sub-categories. The more committed employees are to the organization, the more change-ready and supportive to change they become. Further, the level of commitment of hospital employees affects their response to change when their level of change readiness is moderate Readiness to change directly influences response to change and their subcategories. The higher the level of readiness to change of the employees, the more supportive they are to change.