Acceptance of Change Behaviour among Middle Managers: The Importance of Subjective Norms and Social Influence as Environmental Predictors

The study seeks to examine the influence of environmental-related factors among middle managers in Malaysian government organization. Specifically, this study seeks to determine the influence of subjective norms and social influence in public organizations on acceptance of change. Present study employed cross-sectional survey involving a sample of 400 Administrative and Diplomatic Officers (ADO) in Malaysian Public Service organizations. The findings highlighted that middle managers’ subjective norms in this study were significant in influencing acceptance of change but are not affected by their social pressure when changes are implemented. Practically, this investigation proffers essential effort in understanding the acceptance of change of middle managers in public service organizations. This study suggests ADO as change agents should be well informed and consulted to create social pressure among them to act in supportive ways of implementing planned change Theoretically, the results of this study append to the literature and to a certain extent provide better explanation of Theory of Reasoned Action and Social Cognitive Theory in the context of acceptance of change. The population of this study involved ADO as middle managers in Malaysian Public Service organizations thus the results cannot be generalized to other level of employees in public sector as well as private service organizations. A comparative study involving both public and private service organizations would be worth studying in future.