The Relationship between Employee Disposition, Negative Work Experience, and Commitment to Change: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Achieving employee commitment to change is an urgent issue in most organizations and it has been of great interest to scholars over the last few years. It is against this backdrop that the current paper explores a set of variables that influence the commitment of employees to change behavior in the organizational context with special interest to how employee disposition (positive affectivity, negative affectivity, and trait cynicism) and negative work experience (psychological contract violation, perceived organizational politics, and job stress in combination with change fatigue) interact to influence the commitment to change. Based on the Social Exchange Theory and the Conservation of Resources Theory, the paper further discusses the middle role of employee ostracism in mediating employee disposition and negative work experience with commitment to change. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to develop a solid theoretical framework that included books, empirical studies, theoretical articles, and peer-reviewed scholarly work on commitment to change and its related factors. The suggested framework will contribute to the developing body of literature on the interaction between employee disposition, negative work experience, ostracism of employees, and commitment to change.