Dr Danielle Tucker

Imperial College Business School,

London

Dr Pamela Yeow

Kent Business School, University of Kent

Rebuilding Trust after Change:

The use of Social Accounts

Contents

• Background

• Social Accounts Theory

• Data Collection

• Findings

• Conclusions and Implications

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Importance of Trust during Change

• Trust takes a long time to build up incrementally

• Psychological contract (e.g. Rousseau, 2004)

• Trust can reduce threat of uncertainty during

change (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998)

• Trust has been linked to Organisational

Commitment (e.g. Tyler 2003)

ICAP 2010, Melbourne

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Communicating realistic previews of change can help

to maintain trust (Schweiger & DeNisi, 1991)

Theoretical framing: Sensemaking and Social Accounts

• Sensemaking

Sensemaking is a narrative process through which mental models of the

world are created, shared and maintained. Clusters of knowledge or

experiences which act as reference frameworks (interpretive

schemes), allowing us to make sense of an event in reference to the

knowledge which we already have (Balogun and Johnson 2004).

• Social accounts

“The explanations one gives another for the decisions and actions he or

she has made” (Cobb and Wooten 1998:p75).

Mechanism by which sensemaking occurs

How do the explanations we give impact on the trust

and organisational commitment of individuals during

an organisational change? © Imperial College Business School

Social Accounts

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ACCOUNT PURPOSE

CAUSAL Evaluation of the organisation’s need for change,

understanding of the current position of the organisation

IDEOLOGICAL Address the goals of the organisation and how these

link to the needs of the organisation

REFERENTIAL Show the changes in relation to the wider environment

PENITENTIAL Focus on the negative aspects of the change; apologies

made, explanations given and plans to resolve issues

revealed

Social Accounts and Trust

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• Link between organisational justice and social

accounts (Cobb & Wooten, 1998; Bies, 1987)

• Need a ‘sticky’ message

• Needs to be simple, concrete and motivate action

• Cannot present all types of account at once

• Ideological SA will inspire action, referential SA will make

abstract change reality

• Attribution theories and causal accounts

• But depends on where these previous ideas and

experiences are leading – need ideological too

Research question

The aim of this study was to investigate the role which

social accounts play in employees trust in

management during an organisational change.

• Data collected from two organisations via field

questionnaire

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RQ1: Does the presence of a social account

increase post-change levels of trust?

RQ2: Which types of social accounts are most

important in increasing Trust?

Data Collection

• German manufacturing company changing to a

Toyota style of production facility • N=129

• M=81; F=37; Age = 35.90 (mean)

• German logistics company undergoing

continuous rapid growth • N= 43

• M=16; F=22; Age = 30.35 (mean)

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Data Collection

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Total data set:

N=172

97=Male; 59=Female

Age - 34.52 (mean)

• Organisational Commitment adapted from Cook and Wall (1980); (9 items) Alpha=.790

• Combined data set • Compare planned and incremental change

•Field Questionnaire • Scale to measure Social Accounts (see Tucker et al 2010) • Trust adapted from Cook and Wall (1980); (9 items) Alpha=.885

Social Account Success and Trust

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Trust

IDEOLOGICAL

CAUSAL

Organisational

Commitment

Ideological accounts predict trust and organisational

commitment when controlling for other types of social

account

REFERENTIAL

Trust as a mediator

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Ideological Accounts

Organisational Commitment

Trust - ideo

- trust

There were no significant differences between the

planned change and incremental change

organisations

Conclusions and Implications

• Ideological accounts were found to have the most

important relationship to trust in management.

• Trust mediates the relationship between ideological

accounts and organisational commitment.

• Ideological accounts help build trust for the future.

• When an organisation experiences significant change by

ensuring the employees understand and can assimilate

the future organisational objectives into their

understanding of the organisation, trust can be

maintained.

• Tentative comparisons suggest that this may be the case

across multiple types and levels of change. © Imperial College Business School

Thank you

Questions?

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