Managing change and mitigating reform cynicism

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the literature on resistance to change in public organizations by studying how management mitigates employee cynicism toward reforms. Focusing on performance management reforms in German local government, the authors found that low levels of cynicism were associated with reform-specific support resources (rather than resources generally), political commitment (rather than peer support for the reform), and reform knowledge (rather than learning forums).

IMPACT

To mitigate reform cynicism among middle managers, who play an important role in any reform implementation, the authors’ empirical research has some valuable recommendations. First, the most cost-effective way to spend scarce resources is through investing in reform-specific capacity, such as creating support units that help line managers and employees develop new skills. Second, political support is important to get middle managers to buy-in: it has signalling and trickle-down effects that help create commitment. Third, information sharing and knowledge creation around a reform is necessary. Importantly, learning forums (and related reflection routines) can actually reinforce cynicism if they are focused only on talk and not on action.

KEYWORDS:

• Change management
• government reform
• performance management
• public management
• reform cynicism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).