Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 266272

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Journal of Business Research

Change management practices: Impact on perceived change results

Andrs B. Raineri
Ponticia Universidad Catlica de Chile, Escuela de Administracin, Vicua Mackenna 4860, Casilla 76, Correo 17, Santiago, Chile

a r t i c l e

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a b s t r a c t
Management literature frequently proposes the use of a set of managerial practices in order to facilitate the management of organizational change processes. This paper analyses differences in perception in the use of such practices, between change strategists and change receptors, and the impact these practices have on the outcomes of organizational change programs and on organizational results, in a sample of 90 organizations in Chile. Results show that, for the same change processes, change strategists report a higher use of change management practices than change receptors. Results also show that, during organizational change processes, rms use more frequently practices related to the change preparation stage in comparison to practices related to the change implementation stage. Finally, results show that, after controlling for organizational size, change program intensity, and service versus manufacturing industries, the use of change management practices has a signicant impact on the accomplishment of the change program objectives and deadlines, but results do not show an impact on perceived organizational outcomes (changes in sales, nancial results of the rm, operational productivity, and employee performance). 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 1 March 2009 Received in revised form 1 September 2009 Accepted 1 November 2009 Available online 19 January 2010 Keywords: Organizational change Change management practices

1. Introduction Today's organizations experience frequent, diverse and intense change through practices such as processes redesign, restructuring, mergers, acquisitions and total quality programs. Organizations put these programs into practice in an attempt to anticipate or adapt to external forces such as new technologies, markets or legislations, or internal forces such as changes in staff, or tuning of policies and procedures. Academic and professional literature propose a set of managerial practices that better support the enactment of organizational change processes (Armenakis and Bedeian, 1999; Buchanan et al., 2005; Casio, 2002; Jones et al., 2004; Kanter, 2001; Kotter, 1996; Meyer and Stensaker, 2006; Nadler, 1998; Whelan-Berry et al., 2003, among others). Nevertheless signicant gaps in the understanding of both how these practices work, and in their effectiveness exist (Doyle et al., 2000; Lewis et al., 2006). This study is an empirical research on change management practices (CMPs) which expands current literature in three ways. First an analysis is made of the differences in the perceptions of two groups of employees about the use of CMPs during organizational change processes: Those in charge of planning the change program (change strategists) and those employees who receive the impact of the change program (change receptors). Second, previous research results (Raineri, 1998), that show that rms use more frequently CMPs related to the change preparation stage rather than CMPs more closely related to the implementation stage of change processes, are tested. Third and nally, the paper assesses the

impact these change management practices have on the outcomes of organizational change programs and on perceptual measures of organizational performance. To address these issues the present article rst describes previous literature on CMPs and presents research hypotheses. Second, the paper describes the methodology used to test the hypotheses. The third section presents the results. Finally, in the fourth section, the paper discusses the implications and limitations of these ndings. 2. Managing change in organizations Change management practices include a variety of organizational interventions that, when executed properly and in consistency with internal and external organizational events, facilitate the enactment of organizational change processes. Acording to Kanter (2001) those who direct or participate in the change processes often forget these practices, which sometimes might seem obvious principles based on common sense, generating a more inefcient and sometimes chaotic process than necessary. Different authors propose lists of CMPs that have strong similarities, usually presented as suggestions of how to manage organizational change processes more effectively. Literature frequently presents a temporal point of view to group CMPs, with concepts such as change preparation and change implementation being habitual. Change preparation CMPs usually include suggestions such as the diagnosis and analysis of the organizational system and its environment, the identication of change needs, and the development of a new organizational vision (Buchanan et al., 2005; Tushman and O'Reilly, 1997; Whelan-Berry et al., 2003). Some authors also suggest to execute during the change preparation stage, the development of a

E-mail address: araineri@faceapuc.cl. 0148-2963/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.11.011

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detailed plan of how change will be implemented, including ambitious but realistic objectives, stages to be achieved, and the timing necessary to coordinate the change project (Nguyen Huy, 2001; Whelan-Berry et al., 2003). Also frequently suggested is the understanding and consideration of the needs and interests of relevant individuals and groups, in order to anticipate their intentions and reactions, persuade them to support the change process, and diminish potential resistances to the process (i.e. Jones et al., 2004; Holt et al., 2007). Other authors suggest the creation of a sense of urgency among employees, in order to generate a state of motivation and expectations that facilitate the process, sometimes by generating reactions of dissatisfaction with the status quo (Beer and Walton, 1990) or by spreading a feeling of change necessity among stakeholders (Tichy and Devanna, 1986). Literature also proposes another set of CMPs, more closely related to the implementation of change. Several authors argue that facilitating communication during the change process, allows different stake holders to understand what, when and why the organization is changing, facilitating the acceptance and adaptation of new circumstances (Dutton et al., 2001; Lewis et al., 2006). Different authors emphasize the importance of leadership, during the change implementation stage. (Buchanan et al., 2005; Kotter, 1996). Employees need to perceive that their leaders are actively involved and committed to the change process. Other CMPs related to the implementation stages refer to formal and/or informal training and coaching in order to teach employees the knowledge and skills necessary to carry out the new tasks (Nadler, 1998). Finally, other authors suggest the alignment of compensation and incentive systems with the new objectives dened in the change plan in order to consolidate the change implementation process (Kanter, 2001; Kotter, 1996). The practices mentioned above, which don't pretend to be an exhaustive list, capture some of the most frequent advice offered at the time of managing a change program within an organization. As literature suggests, the use of these practices is a key element to the success of change programs, but the opportunity and form in which executives use these practices are dependent on their adaptation to the characteristic of the organization and change program under consideration (Meyer and Stensaker, 2006; Nguyen Huy, 2001). Most previous change management literature has been conceptual or case oriented in nature. Academic literature tends to be conceptual oriented, while practitioner literature tends to be case oriented. According to Bartunek (2008) linking the missing gap between theory and practice in change management literature requires more empirical research. Despite the abundance of literature with advice on change management for practitioners, a lack of research on how these practices work and on their effectiveness subsists (Doyle et al., 2000; Buchanan et al., 2005). This study is an empirical research on CMPs, using a sample of Chilean organizations that had recently undergone an organizational change process, which expands current literature in three ways. First, some authors have suggested that different stakeholders within an organization experience differently the same organizational change processes. Jick (1992) identies at least two critical groups of employees to consider in an organizational change process: those in charge of planning the change program (change strategists) and those employees who receive the impact of the change program (change receptors). Change strategists are responsible for conducting the organizational change program while the interventions implemented by them impact on change receptors. By denition, change strategists are responsible for the use of CMPs. Therefore, due to a self-serving bias, they could be more inclined to judge that these practices were used especially if they are made accountable for the use of CMPs. This predisposition could be true if their superiors exercise control or if the use of these practices is socially desirable (Ganster et al., 1983). A rst hypothesis will test for differences in the perceptions of these two groups of employees about the use of CMPs during organizational change processes. Hypothesis 1. Change strategists report a higher rate of use of CMPs when compared to change receptors.

A second contribution of this paper is an attempt to conrm previous results which show that rms use more frequently CMPs related to the change preparation stage in comparison to CMPs related to the implementation stage of change processes (Raineri, 2002). Several arguments support this proposition. First, the potential of failure of the early stages of the change program (i.e. developing a new vision, diagnosing the organization, and preparing a change plan) might preclude the execution of the program in later stages, that require implementation practices such as communicating the change plan or measuring change results (Holt et al., 2007). Second, since change strategists are primarily responsible for planning change programs, and they also occupy the executive positions which control most resources in a rm, they could have a bias towards allocating a disproportionate amount of the rms resources (human and capital) to the rst stages of the change process, therefore leaving change implementers and change receptors with less resources to execute the latter stages of the change program. A third argument to support this proposition is that change preparation practices, such as performing an organizational diagnosis or developing a change plan program, emphasize the use of analytical skills, for which managers usually receive considerable training (Porter, 1997; Shipper, 1999). On the contrary, implementation practices, such as communicating the change plan, or understanding and managing a variety of social and interest groups, require an emphasis on the use of interpersonal and political skills. Several authors argue that these latter set of skills tend to be distributed irregularly among managers (Higgins et al., 2002; Groves, 2005). Specically Raineri (1998) reported, in a sample of Chilean managers, a higher presence of analytical skills when compared to their emotional and interpersonal skills. The implications of such results would help understand, and better advice, change strategists, on the need to persevere in the latter stages of the change implementation process. Hypothesis 2. Firms show a higher rate of use of change preparation practices in comparison to the use of change implementation practices. Finally, the third contribution of this paper is to test the impact that the use of CMPs has in the outcomes of the organizational change process and its consequences in organizational result measures. As stated earlier, most literature argues that the use of these practices has a positive effect on the speed and quality of the change process and on organizational results. Nevertheless very little empirical evidence exists to support this argument. This paper tests the relationship between perceptions about the use of CMPs and the accomplishment of the change program objectives (and of their impact on organizational results). In order to ameliorate the impact of potential biases that might occur when the same subjects report both dependent and independent measures, such as the perceptpercept ination bias (Crampton and Wagner, 1994) and the common method variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003), the researcher measured the independent variable, degree of use of CMPs, using change receptors' perceptions. The author also measured the dependent variables, change process results and their impact on organizational results, using change strategists' perceptions. Hypothesis 3. Change receptors' perceptions about the use of CMPs relates positively to change strategists' perceptions about the accomplishment of the change program objectives and deadlines and to change strategists' perceptions of the impact of the change process in organizational result variables, including perceptions of changes in sales, nancial results of the rm, operational productivity, and employee performance. 3. Sample The sample consisted of a total of 90 rms operating in Chile. In relatively similar proportions, the companies in the sample belong to a wide variety of industries, including agriculture, forestry,

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manufacturing, construction, information and telecommunications, educational services, mining, professional services, nance and insurance and retail. The average size company varied widely between 24 and 8500 employees, with an average of 1304 employees. All organizations had lived through a change program within the last 2 years. A total of 570 change receptors and 208 change strategists answered a survey, with an average of 6.06 change receptors and 2.24 change strategist responses per company. The type of subjects surveyed in the organizations as change strategists were mainly executives that served in the company as general managers or functional area top managers and who had participated in a strategist role in the change program. In order to classify as change receptors, the researcher required subjects to be employees without supervision duties and to describe themselves as not having participated in the preparation stages of the change program. The companies in the sample had undergone a wide variety of change processes. The most frequent types of change programs reported as the primary change process were: restructuring programs (26.0%), mergers (20.8%), acquisitions (8.4%), strategy changes (13.0%), reengineering (14.9%), product innovations (7.8%), total quality programs (5.8%), growth through opening of new units or subsidiaries (7.1%), CEO change (9.1%) and introduction of a new technology (16.2%). 4. Measures development A set of surveys measured the use of CMPs, change program outcomes, and change program impact in organizational results. The use of perceptual data to measure behavioral practices (Huselid, 1995; Delantey and Huselid, 1996), organizational change processes (Holt et al., 2007) and organizational results (Ketokivi and Schroeder, 2004), has become a frequent measurement method in literature. Weick and Roberts (1993) argue that subjective perceptions about organizational events are crucial, since people behave in accordance with their perceptions, not in accordance with more objective data. 4.1. Dependent variables The researcher created several perceptual measures of organizational change results and organizational performance. Change strategists judged the degree of attainment of the change program objectives and deadlines with two questions, and a corresponding Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely). Another four questions requested for a numerical assessment (in percentages) of the impact that respondents perceived that the change program had in four organizational outcomes (sales, prots, operational productivity and employee performance). 4.2. Control variables Nadler (1998) suggests that the larger an organization the more demanding it is to manage its change processes. A rst control variable is the company size effects, represented by a dummy variable registering the natural logarithm of the number of employees in the organization (Huselid, 1995). A second control variable is the industry sector, where another dummy variable represented service sector companies with a value of 1 and the manufacturing sector with a value of 0. A third control variable is the intensity of the change program. A measure developed by Romanelli and Tushman (1994) assessed organizational change intensity. These authors propose that change programs vary in a continuum between incremental adjustments to current organizational architecture versus radical changes of all or most organizational activities and structures. Under these two extreme forms of organizational change CMPs might require a different emphasis in their use. For example, a radical transformation might require a high degree of involvement of the organizational leaders while in an incremental change leaders might just delegate

the decision and implementation to middle managers (Nadler, 1998). In a similar manner, the need for a complete organizational diagnosis, or the persistence required to communicate new forms of work might be different for a radical transformation versus an incremental change. Following Romanelli and Tushman (1994) change strategists identied, using forced choice alternatives of yes or no, if major changes had occurred in the company as part of the change process in ve domains of organizational activities: organizational culture, strategy, structure, power distributions, and control systems. A continuous variable added the number of domains of organizational activities affected by the change process, therefore having a range of responses that varied from 1 to 5 domains. This variable represents the degree of how radical or intense is a change process. 4.3. Independent variables The development of a survey to assess respondents' perceptions about the use of CMPs in their companies emphasized item development in four areas of change management interventions: organizational diagnosis and alignment, change program planning and communication, leadership and incentive alignment. Both practitioner oriented literature and academic literature suggest these four areas (Armenakis and Bedeian, 1999; Buchanan et al., 2005; Casio, 2002; Kanter, 2001; Jones et al., 2004; Kotter, 1996; Meyer and Stensaker, 2006; Nadler, 1998 and Whelan-Berry et al., 2003). Companies execute organizational diagnosis and alignment of CMPs during the early stage of change preparation. The other three areas are representatives of CMPs closely related to the stage of change implementation. To establish the content validity for the items in the CMP survey several actions were taken. First, as mentioned, item generation followed the literature review. Second, a panel of four experts and four practitioners classied the items into the four CMP dimensions described earlier, and judged the clarity of the items and the degree in which the items were representative of their dimensions (McGartland Rubio et al., 2003). Two versions of the survey were developed. One version for the change strategists and another for the change receptors. Subjects responded to items measuring the use of CMPs by using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (absolutely disagree that the practice was used) to 5 (completely agree that the practice was used). A pilot study tested the respondent's comprehension of all items in the three surveys. The researcher made item deletions and corrections when necessary. Table 1 presents the list of CMPs appearing in the nal survey. 5. Results In order to assess the content validity for the items corresponding to the four areas of CMPs measured a panel of four experts and four practitioners identied the CMP area to which each item belonged. The author included items for which at least an 80% agreement of membership among the judges existed (McGartland Rubio et al., 2003). Judges in the panel rated each item on a scale from one (very little) to four (very much) for the items' dimension representativeness and clarity. The percentage of judges rating the items with a three or four score for clarity ranged from 75% to 100% with an overall average rating of 94%. Judges' rating of items for representativeness ranged from 75% to 100% with an overall average rating of 95%. These results reect a high degree of clarity and dimension representativeness for all items included in the nal survey (McGartland Rubio et al., 2003). Because no previous literature has empirically analyzed the factor structure of change management practices, and because of the conceptual and empirical overlap among these practices, the researcher conducted a factor analysis to uncover their underlying factor structure in order to proceed with hypotheses testing. The author performed a factor analysis in both the change strategists and change receptors' independent variable data sets. The factor analyses

A.B. Raineri / Journal of Business Research 64 (2011) 266272 Table 1 Change management practices survey items. Index 1: Diagnosis and alignment The company analyzed its strengths and weaknesses to face the change program. Existing opportunities and threats were considered when developing the change program. Work processes were analyzed in order to identify activities and areas that could be impacted by the change program. Resistance to change was appropriately diagnosed. Index 2: Communication The company communicated with clarity individual and work unit objectives and challenges. Change program objectives have been clearly stated throughout the company. The action plans to pursue the change program were well known throughout the company. The company makes an effort to understand how employees understood its messages. The company made frequent communication efforts to ensure understanding and support of the change program. Index 3: Leadership The change program was lead by individuals who had high credibility within the company. Executives demonstrated publicly their commitment with the change process. Strong charismatic leaders were used to drive the change process. Index 4: Compensation and incentives The company adapted compensation systems in order to promote new responsibilities and job demands. The company developed incentive systems in order to reward newly expected behaviors. The company identied and rewarded the achievement of partial goals in the proper direction. The company rewarded employees when they attained change program goals.

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Table 3 Paired t-tests between indexes, for independent variable indexes of CMPs within each data set. Change strategists Index 2 Index 3 Index 1: Diagnosis 3.31*** and alignment Index 2: Communication Index 3: Leadership Index 4: Compensation & incentives ***p b 0,001. Change receptors Index 4 Index 2 Index 3 3.91*** Index 4

1.10 n/s 7.94*** 4.38*** 6.35*** 9.52***

1.93 n/s 8.85*** 6.07*** 8.20*** 9.94***

results showed that the items better load on a set of four factors for the change strategists' data set similar to the four original topics for which items were developed. The factor analysis of the change receptors' data set loaded on a set of factors very similar to the four factors in the strategists' data set and very similar to the four original areas of item development. The main difference in the factor structure of the change receptors' data set, is that in the latter group, change receptors perceived items related to communication and items related to leadership as being part of the same factor. A possible explanation for this difference in both factor structures is that the change receptors' main sources of information are their leaders and managers, therefore their perceptions of communication and leadership during the change process might be highly interrelated. Given the similarity in the factor structure of both data sets with the intended areas of item development, and the need to compare perceptions of CMPs between both groups, the author conducted further statistical analysis for both data sets using the original four dimensions of CMPs that were dened when items were constructed: diagnosis and alignment of the organization, communication within the change process, presence of leadership in the change program, and alignment of compensation and incentives with the new objectives stated in the change program. The items' factor loadings for the

change strategists' factors ranged from 0.83 to 0.87 and for the change receptors' factors ranged from 0.87 to 0.93. The researcher deleted three items from any further analysis in both data sets because either they did not comply with the minimum established standard of an 80% agreement among the judges rating their membership into one of the four intended categories of CMPs, and/or because they showed high factor loadings with more than one factor. The author grouped the resulting items into indexes averaging the items in each of the four nal dimensions. Table 2 shows the mean, standard deviation and Cronbach's alpha for both data sets. Table 2 also shows the correlations for the four indexes between the strategists and receptors' data sets, and paired sample t-tests results for the comparisons of the means of the four indexes between the two data sets. The Cronbach's alpha scores showed a strong internal consistency of the indexes in both data sets. The correlations of CMP indexes between both data sets show that change strategists and receptors have a moderate agreement about the use of CMPs in their organizational change processes. The comparisons in Table 2 show that change strategists report a higher rate of use of CMPs in all four indexes when compared to change receptors. These results conrm Hypothesis 1. The t-tests in Table 3 compare the means between index averages of all four factors within each data set. These comparisons support Hypothesis 2: in both data sets rms showed a higher rate of use of change preparation practices when compared to use of change implementation practices. The t-test comparisons show that the diagnosis and alignment and leadership indexes show the highest scores, a signicantly lower score in the communication index and the lowest score in the compensation and incentive indexes. Table 4 presents the basic statistics about the outcomes of the change program and organizational results attributable to the change program as perceived by the change strategists. Table 4 shows that the dependent variable scores present a bias towards successful organizational change programs. These results would be inconsistent with the claim of some authors (Beer and Nohria, 2000; Doyle et al., 2000) who have estimated that up to 70% of organizational change programs fail. Other authors argue that the use of a convenience sample might lead to an overrepresentation of the successes and an underrepresentation of the failures of organizational behavior events (Becker and Gerhart, 1996).

Table 2 Means, standard deviations and Chronbach's alpha for all four CMPs indexes for change strategists and change receptors data sets. (This table also shows the correlations and paired t-tests for comparison of means between data sets for the four indexes.) Change strategists Mean Index Index Index Index 1: 2: 3: 4: Diagnosis & Alignment Communication Leadership Compensation and incentives 3.84 3.61 3.93 3.01 Std. Dev. 0.75 0.78 0.86 0.92 Chronbach''s alpha 0.83 0.86 0.85 0.87 Change receptors Mean 3.41 3.21 3.54 2.57 Std. Dev. 0.74 0.66 0.66 0.84 Chronbach's alpha 0.87 0.90 0.83 0.93 0.39*** 0.50*** 0.51*** 0.45*** 4.80*** 5.19 *** 4.67 *** 4.56 *** R Paired t-tests (t score)

***p b 0,001.

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Table 4 Dependent variables maximum scores, minimum scores, means and standard deviation. Minimum Maximum Mean 3.83 3.57 Standard deviation 0.73 0.89

Degree of attainment of change program objectives and deadlines [Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely)] Degree in which the objectives pursued by the change program were attained 2.0 5.0 Degree in which the deadlines pursued by the change program were attained 1.0 5.0 Percentage in which the following organizational outcomes increased/decreased due to the change program The company's sales increased/decreased 30% The company's prots increased/decreased 17.5% The company's operational performance increased/decreased 20% The company's employees performance increased/decreased 30%

210% 100% 100% 100%

19.4% 14.4% 20.7% 19.2%

0.379 0.238 0.243 0.243

The main focus of this paper is on the analysis of the coefcients that describe the association between the CMPs and the perceptual measures of organizational performance. The author conducted a multiple regression analysis on the ve perceptual measures of organizational performance previously discussed using as independent variables the indexes grouping the items that measured the change receptors' perceptions of the use of CMPs. Even though indexes receive conrmation from the original data, correlations between indexes still persist, ranging between 0.31 and 0.64 for the strategists' data set and between 0.31 and 0.73 for the receptors' data set. Because of the signicant correlation between most of the independent variable indexes the author conducted a collinearity analysis. For the variables involved in the following regression analyses, the Variance Ination Factors (VIF) ranged between 1.00 and 2.07 for the change strategists' data and between 1.00 and 3.57 for the change receptors' data. These values are well below the suggested cut-off of 10.0 (Chatterjee and Price, 1991: 191). Thus, collinearity may attenuate the estimates for these variables, but does not appear to be harmful. Table 5 shows the multiple regression analysis results for the change receptors' data set. The model includes the four predictors (indexes 1, 2, 3 and 4) and the three control variables entered simultaneously. In the few cases that the three control variables attained signicance Beta scores were in the correct direction. The CMPs indexes obtained from the change receptors' perceptions predict the accomplishment of change program objectives and deadlines. In both cases the diagnosis and alignment and the compensation and incentive indexes show signicant Beta scores, all in the correct direction. No signicant Beta scores for any of the indexes appear when predicting sales, nancial results, operational productivity or employee performance. These results give only a partial support to Hypothesis 3. A positive relation between change receptors' perceptions of the use of CMPs and perceptions of accomplishment of change program objectives and

deadlines exists, but not to organizational result variables. Table 5 shows that not all Beta scores obtained in the regression analyses were signicant. The author expected these results due to the high collinearity between indexes. In additional analyses not presented here, following all signicant regression models in Table 5, the author constructed other regression models using as a predictor one CMP index at a time. In those analyses most CMP indexes achieved signicance, even though the signicance of some indexes is lost when entering all indexes simultaneously in the regression equations, as shown in Table 5. Thus collinearity among indexes might be hindering the signicance of some of the Beta weights in Table 5. In additional analyses not presented here, the researcher used identical CMP indexes constructed from change strategists' perceptions as predictors of change process results and organizational results. These additional analyses conrmed the results presented in Table 5 but the author did not present them because they had the potential to be biased by the perceptpercept ination bias and/or from common method variance. Nevertheless, when in these additional analyses the author controlled for common method variance using the Lindell and Whitney (2001) technique, regression results were still signicant. 6. Discussion and conclusions Literature reports a signicant amount of organizational change processes that fail and proposes a set of change management practices in order to enhance the success of such programs (Kotter, 1996). Nevertheless signicant gaps in the understanding of how these practices work and in their effectiveness still persist. This paper expands the empirical research on CMPs in three ways. First, the paper conrms the differences in the perceptions of the use of CMPs during organizational change processes between change strategists and change receptors. The rst group perceives a larger use of CMPs at their companies suggesting that the intent of executing these

Table 5 Regression coefcients, F for R2, Beta coefcients and their standard error for the regression analyses using the indexes of CMPs use as predictors of perceptions of change in organizational result variables and accomplishment of change program objectives and deadlines. Standard errors for beta coefcients in parenthesis. (*p b 0,05; **p b 0,01; n/s: not signicant). Sales Beta Constant Ln of number of employees Industry dummy Change Magnitude dummy Index 1: Diagnosis & Alignment Index 2: Communication Index 3: Leadership Index 4: Compensation & incentives R2 Adjusted R2 F for R2 0.14 n/s (0.26) 0.11 n/s (0.03) 0.17* (0.08) 0.11** (0.04) 0.04 n/s (0.08) 0.09 n/s (0.12) 0.03 n/s (0.09) 0.02 n/s (0.06) 0.18 0.11 2.39* Prots Beta 0.12 n/s (0.16) 0.03 n/s (0.02) 0.10 n/s (0.05) 0.05* (0.03) 0.01 n/s (0.06) 0.07 n/s (0.07) 0,01 n/s (0.07) 0.03 n/s (0.04) 0.17 0.09 2.13 n/s Operational performance Beta 0.01 n/s (0.17) 0.04* (0.02) 0.07 n/s (0.05) 0.01 n/s (0.03) 0.04 n/s (0.06) 0.07 n/s (0.08) 0.01 n/s (0.06) 0.02 n/s (0.04) 0.18 0.10 2.27* Employee performance Beta 0.05 n/s (0.17) 0.03 n/s (0.2) 0.01 n/s (0.06) 0.02 n/s (0.03) 0.06 n/s (0.06) 0.04 n/s (0.08) 0.02 n/s (0.6) 0.01 n/s (0.04) 0.08 0.03 0.97 n/s Program objectives accomplished Beta 3.08** (0.45) 0.07 n/s (0.05) 0.01 n/s (0.15) 0.01 n/s (0.07) 0.45** (0.15) 0.06 n/s (0.21) 0.18 n/s (0.15) 0.19* (0.09) 0.20 0.13 2.79* Program deadlines accomplished Beta 2.33** (0.58) 0.06 n/s (0.06) 0.03 n/s (0.18) 0.01 n/s (0.08) 0.43* (0.19) 0.08 n/s (0.25) 0.10 n/s (0.19) 0.33* (0.13) 0.20 0.13 2,87**

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practices not always reaches those to whom they target. One possible explanation for this difference in perceptions is the existence of a selfserving bias: change strategists are accountable in their organizations for using CMPs, therefore they will tend to report a higher use of them, especially if their superiors exercise control, or if social desirability exists for the use of these practices (Ganster et al., 1983). Second, this paper conrms previous research results that rms use more frequently CMPs relating to the change preparation stage in comparison to CMPs used in later stages of change implementation. Several arguments could help explain this nding. First, failure rates at the rst stages of the change process (i.e. developing a new vision) might make harder or impossible to execute later stage practices (i.e. communication of change plan). Second, since change strategists are primarily responsible for preparing the change program, and they also control most resources in a rm, they could have a bias towards allocating a disproportionate amount of the rms' resources (i.e. human and capital) to the rst stages of the change process, and be less sensitive to the resources needed for later stages, which other employee groups, such as change receptors, might execute. Finally, change preparation practices (i.e. organizational diagnosis), emphasize the use of analytical skills, for which managers are usually highly trained, while implementation practices, such as communicating the change plan or understanding and managing a variety of social and interest groups, require an emphasis on the use of interpersonal and political skills. Managers show a more irregular distribution of these latter skills (Higgins et al., 2002; Groves, 2005). Finally, one of the most important contributions of this paper, is the evidence that suggests that the use of these CMPs has an impact on the outcomes of organizational change programs but not on perceptual measures of organizational performance. After controlling for organizational size, change program intensity and industry sector, the use of CMPs has a positive relation with the accomplishment of change program objectives and deadlines, and no impact on perceived organizational outcomes (changes in sales, nancial results of the rm, operational productivity, and employee performance). One possible explanation for the lack of relation between CMP use and perceived organizational results, is that CMPs are intentionally executed to impact the change program and not necessarily the organizational results. If the change program is the adequate response to organizational needs, and its implementation is successful, the program should impact organizational results. But if a successfully implemented change program is not the adequate response to organizational needs, the program might not produce better organizational results. In the same manner, the impact of a change program on organizational results might occur only in the long run (i.e. development of new products). Multiple limitations to this study exist. Some limitations have relation with the sample, others with the instrument of data collection and others with the scope of the results. Limitations due to the sample come from the convenience origin of the surveyed companies. In spite of the diversity of industries included, the sample derives from the availability of contact with the companies. In this sense the sample prevents generalizing these ndings to other rms. Stronger restrictions come from the fact that all rms in the sample were operating in Chile thus allowing for the existence of non controlled local cultural biases. Another limitation comes from the selection of CMPs included in the survey. As stated earlier literature discusses a wide variety of CMPs and there is no consensus upon a denitive set of practices. Even though this paper included a wide variety of CMPs suggested in literature, plenty of space exists to improve in the renement and classication of CMPs. The study includes deleting item number 5 (appropriate use of training) because of statistical reasons (high correlation with all indexes). But this item is conceptually different from all indexes resulting from the factor analyses here executed. Future research should consider and study the relevance of training as a practice that helps in the success of change programs.

The use of perceptual measures of rm performance in this research also limits the strength of current ndings. The use of more objective performance measures is certainly desirable. Nevertheless perceptual measures should not be discarded. Several researchers have shown that perceptual data of organizational performance has a positive moderate to strong correlation with objective measures of rm performance (Dollinger and Golden, 1992; Powell, 1992; Huselid, 1995). Equally important is the fact that the use of perceptual measures of rm performance allows the estimation of measures of performance which are not publicly available. Finally, strong limitations are associated with the use of cross-sectional data when attempts to establish causality relations among its variables. This research does not preclude that an inverse relation between CMPs and rm performance might occur. That is, that rms whose performance is systematically superior, might be the ones that tend to invest more in the use of CMPs. Appropriate measures that allow the elimination of concerns for a simultaneity bias remains a challenge for future research, as well as the use of longitudinal research designs in order to clarify temporal order and causality among the variables studied. Acknowledgment The author thanks the reviewers of this paper whose contributions strongly enhance its quality. References
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