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Intra-department communication and employees reaction to organizational change

The moderating effect of emotional intelligence
Chaoying Tang and Yunxia Gao
Management School of Graduate University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effect of employee emotional intelligence on the relationship of intra-department communications and employees reaction to organizational change in China. Design/methodology/approach Based on the literatures in organizational change, organizational communications and emotional intelligence, the authors derived three hypotheses which were tested with data collected in a large state-owned enterprise (SOE) in the telecommunication industry. Factor analysis and regression analysis were combined for the hypothesis tests. Findings It was found that intra-department communications positively inuenced employees reaction to organizational change with employees emotional intelligence moderating the relationship. When employees emotional intelligence is higher, intra-department communication has greater positive effect on employees reaction to change. Research limitations/implications With the adopted western measurement scales, this study was unable to reveal the Chinese contextual aspect of organizational communications. As the data were self-reported, they may have common source deviation. Practical implications To foster and maintain employees positive reactions to change, managers and organizations may consider developing strategies to improve employees emotional intelligence, so as to embrace future changes. Originality/value This is an initial effort in examining the joint effect of intra-department communications and employees emotional intelligence on employees reaction to organizational change. It may lead to additional research on organizational change management. Keywords China, Organizational change, Change management, Employees behaviour, Human resource management, Intra-department communication, Emotional intelligence Paper type Research paper

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Journal of Chinese Human Resource Management Vol. 3 No. 2, 2012 pp. 100-117 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 2040-8005 DOI 10.1108/20408001211279210

Introduction In todays business world, change has become a constant. Facing erce market competitions, organizational change is the only way to survive and grow. Organizational change is coupled with uncertainty, challenges and stress (Daft and Steers, 1986; Rafferty and Grifn, 2006). The resistance to organizational change from employees has been recognized as an important area in change management (Duck, 1993). As such,
The study is supported by the China National Science Foundation under the agreement No. 71173214.

successfully managing employees reaction to organizational change becomes a critical human resources management (HRM) function and a key requirement for leaders involved in facilitating organizational change (Waddell and Sohal, 1998). Studies have found that organizational communications are an effective way to manage employees resistance during change (Frahm and Brown, 2007). Particularly, communications help establish organizational interactive fairness (Morrison and Robinson, 1997) and improve the employees reaction to organizational change (Kotter and Schilesinger, 2008). Yet, during a change process, uncertainty and employee perceived unfairness tend to put the employee into negative emotion (Huy, 2002; Morrison and Robinson, 1997), often coupled with fear, anger, and frustration (Fugate et al., 2002; Bartunek, 1984). Negative emotions in turn affect employees reaction toward the change process. In other words, without appropriate emotion management, organizational communications may even contribute to increased employee resistance. Employees reaction to change is a result of cognitive appraisal affected by emotions. According to the affect infusion model by Forgas and Joseph (1995), individuals emotions play a substantial role in the cognitive appraisal process. Positive emotions help individuals evaluation of the risks associated with change positively and accept the outcome of the change in advance (Johnson and Tversky, 1983; Mittal and Ross, 1998). Negative mood has an opposite effect. The literature has noted that during an organizational change process, employees with higher emotional intelligence tend to maintain positive emotions and manage their negative emotions when unfavorable information is communicated (Joseph and Newman, 2010; Kafetsiosa and Zampetakis, 2008). Hence, communications and emotional intelligence appear to jointly shape employees reaction to change. Yet, few studies have empirically analyzed the joint effect of organizational communications and employees emotional intelligence. To understand this under-investigated topic, we aim to explore the moderating effect of employees emotional intelligence on the relationship between intra-department communications and employees reaction to organizational change. Literature review Employees reaction to organizational change Successful organizational change management must gain the hearts and minds of the involved employees (Duck, 1993). Nadler (1981) has described three employees reactions to organizational change: positive support, neutral, and resistance. During the process of organizational change, employees often feel uncertain, thus are unable to anticipate the likelihood of the outcomes, especially when there is a lack of information about a cause-effect relationship (Milliken, 1987). In the meantime, new organizational strategy, new structure and work procedures during a change process often make employees routines disrupted, and induce more challenging work and requirements for new competences (Oreg et al., 2011; Porras and Silvers, 1991). Therefore, employees often experience role-conict, work-related stress and concerns for job security (Hui and Lee, 2000). Particularly, they often reevaluate their organizational status and related treatments in relation to the changing organizational policies, management actions, and organizational values (Kiefer, 2005), When the employees believe that they are adversely treated with unfair, unsupportive or unappreciated management behaviors or attitudes, they are more likely to resist the change (Kiefer, 2005; Hellgren and Sverke, 2003; Conlon and Shapiro, 2002).

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A majority of qualitative and quantitative studies on the outcomes of organizational change have found employees emotions induced by change are mainly negative, often associated with anger, anxiety and frustration (Huy, 2002; Fugate et al., 2002; Bartunek, 1984). As a result, such negative reactions reduce the employees commitment and motivation, hurt organizational trust, and increase employees withdrawing behaviors with a lower level of performance (Rusbult et al., 1988). Therefore, employees reaction to change is a critical and signicant element in organizational change management (Ettlie and Reza, 1992). Psychologically, employees reaction to change is based on a cognitive appraisal process. The literature has revealed two aspects of cognitive appraisal (Lazarus, 2006; Zabid et al., 2004). One is primary appraisal, including the appraisal of the meaning and consequence of the change to themselves. An associated aspect is the employees assessment on whether they are able to handle the change and the approaches to coping with the change. The second appraisal determines employees attitude towards the organizational change. A potential reactive response is often determined through the secondary appraisal, where people evaluate their own capabilities for dealing with a relevant change event (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). If they believe they have adequate resources to deal with the change or the event, they are more likely to respond actively. Otherwise they may adopt a passive approach and resist the change. During the process of forming the reactions, employees emotions are often involved. In essence, emotions are a source of information (Schwarz and Clore, 1983). Cognition and emotions are closely intertwined in the cognitive appraisals that produce either positive or negative reactions to change (Clore and Ortony, 2000). Organizational communications in change management Organizational communication is a process by which information is exchanged and understood by two or more parties, usually with the intent to motivate or inuence behaviors (Frahm and Brown, 2007). Organizational communications are a critical and effective process in change management. It can substantially reduce resistance during an organizational change (Kotter and Schilesinger, 2008) and increase employees commitment (Sharma and Patterson, 1999). First, it is an approach to reducing perceptions on uncertainty (Brown, 2007), releasing employees stress and frustration associated with the change (Schneider et al., 1996), and enhancing employees sense of controlling and well-being (Bordia et al., 2004a, b, p. 358; Kramer et al., 2004). Second, when leaders communicate openly and encourage employees participation and autonomy, organizational trust and perceived procedure fairness in organizational decisions can be improved during the change (Reichers et al., 1997). With effective communications, employees are more committed to organizational change (Sharma and Patterson, 1999) and less likely to resist it (Kotter and Schilesinger, 2008). To date, the literature on organizational change has paid more attention to cross-level managerial communications (Covin, 1990; Nelissen and Selm, 2008), dyad communications (Lewis, 1999), managerial communication skills (Piderit, 2000), and communications among different groups (Schein, 1993). While existing literature has offered helpful insights on organizational communications in change management, few have investigated how intra-department communications affects employees reaction to change. During a change process, the direct supervisor often becomes a preferred source of implementation-related and job-relevant information (Allena et al., 2007). Compared to top executives being caught up in many internal and external demands, middle managers are

likely to have more time to interact with their employees (Huy, 2002). In fact, middle managers form a self-emerging social support group that provides an emotional buffer against stressful events for employees (Stroebe and Stroebe, 1996; Huy, 2002). Hence, communicating with the supervisor and peers in the same department is helpful for employees to handle change-induced stress and uncertainty. To this end, intra-department communications are an integral component of organizational communications. Generally speaking, intra-department communication includes the following aspects: rst, coordinating work load and task schedules; second, encouraging employees to participate in decision making and problem solving; third, addressing employees concerns by the manager. Leaders as change agents must provide employees with abundant, relevant information regarding the impending change, justify the appropriateness and rationale for the change, and address employees questions and concerns for the acceptance of, and participation in the change (Green, 2004). Finally, department members share and exchange knowledge, information and opinions. Based on the above analysis, we derive the following hypothesis: H1. Intra-department communications create positive effect on employees reaction to organizational change. Emotional intelligence and employees reaction to change Studies have found that employees resistance to change and reaction to uncertainty is related to their personality differences (Wanberg et al., 2000; Barrick and Mount, 1991). Some are more likely than others to accept change in the workplace. This tendency is often demonstrated through workplace behaviors such as self-discipline, self-esteem and being optimistic, self-control (Ashford and Black, 1996; Wanberg et al., 2000), self-efcacy (Bandura, 1997), or emotional stability (Barrick and Mount, 1991). It is also represented by individual orientations toward creative activities or differences in defensive rigidity (Dodgson and Wood, 1998). Those with certain personalities take changes with abhorrence. Such personalities include cognitive rigidity, lack of psychological resilience, intolerance to the adjustment period involved in changes, and preference for maintaining the current situation (Oreg, 2003). Studies have found that employees with a higher level of emotional intelligence (EI) perform better and have higher job satisfaction during change (Huy, 1999; George and Jones, 2001; Vakola et al., 2004). A primary reason is that emotions affect individuals cognitive appraisal process (Huy, 1999). According to the affective events theory (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996), organizational changes often create various affective events for individuals (Basch and Fisher, 2000). Through a process of cognitive appraisal, these affective events produce different emotions in different individuals (Conlon and Shapiro, 2002; Weiss et al., 1999). Hence, emotions are joint outcomes of affective events and a cognitive appraisal process (Weiss, 2002; Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996). But emotions and cognition are separated psychology systems (Smollan, 2006; Lazarus, 1982). Clearly, the resulting emotions will affect ones cognitive reaction to organizational change. The affect infusion model has noted that an individuals emotions play an important role in determining ones risk orientation (Forgas and Joseph, 1995). Risk analysis is a critical issue on organizational change appraisal (Kiefer, 2005). Positive emotions help people take risks positively and accept the outcomes in advance (Mittal and Ross, 1998). In turn, employees with positive emotion can broaden or extend the pathways that are

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generated in goal pursuit and attribute the setback to external, one-time circumstances and consider alternative pathways to success during hard times (Fredrickson, 2001). In this process, positive emotions can also help individuals cope with stress (Martin et al., 2005; Tugade et al., 2004; Avey and Wernsing, 2008). Negative emotion has the contrary effect (Folkman et al., 1986). Additionally, the relationship between cognition and emotions are bidirectional emotions inuence cognition, cognition elicits emotions (Lazarus, 1982). Therefore, emotions are organized psychobiological responses linking physiological, cognitive, and motivational systems (Lazarus, 1991; Mayer et al., 2008). Furthermore, under similar situations, employees with different abilities may respond to the same change with different emotions. Emotional intelligence is a social skill and ability in interpersonal relationships (Mayer et al., 2008). The higher the level of EI an employee possesses, the better the individual in regulating emotions in responding to appropriate emotions to the contexts (Mayer and Salovey, 1997), and in being aware of the potential impact of corresponding behaviors on ones peers and managers (Jordan et al., 2002). Thus, the reactions of the individual to the affective event will be more positive (Kafetsiosa and Zampetakis, 2008). Organizational communication is necessary for establishing organizational fairness and promoting employee respect, yet its major focus is on facilitating the ows of information, knowledge, and perceptions (Kickul et al., 2002). It may help individuals build positive emotions (Cremer et al., 2005). However, during communications, negative emotional expression needs to be controlled (Kramer and Hess, 2002). If employees have high emotional intelligence, they will be more capable of maintaining positive emotions and take advantage of the intra-department communications in coping with change (Wong and Law, 2004). As such, we hypothesize: H2. Employees EI positively affects their reactions to organizational change. H3. Employees EI moderates intra-department communications and their reaction to change such that higher EI improves intra-department communications positive effect on employees reaction. We present the hypothesized relationships for this study in Figure 1. Method Samples We selected a large state-owned enterprise (SOE) in the telecommunication industry in China to collect the data for this study. At the time of the data collection in June 2010, this large SOE was experiencing a large-scale organizational change. It was a new
Employees Emotional Intelligence (EI) Intra-department Communication, Coordination, Participation, and Expression Communication.

H2 Employees emotional reaction to organizationa l change

H3

Figure 1. Hypothesized framework

H1

organization merging two formerly already large SOEs in the telecommunications market. During the change, new departments were created and new managers were appointed while the employees were kept the same on similar job functions and responsibilities. We consider this organization an appropriate site for this study. We invited 312 employees in the newly formed organization to participate in the study through a random selection process. We received 290 returned responses, which resulted in 277 effective responses. The response rate was 88.7 percent. Measure Emotional intelligence. We used the 16-item scale by Wong and Law (2004) to measure emotional intelligence. This scale has been validated in a study in China (Law et al., 2008). The items covered four dimensions of EI: self-emotions appraisal, others-emotions appraisal, use of emotions and regulation of emotions. The Cronbachs as for the four dimensions were 0.775, 0.815, 0.824, and 0.823, respectively. The Cronbachs a for the overall measure in this study was 0.816. The complete items used can be found in the Appendix. Employees reaction to organizational change. For this measure, we adopted the 27-item scale by Piderit (1999, 2000). It included ve dimensions: positive emotional reaction, negative emotional reaction, positive attitude, negative attitude, and cognitive reaction. The Cronbachs a for the ve dimensions were 0.748, 0.851, 0.887, 0.774, and 0.783, respectively. The overall Cronbachs a for the measure was 0.785 in this study. Intra-department communication. We combined the communication scale (Cristina and Freek, 2003) and the department communication scale (Hateld and Huseman, 1982) into a 17-item intra-department communication measure. It included four dimensions: coordination, participation, expression, and communication. During the change period, leaders are often cautious about encouraging employees to express their feelings (Frost, 2003). For this reason, this study did not include variables on employees expression of their feelings in the intra-department communication. As listed in the 17 items (Appendix), perceived higher degree of coordination implies that the department leaders seek to explain or communicate with subordinates on situations in the organization and offer feedback on ones job performance. Higher levels of participation indicates that department members can challenge the leaders on work style for being actively involved in the daily operations. Expression suggests that, during the organizational management process, department leaders are expressive about the subordinates job performance and personal life. Communication means that department members are able to share and exchange task information and related ideas during the operation process. The Cronbachs as for the four dimension were 0.816, 0.794, 0.803 and 0.821, respectively. The overall Cronbachs a for this measure was 0.798 in this study. Detailed items are listed in Appendix. Control variables. We included control variables for this study. They include gender, age, marriage status, education background, job category, job tenure with the organization, and job function. We report the descriptions of the samples in Table I. Because all items adopted in this study were originally developed in the English language, we adopted a forward-back translation approach to ensure the accuracy of the measures. We rst translated all items into Chinese, and then back-translated into English by an independent bilingual scholar. Through comparison, potential inconsistencies of the Chinese translation from the original items were reevaluated and

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Variable Gender Marriage status

Attribute Male Female Single Married Divorced Under-graduate Graduate Others 20-25 years old 26-35 years old 36-45 years old 46-55 years old Technical staff Assistant engineer Engineer Senior engineer 2-4 years 5-8 years 8 years or above Marketing Maintenance Management

n 156 121 58 213 6 177 15 85 6 126 80 43 25 137 98 17 137 98 17 120 105 52

% 56.3 43.7 20.94 76.90 2.17 63.90 5.42 30.69 2.17 45.49 28.88 15.16 9.03 49.46 35.38 6.14 49.46 35.38 6.14 43.3 37.9 18.8

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Education background Age

Job category

Job tenure Job function Table I. Demographic description of samples

Note: n 277

revised accordingly before the items were compiled into the survey. All items were rated on the Likert scale from 1 to 7, with 7 as strongly agree, and 1 being strongly disagree. We analyzed the data using SPSS 13.0 and AMOS 7.0. Results Data validation As the data was collected from the same source, we rst conducted a conrmatory factor analysis (CFA) to determine if common method variance (CMV) presented a problem for the analysis (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). We compared a single latent factor to all manifest variables with the measurement model (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). The one-factor model yielded a x 2 of 579.92 (df 105) compared to x 2 of 425.81 (df 98) for the measurement model. The t for the one-factor model is substantially worse than the measurement model, suggesting that CMV bias did not constitute a serious threat. Additionally, to examine potential problem of multicollinearity, we calculated variance ination factors (VIF). The maximum VIF within the models was less than 2.0, which was well below the rule-of-thumb cut-off of 10 (Neter et al., 1990). To test the construct validity, we used CFA. The results of CFA showed that the three variables have acceptable construct validity as reported in Table II. Hypothesis test We report descriptive statistics including means, Pearsons correlation coefcients, and standard deviations of variables in Table III. As can be seen, all three variables were

positively correlated with each other. The highest correlation was between employees emotional intelligence and intra-department communication (r 0.419, p , 0.01). In the subsequent regression analysis reported in Table IV, we found that intra-department communication signicantly and positively affected employee reaction to organizational change (b 0.313, p , 0.01). Intra-department communication signicantly and positively affected the positive emotional reaction, positive intention and cognitive reaction (b 0.161, p , 0.01; b 0.257, p , 0.01; b 0.384, p , 0.01). This suggests that intra-department communication helps increase positive reaction to organizational change. Meanwhile, intra-department communication signicantly and negatively associated with the negative emotional reaction and negative intention (b 2 0.096, p , 0.05; b 2 0.121, p , 0.05). This indicated that intra-department communication helps reduce negative reaction to organizational change. Furthermore, its effects on positive reactions are stronger than the effects on negative reactions. Hence, H1 is supported. The moderating effect. After centering the independent and dependent variables based on the recommendation by Kreft and de Leeuw (1998), we used linear regression to explore the moderating role of emotional intelligence on employees reaction to organizational change. In the analysis, we rst included control variables only in the model. We then
Variable Intra-department communication (IDC) Employees emotional intelligence (EI) Reaction to organizational change (ROC) Note: n 277

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x2
542.41 425.81 768.45

df 105 98 187

x 2/df
3.20 2.20 2.20

RMSEA 0.08 0.08 0.08

NFI 0.86 0.89 0.90

CFI 0.84 0.88 0.88

IFI 0.80 0.89 0.89

TLI 0.78 0.79 0.88

Table II. Conrmatory factor analyses

Variable EI IDC ROC

Mean 5.083 2.601 2.892

SD 0.917 0.861 0.806

EI 0.816 0.419 * * 0.233 *

IDC 0.798 0.316 * *

ROC

0.785

Notes: Signicant at: *p , 0.05 and * *p , 0.01; n 277; EI employees emotional intelligence, IDC intra-department communication, ROC employees reaction to organizational change

Table III. Means, standard deviations and zero-order correlations matrix

Dependent variables Employees reaction to organizational change Positive emotional reaction Negative emotional reaction Positive intention Negative intention Cognitive reaction Note: Signicant at: *p , 0.05 and * *p , 0.01

Intra-department communication R2 DR 2 0.115 0.025 0.019 0.066 0.014 0.147 0.090 0.022 0.016 0.063 0.011 0.144

0.313 * * 2 0.161 * * 2 0.096 * 0.257 * * 2 0.121 * 0.384 * *

27.36 * * * 5.16 * * 12.56 * * 19.44 * * 8.00 * * 47.13 * *

Table IV. Hierarchical regressions: the effect of IDC on ROC

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added centerized independent variables and moderating variables, EI and IDC to the model. This treatment improved model t signicantly, yet the coefcient for EI was not signicant. In the last step, we added an interaction term between emotional intelligence and intra-department communication (EI*IDC). The resulting estimates showed much better results than the earlier analysis. Particularly, the interaction between EI and IDC signicantly inuenced employees reaction to organizational change (b 2.96, p , 0.01), and the direct effect of EI on employees reaction to change also became signicant (b 2.12, p , 0.05). Thus, the regression results supported both H2 and H3 and conrmed the moderating effect of employees emotional intelligence on the relationship of intra-department communication and employees reaction on organizational change. We reported the regression results in Table V. To further analyze the identied moderating effect of employees emotional intelligence in Table V, we conducted the following analysis. By comparing the ratings of emotional intelligence and intra-department communication with the averages rating, we derived two categories of responses, high and low. The high category was the ratings above the average, and the low category was below the average rating. We then used SPSS and produced a visual diagram of the interactive effect shown in Figure 2. It showed that when employee perceived emotional intelligence was higher, intra-department communication could better facilitate employees positive reaction to organizational change. In contrast, when the emotional intelligence is lower, intra-department communication has a limited effect on inuencing employees positive reaction to organizational change. Discussion and conclusion In this study, we investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence, intra-department communication, and employees reaction to organizational change, particularly the moderating effect of emotional intelligence. We tested three hypotheses derived from the existing literature. The results showed that intra-department communication improved employees positive reaction to organizational change, and this relationship was moderated by employees emotional intelligence.
Employees reaction to organizational change (RTC) Step 1 Step 2 12.218 * * * 0.356 2 1.824 0.173 2 0.662 1.045 2 0.461 12.881 * * * 0.231 2 1.139 0.489 2 0.597 2 0.119 2 0.668 1.692 4.056 * * * 0.125 0.099 15.204 * * *

Variables (Constant) Gender Marriage Education Job category Job tenure Job function EI IDC EI*IDC R2 DR 2 DF

Step 3 13.251 * * * 0.214 2 1.435 0.356 2 0.933 0.022 2 0.599 2.122 * 4.004 * * * 2.963 * * 0.152 0.028 8.780 * *

Table V. Moderating effect analyses

0.025 0.025 1.164 * *

Notes: Signicant at: *p , 0.05, * *p , 0.01, and * * *p , 0.001

3.50 3.40 3.30 3.20 3.10 3.00 Low High Intra-department communication employee's emotional intelligence low high

Intra-department communication

Employee's reaction to organizational change

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Figure 2. The interactive effect of emotional labor

This study contributes to our understanding of intra-department interactions among three important variables during organizational change processes. First, we found a positive effect of intra-organization communication on employees positive reactions to organizational change. This effect is much higher than its negative effects on undesirable reactions. More importantly, during the change process, employees emotional intelligence played an important moderating role. These results highlighted that intra-department communication intervened with employees cognitive appraisal process through information sharing, thus increasing employees positive anticipation to change outcomes as well as increasing procedure fairness and autonomy of the change. The ndings also suggest that organizations need to identify ways for employees EI management in order to realize the benet of intra-department communication, particularly during a change process. This is because individuals negative mood toward organizational change may affect the process of cognitive appraisal of the change and reduce positive reactions. Our ndings are complementary to existing research on communications role in the organizational change literature. For example, Jimmieson et al. (2004) have found that the role of communications was less obvious in later stages of organizational change ( Jimmieson et al., 2004). The results of this study showed the criticality of intra-departmental communications at an earlier stage of change. The different roles of communications in a change process may be that an earlier stage of change requires creating the momentum needed, thus often involving in changes in organizational missions, visions, or values other than physical changes in organizational policies or work processes. In other words, organizational change in an earlier stage is often coupled with more severe shocks as being perceived by employees (Weick and Quinn, 1999). Hence, the role of communications is critical in facilitating the change. In contrast, at a later stage when the change starts being implemented, the dust has settled, and the direction of the change becomes clear. What is needed for employees is to follow the change momentum and the determined direction of the change. Therefore, the role of communication as a coping strategy may appear to be less critical (Callan, 1993; Klein, 1996). Our study is also similar to previous studies in that success in the current business environment can often be predicated by an organizations ability to convince their

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employees of the benets associated with a proposed change initiative (Kiefer, 2005). Intra-department communication helps interactive justice, which in turn helps employees accept the organizational change (Kickul et al., 2002). This study offers important implications for change management in organizations. First, effective intra-department communications during a change process improve employees positive reaction to the change. Such communications include adopting effective communication channels to coordinate the department members work, encouraging members to participate in problem-solving activities, and providing updates on the organizational change process and status. Effective communications also need to maintain a high level of idea exchange among department members and pay attention to employees personal life during the change. These channels of communications are likely to foster employees positive reaction to organizational change and help reduce their feelings of uncertainty and stress caused by the change. Second, an important management task in the process of organizational change is to manage the employees emotions (Staw et al., 1994; Huy, 1999; Bartel and Saavedra, 2000). The moderating effect explored in this study implied that intra-department communications regarding change play a limited role in handling employees negative emotion. To foster and maintain employees positive reactions to change, a potentially effective way is to improve employees emotional intelligence. Studies have shown that EI may be increased and developed through training programs (Dulewicz and Higgs, 2004). Organizations may consider developing EI training programs as part of employee development in anticipation of future constant changes. Limitations and future research A number of limitations in this study may lead to future research on the organizational change dynamics. First, this study adopted instruments from the existing Western literature regarding organizational communications, emotional intelligence, and employees reaction to organizational change to investigate their interplays with data collected in a large Chinese SOE organization. While the results showed consistence with the existing Western literature, we may have missed some important contextual nuance rooted in the Chinese context. It has been well known that the workplace communications for Chinese employees are more indirect than their Western counterparts (Gao et al., 1996), particularly in Chinese SOEs (Sun, 2000). With the adopted scales for this study, we were unable to capture the contextual essence of communications during an organizational change. Therefore, future research needs to develop indigenous instrument and measure the Chinese related constructs to better understand change dynamics in the Chinese context. Second, the data collected for this study is self-reported, thus may have common source deviation. Future research needs to incorporate organizational internal recorded communications data for similar studies. Last, but not least, we collected data when the SOE was at the initial stage of organizational change. Based on our earlier analysis, the role of communications during organizational change process may display different patterns in different stages ( Jimmieson et al., 2004). Future research may explore further the nature and the pattern of communication along a change process. Such studies help better understanding of the role of communications in facilitating organizational change throughout the entire change process and have important practical implications for organizations.

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Others-emotions appraisal (OEA) (5) I always know my friends emotions from their behaviors. (6) I am a good observer of others emotions. (7) I am sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others. (8) I have good understanding of the emotions of people around me. Use of emotion (UOE) (9) I always set goals for myself and then try my best to achieve them. (10) I always tell myself I am a competent person. (11) I am a self-motivating person. (12) I would always encourage myself to try my best. Regulation of emotion (ROE) (13) I am able to control my temper so that I can handle difculties rationally. (14) I am quite capable of controlling my own emotions. (15) I can always calm down quickly when I am very angry. (16) I have good control of my own emotions. Intra-department communication Coordination (1) My supervisor asks me for suggestions about how work should be done. (2) My supervisor informs me about company rules and regulations. (3) My supervisor informs me about company plans for the future. (4) My supervisor lets me know when I have done a good job. (5) My supervisor lets me know when I have not done a good job. (6) My supervisor explains company problems to me. (7) My supervisor tells me why changes are made in work assignments. (8) My supervisor explains his/her way of doing work. Participation (1) I question my supervisors instructions when I dont understand them. (2) I question my supervisors instructions when I think they are wrong. (3) I tell my supervisor when I think things are being done wrong. Expression (1) My supervisor criticizes my work in front of others. (2) My supervisor ridicules or makes fun of me. (3) My supervisor expresses sympathy to me when something unfortunate happens in my personal life. Communication (1) There is open communication in this department. (2) Everyone has a chance to express their opinions. (3) Department members maintain a high degree of idea exchange.

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Employees reaction to organizational change Positive emotional reaction (1)-(4) The organizational change makes me feel: happy, excited, relieved and hopeful. Negative emotional reaction (1)-(4) The organizational change makes me feel: sad, angry, frustrated frightened and disgusted. Positive intention (1) I encourage others to help make this change effective. (2) I suggest ways in which to carry out this change. (3) I speak up about the advantages of this change. (4) I support the implementation of this change. (5) I am willing to make this change effective. Negative intention (1) I encourage others to resist to implementing this change. (2) I oppose to implementing the change. (3) I suggest others not to participate in this change. (4) I try to disagree with something in this change. Cognitive reaction (1) This change has little inuence on me (2 ). (2) I care about the changes inuence on my daily work. (3) I care about the changes inuence on my department. (4) The new performance appraisal system is not meaningful for me (2 ). (5) The change will increase my job satisfaction. (6) The change will improve the departments work style. (7) The new performance appraisal system is important for me. (8) The change will keep me working here. (9) I can predict the benet of the change. About the authors Chaoying Tang is an Associate Professor in the Management School of Graduate University, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Beijing, China. Her research focuses on creativity, R&D team management and emotion management. Chaoying Tang is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: tcy@gucas.ac.cn Yunxia Gao is an MBA student in the Management School of Graduate University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. She also serves in China Unicom Mobile Company, Beijing, China. Her research focuses on change management.

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