Employee Emotions During Organizational Change Among Nordic Academics: Health-Promoting Self-Leadership as a Coping Strategy

Rune Bjerke ()
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Rune Bjerke: Department of Leadership and Organization, Kristiania University of Applied Sciences, Kirkegata 24-26, 0153 Oslo, Norway

Businesses, 2025, vol. 5, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: The purpose of this conceptual and explorative study is to investigate whether health-promoting self-leadership could be used as a coping strategy enabling employees to deal with negative emotions in an organizational change process, providing a conceptual framework. A total of 18 faculty members from a Nordic university college were interviewed about their experiences, perceptions, and emotional reactions. The study reveals that new IT-systems; heavier workloads; and a lack of involvement, trust, and information, in particular, were stated to be the main reasons for negative emotions, detachment from the university-status aim, and the disruption of employee work–life balance. A few faculty members practiced fragments of what, in theory, is defined as health-promoting self-leadership to successfully manage the organizational change processes. Some were unconscious of their self-leadership practices, while others had no tools to enable them to cope with changes, leading to negative emotions. I discuss the findings regarding health-promoting self-leadership practice based on self-leadership, change management, and emotion theory. Based on both the findings in this study and relevant theories regarding self-leadership and coping strategies, I propose a health-promoting self-leadership-based coping model that could provide both individual and organizational health and performance benefits.

Keywords: organizational change; change management; involvement; emotions; coping strategies; self-leadership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 D0 D4 D6 D7 D8 D9 E0 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 F0 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 G0 G1 G2 H0 J0 K2 L0 L1 L2 M0 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 N0 N1 N2 O0 O1 P0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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