Towards Sustainable Organizations: Supervisor Support, Commitment to Change and the Mediating Role of Organizational Identification

Salvatore Zappalà, Ferdinando Toscano and Simone Alfio Licciardello
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Salvatore Zappalà: Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna 40126, Italy
Ferdinando Toscano: Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna 40126, Italy
Simone Alfio Licciardello: Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna 40126, Italy

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-12

Abstract: According to psychology of sustainability, healthy organizations conduct successful businesses, regenerate employees’ belongingness, and promote organizational and individual growth and change. In line with this assumption, this study investigates: a) The relation between perceived supervisor support and the affective, normative, and continuance components of commitment to change (CtC), and b) the mediating role of organizational identification on the relation between perceived supervisor support and components of CtC. Participants were 243 employees of a company that, in order to introduce a new organizational vision, was implementing multiple change initiatives. Results show the direct effect of perceived supervisor support on affective and normative CtC, the partial mediating effect of organizational identification on affective and normative CtC, and the full mediating effect on continuance CtC. Such results extend previous studies and are in line with the assumptions of the psychology of sustainability: Supervisor support can be considered as a primary preventive intervention that increases employees’ belongingness and encourages them to commit to change initiatives.

Keywords: commitment to change; perceived supervisor support; organizational identification; psychology of sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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