Chapter 4. Finding about piloting
4.3 Commitment to change as a mediator
The adoption measure for the strategic initiatives, consistent with previous research (Klein & Sorra, 1996; Kostova & Roth, 2002), consisted of commitment to change AND implementation. After identifying the characteristics of initiatives that were more highly adopted I then went back to the case studies to investigate whether I could identify a pattern between the more highly adopted initiatives and the less highly adopted initiatives on these two dimensions of adoption. Commitment to change was measured using the Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) affective commitment to change construct. Affective commitment is the desire to provide support for the change based on a belief in its inherent benefits (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002). Behavior that demonstrates affective commitment is typified by cooperation and championing of the change initiative and a willingness to go beyond minimum requirements, even if it demands some sacrifices (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002; Meyer et al, 2007).
The link between piloting and affective commitment to change was highlighted by comments taken from the cases. For instance, the global team and steering members suggested that one of the purposes of the pilots was to create commitment to change in the subsidiary managers. For instance, the OFX global project leader said:-
I mentioned to you, very curious and they were a committed organization and to try to… but something that happened in many other projects is it is always good to have a very committed pilot and also one that you can, based on their statistics and features, say "OK, if it works here, it will work for sure in the other eighty-five/ninety percent of our factories". – Global project leader
Subsidiary managers from the more highly adopted initiatives mostly all talked openly about their support for the concept of the new global practice and were willing to dedicate the resources needed to implement. For instance, one of the NKX global team members commented:-
In XXXX we have a lot of projects going on, global projects going on, and our frontlines are implementing new thoughts and processes all the time. So there is some resistance in the frontline – you know, they have doubts like "Why do we have to do this? Why do we have to change the way…?" - things like that. However, in planning the XXXX.com project, all the frontline was very positive about the project, so they were willing to give the required – although limited - I mean, not like two or three people, but one dedicated person to do this job. But they are really positive and they are willing to start this project. – Global team member There was only one exception to this positive attitude where one of the CRX subsidiary managers felt that implementing the initiative was not appealing:-
There were times when questions were put to me like “Can you tell us the benefit of CRM? What is the benefit of CRM?”…you were having to explain this to them. But people could not see it, because all they could see in the pilot was this electronic agenda. – Subsidiary manager
The reason he cited for lack of confidence in the new global process was that the new process would be replacing a superior existing local practice.
In contrast in the less highly adopted initiatives the subsidiary managers were much less cautious about expressing their optimism. As a subsidiary manager from FTX said:-
There was some friction you know because the group opinion which was by the “top management” was not necessarily the same as the operational units. – Subsidiary manager
And an ASX subsidiary manager commented:-
I’m not that keen, to be honest… We have yet to see some of the negative repercussions of underestimating the impact and rushing in. – Subsidiary manager
Of course, it is always possible that these levels of commitment were pre-existing before the pilots but I would suggest that this is unlikely, given the number of cases that were examined in detail.
Given these comments I propose that:-
Proposition 3: The higher the piloting (i.e. the more credible-replicable-feasible the pilot(s)) then the higher the affective commitment to change of the subsidiary managers.
The link between piloting and implementation was also highlighted by comments from the cases. In the more highly adopted cases the pilot managers, as explained previously, were happy to share their experiences and learnings from the pilot with subsidiary managers to help them with implementation. For instance, one of the OPX pilot managers explained:-
And we supported them through conference calls or through face-to-face visits here in the site, discussing this implementation, sharing with them the time schedules, the structures, the scope of the project, the… I mean lessons learned during the process – to make this learning go more stable in… not to repeat the same problems we had here, in other sites. - Pilot manager
This suggests that the ability to share and transfer good practices between the pilot managers and the subsidiary managers of the more credible-replicable-feasible initiatives was increasing the implementation of the rollout.
Given these comments I propose that:-
Proposition 4: The higher the piloting (i.e. the more credible-replicable-feasible the pilot(s)) then the higher the implementation of the initiative in the subsidiaries following on after the pilot.
In addition, I also found evidence in the more highly adopted initiatives that the subsidiary managers passed through a stage of stronger affective commitment to change before implementation. For instance, a NKX subsidiary manager commented about meeting the pilot managers before implementing the initiative:-
I got to talk to them at the E-Business Summit about issues we may encounter and how they found the experience. But like I say, that was pretty much right at the beginning of the project, but not before the project actually. That was sort of at the kick-off. Yes, it was really helpful. Yes I think it really helped me because it sort of made me aware of what to expect, what hurdles I might have to cross and how they have got around things in the past, and what to expect really.- Subsidiary manager
And a NKX steering member said:-
But also I really valued how our other frontlines who saw that "this is possible, this can be done"; and really that this looks as good as it looks.
– Steering member
The global project leader for CRX also commented about how once the pilots were able to confirm the feasibility of the strategic initiative then this would create success stories that would attract other subsidiaries to implement the initiative:-
So as it was a success, it was sort of, yes, good communication track, because the front-lines where we have succeeded the rollout, were able to say to the other front-line, “OK, you know, it worked well and we don’t have an issue.” And we also started to get some kind of key success stories. .. And after we got the kind of critical mass – so US, France, Italy, Belgium – we knew that we have a kind of tipping point and that everybody else had to follow. – Global project leader
In contrast in the less highly adopted initiatives there was strong evidence that a lack of affective commitment to change to the initiatives was leading to attempts to either defy the initiative or to bargain with the global team to re-negotiate the format of the template. For instance, the EDX subsidiary manager in Germany said:-
Yes, I mean we were not so enthusiastic because we heard a lot of complaints from the other sites, and as we knew we were the last site to go live within Europe, yes we were a bit afraid whether it will be…
whether we will have problems with the system and if it works all fine and so on. Because we knew that there were a lot of problems during the latest rollout. – Subsidiary manager
As a result of these problems Germany refused to implement the initiative until the problem had been resolved:-
I think the first… or the major problem was the performance – so the system was really slow; and the upload of big files, of big design files, took hours sometimes because there are so big data in it. And so yes, we were afraid that the whole work flow will be slow with Easy Design….. And this is what was also the major reason why we delayed the go-live in Germany; because the prerequisite was that we roll out to the customers. And we knew that the other markets stopped to do that because the performance was too bad; we had big demands to the team that they improve the system in a way that customers can work with it. – Subsidiary manager
Following Germany’s refusal to implement, the initiative was put on hold until it could be re-piloted in another small country (Serbia) before further rollout.
Given the above evidence I propose that:-
Proposition 5: Affective commitment to change by subsidiary managers positively mediates the relationship between piloting and the implementation of the strategic initiative within the subsidiaries following the pilot.
In the less highly adopted initiatives managers commented that there was a strong expectation from the corporate center that the initiative would be implemented in all the relevant subsidiaries. Managers used the terms “have to”,
“must” and “expectation”. For instance, in the ASX initiative, one of the subsidiary managers commented:-
I do not see that Hong Kong, by implementing, or by going to this now, is in any way disadvantaged for this. It is … we probably have to do it...
and I don't think it is going to make any difference if we are going to do it later. - Subsidiary manager
There was a sense for this subsidiary manager of inevitability and lack of choice.
In these cases the lack of a replicable-credible-feasible-pilot was associated with pressure from the corporate headquarters to implement an initiative even if there were limited benefits for their local operations. For instance, an FTX subsidiary manager from Europe said:-
And by that you got then the feeling that it’s not really welcome to really very openly discuss some of the things… So at this stage it does not look as though we have much choice. – Subsidiary manager
So this subsidiary manager felt that speaking out against the initiative might have a negative personal impact.
These types of comments and the sentiment of being expected to implement were largely absent from the more highly adopted cases who were almost uniformly much more positive and engaged.
Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) describe continuance commitment as the recognition that there are costs associated with failure to provide support for the change. Behaviors that are associated with higher levels of continuance commitment are a willingness to do what is minimally required by the organization to implement change but to restrict this behavior to what is absolutely required (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002; Meyer et al., 2007). Affective commitment to change and continuance commitment to change have been found to be inversely correlated.
Given these comments I propose that:-
Proposition 6: The higher the piloting (i.e. the more credible-replicable-feasible the pilot(s)) then the lower the continuance commitment to change of the subsidiary managers.
In the FTX initiative negative feedback from the pilot led to major discontentment among subsidiary managers. One manager commented, ‘The patient is dead but the operation was successful.’ to signify that although the pilot was completed, the outcome did not meet expectations. As a result of the problems, the whole scope of the initiative was scaled back from the initial worldwide ambition to only include a limited number of subsidiaries.
I propose that compliance commitment to change (i.e. pressure from the corporate headquarters) acts as a mediator between piloting and strategic
initiative implementation in the subsidiaries but in the negative sense. So if the pilot has low credibility-replicability-feasibility then this leads to higher levels of continuance commitment to change i.e. the subsidiaries feel more pressure from corporate headquarters to implement the initiative, and this pressure results in minimal efforts from managers and results in lower implementation.
Specifically this relationship is expressed as:-
Proposition 7: Continuance commitment to change by subsidiary managers negatively mediates the relationship between piloting and the implementation of the strategic initiative within the subsidiaries following the pilot.