Meeting the challenges of effective readiness for change in a global context

The aim of this paper is to address the potential impact of perceptions on individual readiness for change. Based on a quantitative survey of 310 executives from Anglo Saxon countries, North and Latin Europe, Arabian countries, and Far East Asian countries, identified via multi stage sampling, we compare the impact of employees’ cultural factors (cultural identification and orientation) versus employees’ nationality on change factors (change context and process) and readiness for change. The Macro process regression procedure for SPSS was used for hypothesis testing. Our major contribution is to focus on the employees’ cultural background and how it drives their personal perception of change factors (context and process) and readiness for change. Furthermore, our findings confirm that employees’ perception of change context and process can be powerful drivers for their readiness for change. The research findings can help organizations in implementing change projects by considering employees’ cultural background as well as their personal perception of change context and process.