title: Why some employees adopt or resist reorganization of work practices in health care: associations between perceived loss of resources, burnout, and attitudes to change.
abstract: In recent years, successive work reorganization initiatives have been implemented in many healthcare settings. The failure of many of these change efforts has often been attributed in the prominent management discourse to change resistance. Few studies have paid attention to the temporal process of workers' resource depletion/accumulation over time and its links with workers' psychological states and reactions to change. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, this study examines associations between workers' perceptions of loss of resources, burnout, and attitudes to change. The study was conducted in five health and social service centres in Quebec, in units where a work reorganization project was initiated. A prospective longitudinal design was used to assess workers' perceptions at two time points 12 months apart. Our findings are consistent with the conservation of resources theory. The analysis of latent differences scores between times 1 and 2 showed that the perceived loss of resources was associated with emotional exhaustion, which, in turn, was negatively correlated with commitment to change and positively correlated with cynicism. In confirming the temporal relationship between perceived loss of resources, occupational burnout, and attitude to change, this research offers a new perspective to explain negative and positive reactions to change implementation.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Nursing, University of Montreal, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada. carl.ardy.dubois@umontreal.ca.
authors.forename: Carl-Ardy
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Dubois
authors.forename: Kathleen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bentein
authors.forename: Jamal Ben
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Mansour
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gilbert
authors.forename: Jean-Luc
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Bédard
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D006295:Health Resources / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D006754:Hospital Restructuring; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology*