The Impact of Personal and Change Event Characteristics on Employee Wellbeing via Uncertainty and Insecurity

Over the past three decades, scholars have found that organizational change often results in high levels of psychological uncertainty about change as well as enhancing job insecurity. Research also has identified these variables as predictors of employee wellbeing during change. Despite this, researchers have not developed an integrative model of the antecedents and consequences of the different types of change-related uncertainty and insecurity that may emerge during change. In this conceptual paper, we draw on the conservation of resources theory to develop such an integrative model. We identify change event characteristics (i.e., change content, change processes, and the internal change context) as antecedents of different types of change-related uncertainty, which influence different types of insecurity, and ultimately influence multiple dimensions of employee wellbeing. We identify employees’ personal characteristics (i.e., demographic and individual dispositions) as moderators of relationships between change event characteristics and different types of change-related uncertainty and employee insecurity, which in turn influence wellbeing. We discuss the implications of this model for research and practice when managing change.