Openness to experience and resilience as antecedents to employees’ capacity for organisational change

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the personal resource of resilience and the personality trait of openness to experience with Irish employees attitudes towards, and capacity for, handling organisational change. The study was based on a quantitative cross-sectional design, with a self-report survey being distributed to (n=78) employees of large corporates, small-to-medium enterprises and public sector agencies in the Irish market, to test the hypothesis of a correlational and moderating relationship between the variables. No significant differences was found for openness to change, but a moderate-strong correlational relationship was found for resilience. This has practical implications in terms of Irish organisations taking resilience into account during the recruitment process for new employees and in terms of supporting existing employees by strengthening their resilience levels through intervention. By focusing on employee personal resources, an organisation could improve the chances of successful organisational change. Author keywords: Personal resources, resilience, organisational change, personality, traits, five factor model, big five, openness to experience