The emotions of frontline responders are traditionally viewed as problematic, because emotions are seen as distractive and impediments to an efficient pursuit of optimal crisis response outcomes. In addition, personal involvement in the situation might result in trauma since responders are often unable to prevent tragedy and suffering. Dissociation from the response, instead, might best enable responders to cope with traumatic experiences and avoid negative psychological consequences. Yet, compassion and altruism give meaning to their work for many responders and can improve their customized care to those in need. Detachment, moreover, is rarely fully effective. The emotional attitude of crisis responders, therefore, poses a dilemma. It is useful to note that emotions are diverse in nature and intensity. This means that there is room to explore how to manage emotions in such a way that feelings of empathy and involvement are enabled without responders succumbing to it. In any case, it requires unwavering organizational and team support.

Crisis research focuses primarily on how response structures should be organized. There are ongoing debates about the required degree of flexibility in the response structure and what role emergent groups should have. A shared assumption in this research is that organization and structure are synonymous with order in a crisis and enable a rapid, coordinated response. Disorganization, by extension, is criticized for crisis response failures. This view ignores the risk of over-organization and crisis response rigidity. In uncertain crises, disorganizing might produce a looser, less ordered structure that facilitates a novel, adaptive response. The dilemma for frontline responders revolves around the need for both organizing and disorganizing during crises. It is worthwhile noting that different types and phases of the crisis demand different forms of reorganizing. The reorganizing process, through disorganizing and organizing, needs to be ongoing throughout the duration of the crisis situation to ensure that crisis demands and organizational response structures evolve synchronously.

Using a social identity approach, this research program focuses on how Eastern and Western managers make sense of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Study 1 used online experiments to examine how people perceive intergroup criticism. We found that employees responded to criticism more negatively when it was made by an outgroup rather than by ingroup members. Building on the study 1 results, we further explored social identity processes and intergroup dynamics. We conducted interviews with European (Study 2) and Chinese managers (Study 3) involved in an acquisition of a European company by a Chinese holding. Study 2 shows that European managers’ organizational identity change is facilitated by alignment of a post-merger identity with their pre-merger historical identity, and over time, they engaged in collaboration and knowledge sharing with their Chinese counterparts. In Study 3, we found that Chinese managers leveraged an agile organizational identity to deal with status inferiority and rapid organizational changes. In summary, this research program addresses the need for a deeper understanding of social identity processes and change beyond M&A context, but also in other cross-cultural collaboration processes which involve employees who initially have various identities, practices, and cultural backgrounds.

We focus on change recipients’ emotional responses to organizational change. We identify the key theoretical frameworks that have been used to consider recipients’ emotional reactions to change. Our review reveals a focus on appraisal theories of emotions, although other theoretical perspectives have been adopted, including affective events theory (AET) and the broaden and build theory of positive emotions. We argue, however, that other dominant theories, including emotion regulation theories and emotional contagion, have not received adequate attention in the change field. Our review identifies four key foci of empirical research, including efforts to (1) understand the structure of change recipients’ emotional responses to change, (2) develop process models of emotional responses to change, (3) explore the antecedents and outcomes of emotional responses to change, and (4) consider the influence of change recipient and leader emotional intelligence on change outcomes. We develop an integrative framework that provides a conceptual map of relevant concepts when studying change recipients’ emotional responses to change. We conclude with identifying future directions for research.

Decades of research confirms that the behavior of leaders influences change outcomes. Correspondingly, leader development has aimed to identify and develop the individual traits and attributes that are precursors to desired behaviors. However, where this approach has traditionally targeted static precursors and, thus, relatively stable sets of behaviors, there is growing evidence that successful change requires leaders to switch behaviors during change. We introduce mindset activation as a leader development approach to aid this switch. We elaborate on two common change processes – top-down and bottom-up – and establish a connection between the desired leader behaviors of these processes and the fixed and growth mindsets, respectively. In doing so, we propose a means of operationalizing the activation of fixed and growth mindsets for leader development during change. This new approach overcomes some of the limitations of the traditional focus on static precursors of behaviors, by providing a more precise account that encompasses the malleable and dynamic nature of personality system processes to enable effective change leadership.

Successful organizational change requires the commitment of those charged with its implementation. We focus on the role that organizational leaders play in the development and maintenance of employees’ commitment to organizational change. We review a recent but growing body of research linking leadership to change commitment, beginning with transformational leadership, new genre leadership, change leadership, and change-specific leader behavior. In each case, we examine the link between leadership style/behavior and followers’ commitment to change, the mediating mechanisms (e.g., climate of trust, change self-efficacy) that help to explain the link, and the moderating conditions (magnitude of the change, impact on employees) that influence the strength or direction of the relationship. Evidence suggests that, although leadership at all levels can have an impact, direct managers play a particularly important role in fostering commitment and behavioral support for the change within their units. Organizations are advised to attend to this role in the planning and implementation of change, particularly when the change is likely to have a wide-ranging impact and require commitment at all levels.

This chapter takes a social identity perspective on change leadership. Although leading change is considered to be an essential part of leadership in general, the empirical literature on this topic is relatively sparse. Yet, the social identity perspective provides valuable insights into this topic, in particular, shedding light on why individuals resist or support change and how leaders can play a role in facilitating positive change pathways. Drawing on this literature, we develop a multi-identity pathway model, which outlines how leaders can enable employee change adjustment by enhancing perceptions of identity continuity and identity gain during change processes. This model further explores the identity management behaviors that leaders can employ to inspire support for change, and the different (organizational, team, and occupational) identity foci that may facilitate positive change reactions. Finally, we discuss whether shared or distributed models of leadership are feasible leadership mechanisms in fostering strong post-change support among employees.

Planned actions, as prescribed in protocols and trained in exercises, help frontline responders take action under enormous pressure. Yet, these same actions are often hard, if not impossible, to implement during crises, either because the specific situation was not anticipated and there are no plans in place or because prepared plans do not produce the desired results. As a consequence, frontline responders will need to improvise and adapt their activities to crisis situations. Yet, improvisation under extreme stress is very difficult and may be inefficient or even dangerous to responders. The resulting dilemma for responders is how to choose the right course of action. This requires a view of both action patterns as complementary and even mutually conducive, as most crises will demand a combination of plans and improvisation. Reflective acting helps frontline responders to find the right balance and define adequate response activities.

Managers act as change agents on the frontlines of the day-to-day implementation of change processes at the same time as having to manage daily operations. This double role puts them under pressure to both implement change processes efficiently and emphasizes the need for tools and techniques to develop the change competencies of managers. This chapter addresses this issue by presenting a case study of a change management competency intervention. The intervention lasted four days of workshops and consisted of dialog exercises and serious-game simulations. The participating managers were presented with change dilemmas related to key change concepts such as change phases, change resistance/readiness, and balancing change and stability, with the aim to improve their change competencies. Drawing on interviews with managers participating in the training we analyze how the intervention challenged the managers’ perspectives on their change management and fostered learning and development of change competencies. The key role of sensemaking processes are analyzed to nuance and theorize the complexities of developing change competency.

Sensemaking is widely seen as one of the most crucial processes in crisis response operations. Frontline responders need an adequate understanding of a crisis situation to implement the appropriate actions. Gaining a better grasp of the situation requires acquiring more cues and avoiding premature commitment to a particular frame of reference. Ideally, operational members need to engage in adaptive sensemaking to achieve a perfect understanding of the crisis. Yet, crises are defined by uncertainty, which hinders a full understanding of the situation. The pursuit of a perfect understanding may also impede a rich awareness of the context and create blind spots. Thus, responders need to embrace some degree of uncertainty in their sensemaking as well, even though this is counterintuitive and demanding. The dilemma for responders is that they need to balance gaining a better understanding with embracing uncertainty. Frontline responders may deal with this sensemaking dilemma by pursuing a plausible understanding. A plausible understanding matches the demands of the situation and helps responders take bold action, but is also treated with an attitude of ambivalence, doubt, and modesty.

Past decades have shown an increase in research into employee responses to organizational change (OC). However, little attention has been paid to the impact of the type of change. Different types of change are likely to affect change recipients’ learning and well-being in a different way. Our study aimed to identify OC types and investigate whether these are differentially associated with employee responses. Exploring OC types, two dimensions were distinguished and combined: a qualitative axis representing the prevalence of innovation; and a quantitative axis distinguishing between growth and decline. In a representative sample of private sector employees from a longitudinal survey, cluster analyses identified six OC types. We investigated whether these OC types are differentially associated with active workplace learning and emotional exhaustion. Results indicated that active learning is stimulated by OC types characterized by innovation/growth, while OC types characterized by decline and restructuring without innovation are associated with higher emotional exhaustion. In conclusion, various OC types revealed differential effects on employee personal development and well-being.