SOCIAL INFORMATION AND EMPLOYEE ANXIETY ABOUT ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Studies of job attitudes have traditionally been conducted on the correspondence between individual needs and objective job characteristics. A recently developed theory, however, suggests that job attitudes may be a function of social information received (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). This investigation used social information processing theory as the basis for a study of antecedents to employee anxiety about a move to an open office environment. The structural equation model developed from social information processing theory proved to be a good fit to the data, and a revised version of the model provided an even belter accounting for the variance in the data. Anxiety about organizational change was determined by social information, individual needs, and job characteristics, with need for privacy having the largest impact on anxiety. The model is discussed in terms of its support for information processing theory, its individual significant linkages, and the implications for need satisfaction models of job attitudes and other research on outcomes in organizations.