Managing organizational change in responding to global crises

Abstract To cope with global crises, organizations go through various internal changes and adopt different survival strategies. Several researchers and practitioners have highlighted that employees are the key factors in implementing such changes. However, organizations often face difficulties in managing manpower effectively due to the complexities and ambiguities related to the said changes. To address this challenge, the present study proposes a comprehensive model to manage organizational change to effectively respond to global crises. This study highlights that “employee change‐championing behavior” (ECB) – also known as effective change‐supportive behavior of employees – is the key to successfully implementing the necessary organizational changes to tackle global crises. Utilizing the 3‐Stage Lewin's Model of Change as the foundation for analysis, this study proposes for “transformational leadership style” to substitute the “unfreezing stage,” “trust in leadership and work engagement” to substitute the “moving stage,” and “employee change championing behavior” to substitute the “refreezing stage.” Additionally, this study found that transformational leadership (TL) influences employee change‐championing behavior, while employee trust in leadership (ETL) influences employee work engagement (EWE). Moreover, trust in leadership and work engagement individually and sequentially mediate the relationship between TL and employee change‐championing behavior. This study offers a unique perspective for business leaders on how to manage organizational changes during global crises.