The Effect of Perceived Organizational Support and Self-Efficacy on Operational Manager's Readiness for Change

Changes cannot be avoided in every organization, including Regional Water Supply Company in East Java as a Regionally-Owned Enterprise. There should be efforts to improve the organization through changes in order to build readiness for human resources as well as management system of the organization, especially operational managers’ readiness as those managers are the agents of changes in the organization. Accordingly, the objectives of this research are: to analyze the effect of self-efficacy to operational managers’ readiness to change and the effect of perceived organizational support to operational managers’ readiness to change in Regional Water Supply Company.

This study is an explanatory research to describe the causal relationship between variables using hypothesis testing. Data used are questionnaires as primary data. Sampling technique is census, in which the units of analysis are operational managers in Regional Water Supply Company in East Java province. Analysis technique used to test the hypotheses is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS 5 method.

The analysis shows that error probability score of the self-efficacy effect (X1) to the readiness to change (Y) is 0.000 which is lower than significance standard score 5% (0.05) with the positive standardized regression weight score 0.619. Therefore, self-efficacy (X1) affects the readiness to change (Y) significantly and positively. It alsoshows that error probability score of the perception effect of organizational support (X2) to readiness to change (Y) is 0.007 which is lower than significance standard score 5% (0.05) with positive standardized regression weight score 0.282. Therefore, perceived organizational support (X2) affects readiness to change (Y) significantly and positively.

The research main contribution is to do the empirical test of Perceived organizational support (POS) as an antecedent variable of operational manager's readiness for change. Another original aspect in this research is about using the operational manager as a subject that has roles as trainers, counselors, advisors, and agents for changes. However, the operational manager is not include in the top management.