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Navigating Workplace Change, One Employee At A Time

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Miguel Quiñones describes today’s business climate with an age-old saying: “The only constant is change.” “With competition coming from the other side of the globe and over the Internet, the rate of change has accelerated. Organizations must constantly adapt to survive,” says Quiñones, who joined SMU’s Cox School of Business as the Marilyn and Leo Corrigan Endowed Professor of Management and Organization in 2006. Quiñones focuses much of his research on individuals working in these organizations, including his new study, “Explaining Differences in Reactions to Organizational Change: The Role of an Individual’s Stage of Change.” He presented the research in April 2008 to the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. The study began in 2005, while Quiñones was serving as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar and visiting professor at Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Santiago, Chile. There he met David Huepe, a graduate student and consultant to the Chilean investigative police, which was significantly changing how it hired detectives – and creating conflict between managers and subordinates in the process.

Change theories typically focus on subordinates’ deep-seated resistance, Quiñones says, but he suspected something else was behind the conflict. “It’s always struck me that those at the upper levels, with their wide view of the competitive landscape, have had time to accept the need for a change and work through all the alternatives – and then they just spring this new direction on their organization.”

In developing a survey that Quiñones and Huepe gave to 580 officers in Santiago, they drew from a 1994 model that identified five necessary stages for lasting change – precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance – and demonstrated that different techniques are needed to move individuals from one stage to the next. Their survey found more managers at the action stage, when they felt genuinely committed to the change, and more subordinates at the early stages, where they felt forced to change. “When making a change, organizations clearly must not assume that everyone is at the same place,” Quiñones says. “If they don’t lead individuals through the process, the change isn’t likely to take hold.”

He plans to follow up with another study on effective strategies for different stages, such as support groups and reward systems. Quiñones also leads the SMU Cox CEO Sentiment Survey, which he launched last year with Robert Rasberry, assistant professor of management and organizations. Published in the September 2007 Dallas CEO magazine, the survey tracks the perspective of Dallas- Fort Worth business leaders on the local economic outlook, the quality of the workforce, competitive challenges and other issues. “We want to do this every year to keep our finger on the pulse of the area’s business leadership and to follow trends and shifts,” Quiñones says. He notes that Cox’s strong connections to a vibrant business community drew him to SMU, along with the University’s commitment to teaching and research.

After receiving his Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology from Michigan State University, Quiñones taught at Rice University and at the University of Arizona. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and serves as associate editor of the Journal of Management. “I like to link the academic world with the business world to solve problems,” Quiñones says. “If we do our work right in organizational psychology, we help create an environment where people feel valued and productive, which makes for a stronger, more innovative organization.”

For more information: cox.smu.edu/academic/professor.do/quinones