Blurred limits and threat of isolation? Employees’ fears in transition to self-determined organization

Purpose Today’s organizations face constant structural and cultural changes at an accelerated pace, with a growing focus on self-determination to improve employee motivation and organizational performance. The shift toward a self-determined organizational culture allows employees greater autonomy in making decisions related to their work which are found to provide many positive organizational- and individual-level outcomes. However, adapting to an autonomous work culture is a complex process and demands cognitive capacity, which is especially challenging for those who have previously experienced low autonomy in their work. Consequently, individuals are found to experience mixed feelings as they make sense of ongoing changes and fear potential dangers that change entails. The purpose of the present study is to understand what employees perceive as frightening in a self-determined organizational culture, which is generally associated with a positive image and that so many organizations are increasingly leaning to in that direction. Design/methodology/approach In this study, we collected ten in-depth-interviews from employees from a case company, Finnish financial services company that was undergoing an organizational change toward a self-determined organizational culture. We approached data from grounded theory perspective that revealed that fear was explicit in participants’ narration, which then led us to focus on fears. By applying the Gioia method to the analysis, we recognized how individuals made sense of change through fears. Findings In our findings, we recognized that individuals made sense of the change in an organization’s culture through processing fears on three levels: fears of doing, being, and becoming. This revealed that individuals do not fear an organization’s cultural change only because they need to adjust to new ways of working but because they themselves must change too. While individuals are experiencing enormous changes at work, they are engaging in a process where they try to make sense of expectations and struggle to create new meanings and behaviors. Expressing worries of an organization’s actions and development can be one way of distancing oneself from the change while evaluating one´s own position. Originality/value This study provides an understanding of an ongoing organizational culture change in the context of a transition to a self-determined organizational culture. Although the benefits of self-determined organizing and culture have been strongly emphasized, this study points out the challenges that an increase in autonomy causes among employees and how demanding the process in adapting to a new culture can be.