Naive dialecticism and Chinese employees' commitment to change

Purpose – This research aims to examine the relationships among employee commitment to change, naïve dialecticism, and performance change in the context of change in Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs). Design/methodology/approach – A total of 287 employee‐supervisor matched data were collected by questionnaire from three Chinese SOEs implementing a major change on sector restructuring. Findings – Results showed that affective commitment to change was related to performance change. Change thinking was positively related to all three components of commitment to change, whereas contradictory thinking was negatively related to affective commitment to change. Affective commitment to change fully mediated the association between contradictory thinking and performance change. Originality/value – This research integrates “outside in” and “inside out” approaches to contextualize commitment to change studies in China. An “outside in” approach was followed to investigate the relationship between commitment to change and performance change, whereas an “inside out” approach was followed to add valuable insights to the commitment to change model from the point of view of Chinese naïve dialecticism.