Readiness to Change in Higher Education: Do Demographic Differences in Psychosocial Predictors matter?

The study aims to (1) examine demographic differences in higher education employee’s readiness to change, and (2) Identify whether several psychosocial predictors affect higher education employee’s readiness to change across different demographic backgrounds. A total of 214 academics and 214 non-academic staff participated in this study. 34.84% of the respondents were in the age range of 3140 years old, 30.31% in the age range of 41-50 years old. 20.76% were between 21-30 years old, and 14.08% were 51 years and above. 64.44% consists of female respondents, while 35.56% are male respondents. We found that there was a statistically significant difference in the scores of employees’ readiness to change based on gender and age. Openness to experience, management support, and perceived appropriateness of change also significantly predicted employees’ readiness for change, particularly among non-academic staff. Meanwhile, change efficacy significantly predicted readiness for change among academics. Individual spirituality significantly predicted readiness to change for older employees than younger employees. The study shed light on the possible design for an intervention program in order to enhance employees’ readiness to change in the context of the higher learning institution. Organizational change initiatives may show the potential to be implemented in a higher learning institution.


Introduction
Organizational changes are inevitable, including in the context of a higher learning institution. These changes are necessary due to the regulation, technology, and the demand to adapt to the fast-changing environment. According to Lewin (1951) model, change is the consequence of a condition where the forces to change are greater than the forces to maintain the status quo. In order to ensure the successful implementation of the change program, gauging employee readiness is very important, so that they will accept the change (Mula, Tilbury, Ryan, Mader, Dlouhá, Mader, Benayas, Dlouhý, Alba, 2017;Rafferty & Simon, 2006;Cunnigham, Woodward, Shannon, Maclntos, Lendrum, Rosenbloom & Brown, 2002). Employees' readiness to change include employees' positive feeling toward change initiative (affective readiness), employees' positive thinking toward change initiative (cognitive readiness) and employees' positive attitude and behavior support for change initiative (Durham, Grube, Gardner, Cummings, Pierce, 1989).
Previous works on the topic of organizational change in higher learning institution attempted to examine the importance of change, how changes occur, as well as the predictors of employees' readiness to change (Pincus; Stout; Sorensen; Stocks & Lawson; 2017; Deem, Mok, & Lucas, 2008;Mula et al. 2017). Past studies recognized several psychological and social predictors that were associated with employees' readiness to change, such as appropriateness of change, change efficacy, management support, openness to experience trait, and spirituality (Paglis & Green, 2002;Smollan, Matheny and Sayers, 2010;Olievera, 2011;O'Neil, 2007). Appropriateness of change which refers to employees' perception of the change content, is relevant in enhancing readiness to change (Holt, 2007;Rafferty & Simon, 2006). While employee's belief of their own competence to embrace the changes -or change efficacy -also enhanced the likelihood to support the change program (Wanberg & Banas, 2000). Perceived support from the top management also leads to positive emotion toward change programs and consequently improve employees' willingness to support the change program (Tan, Liesch & Brewer, 2005).
In addition, individual differences such as openness trait, which refers to individual tendencies to try and experience novelty, also lead to better readiness for change (Smollan, Matheny & Sayers, 2010). In addition, the past study found that individual differences in spirituality correlated with positive work outcomes, including a positive attitude toward organizational change (Dehaghi, Goodarzi & Arazi, 2012). Spirituality, which refers to the perception of meaningful life embodied through good relationship with the God(s) or a higher power(s) as well as individual's positive relationship with self, community, and the surroundings helped the employees to be readier with any kind of changes in their life including in the workplace.
In order to implement a smooth process of change, it is important to know the level of readiness among its employees, as addressed by Madsen (2003), who notes that various job types may also influence the level of readiness to change. Comparing the level of readiness based on job type is as important as analyzing the influence of demographic variables on employees' readiness to change. It has been found that there are inconsistent findings on the relationship between demographic variables with readiness to change. Several studies found differences in terms of employees' readiness to change across demographic variables (Shah & Shah, 2010;Worral, Parkes. & Cooper, 2004). ) while other studies found no difference at all (Wittensein, 2008). These inconsistencies, therefore, needs to be further examined. In addition, we would like to test whether psychosocial predictors can actually predict employees' readiness to change, especially in the context of higher education. Therefore, the present study also examines the different levels of psychosocial predictors in predicting employees' readiness to change across demography. Insights gained from such a study would be useful in assisting the transformation of relevant institutions.
The study aims to test whether higher education employees' readiness to change is predicted by (1) demographic differences, namely; gender, age, job type, educational background and tenure status in Higher Learning Institution (HLI), (2) differences on perceived appropriateness of change, change efficacy, management support, openness to experience personality and spirituality across different demographic backgrounds. This study also aims to (3) design higher education employees' readiness intervention based on demographic differences.

Readiness to Change
Past studies have indicated mixed findings on the relationship between demographic information with employees' readiness to change. Some studies found there was no difference in the level of readiness to change across demographic information. The demographic information that was tested includes gender, age, education, tenure, job position, or job type. On the other hand, some studies have found differences in terms of readiness to change across demographic information mentioned above. Patom and Damster (2002) investigated the gender differences in response to organizational change. This study undertook research on 80 managers of the British government institution. This study demonstrated that there were differences between males and females in change management. According to this study, females favored 'softer', empowering approaches. They appeared to be better equipped for multitasking than their male counterparts. Male employees, in general, favored a more holistic approach (seeing the big picture), be more participative, and be open to various approaches to change management. Similarly, Tyler (2005) stated that males and females were different in terms of their readiness to change. He suggested that males faced changes more effectively while females faced the changes more effectively. Cinite (2006) investigated the role of job type (manager and non-manager) in terms of their readiness to change. This study found that there were differences in terms of employees' readiness to change based on job types. In line with Cinite's © 2020 Jurnal Psikologi Sosial finding, Worral, Parkes, and Cooper (2004), who conducted the study among 830 United Kingdom Managers, found that there were differences between the director and nondirector perception on readiness to change. This study found that directors perceived change more positively than nondirectors. Meanwhile, Walker and Enticott (2004) found that employees with higher positions were readier to change in comparison to the employee with lower positions. This is because higher position employees do not usually involve in the day-to-day process of change, while the operational employee at the lower position faces the realities of facing the day-to-day activities of the organizational change process. Crewson and Fisher (1997) also found that employees with longer tenure status showed higher readiness than an employee with shorter tenure. Juanke (2005) also supported this idea. He stated that employees with short tenure are most likely to the least receptive to the organizational change. This partially due to the fact that employees with long tenure are in the higher-level position, therefore, they are less likely to be in touch with the day-to-day process of change and be more ready to change in compare to short tenure employee who usually still in the lower level position ( Walker & Enticott,2004).
Nevertheless, some studies contradict these findings regarding the comparison of tenure status in readiness for organizational change. These studies concluded that employees with longer tenure were less receptive to organizational change (Sinha & Rajpal, 2002). These results indicate that previous findings of a positive relationship between readiness for organizational change and tenure may not hold true in other organizational environments. Wittension (2008), who investigates the role of demographic, individual disposition toward change, empowerment, and emotional climate with employees' readiness to change, found no significant difference between demographic characteristics (age, gender, tenure) to employees' readiness to change.
O'neil (2007) investigated the role of career path, involvement, and capacity factors as the predictor of employee readiness to change for contracting service. He also investigated the role of some demographic information such as sex, age, and tenure position. He found that there was no significant difference across demography in terms of employee readiness to change.

Methods Participants
A total of 428 employees of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) were participated in the main study by responding to the questionnaire that was sent to them. Among the respondents, 214 were non-academic staff, and 214 were the academic staff. The detailed demographic data is shown at Table 1. All of the instruments used in this study were translated back-to-back prior to the data collection.

Measures
Openness to experience trait. Openness to experience scale of NEO-PI-R was used to measure openness to experience. This instrument was adapted from McCrae and Costa (1991). To achieve the objective of the instrument, the respondents must complete the survey by responding to the written statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree). Reliability score for this instrument at .83 Cronbach alpha. Examples of the items that measured openness to experience used in this instrument are "I am open to new experience" and "I like to reflect and play with ideas. A higher score on this instrument suggests that higher openness to experience personality.
Spirituality. Individual spirituality was measured using Spirituality Well-Being (WSB) scale. The questionnaire was adopted from Ellison (1993). This scale consists of two subscales: individual relationship with Allah or a higher power and individual relationship with self, community, and the surrounding. There were 20 items on a five-point scale with Cronbach alpha score = 0.89. Examples of the items to measure individual spirituality are "I feel a sense of well-being about the way I am living" and "My relationship with Allah contributes to my sense of well-being". A higher score on this instrument suggests higher spirituality among individuals.
Readiness to change. This study adopted Durham's et al., 1989 affective, cognitive, and behavior attitude toward change scale. Originally this scale aimed to measure employees' affective, cognitive, and behavior attitudes toward change. Some modifications were made for the purpose of measuring employees' affective, cognitive, and behavior readiness to change at IIUM. The modification included adding sentences such as "IIUM becoming a premier global Islamic university frustrates me". This scale consisted of 18 items, which were divided into three subscales: affective, cognitive, and behavior. Each subscale consisted of six items with Cronbach alpha score = 0.87. Employees completed the survey by responding to the written statements on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree). Examples of the items to measure employees' readiness to change by these instruments are "I look forward for this university to become Premier Global Islamic University" and "IIUM become Premier Global Islamic University helps me perform better as an employee's". A higher score on this instrument suggests higher readiness to change. "Every senior manager has stressed the importance of the change".
Perceived appropriateness, change efficacy, and management support was measured using the adapted questionnaire from Holt (2007) and Szamosy and Duxbury (2000). This scale consists of 25 items with Cronbach alpha score = 0.89. Employees complete the survey by responding to the written statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (extremely disagree) to 5 (extremely agree). Examples of the items to measure appropriateness, change efficacy and management support are, "In the long run, I feel it will be worthwhile for me if the organization adopt the change, " When we implement the change I believe that I can handle it with ease."

Data analysis
T-test, One-way ANOVA, and Multigroup moderation analysis were used to analyses the data. Multi-group moderation analysis examines the role of group differences in strengthening the relationship between indicator variables with the dependent variables (Baron & Kenny, 2000). In the present study, the multi-group analysis was examined by bootstrapping. According to this technique, the t-values greater than 1.96 or 1.65 for exploratory study indicate that there was a significant role of group differences in strengthening the relationship between psychosocial predictor with employees' readiness to change. A special formula developed by Chin (2010) was used to estimate significant differences across different group analysis. If the difference between each group is less than 0.05, the result indicates that different groups have a different impact on variables that are investigated.

Results
As shown in Table 1, based on the job position, 25.85% of the respondents were administrative staff, 14.63% are officers, and 5.85% were non-academic staff with the structural position, such as the head of division, directors, and managers. Holders with the assistant professor's position, while for non-academic staff, most of the respondents were admin staff. Most of the academic respondents were PhD. The mean score of appropriateness of change was M=30.72 (SD=3.55), while the mean score of individual change efficacy was M=22.80 (SD=3.554), and management support was M=21.60, (SD=3.574). As for openness personality, the mean score was M = 18.39 (SD=2.42) while the mean score of individual spirituality was M=17.37 (SD=3.45) and readiness to change was M=46.94 (SD=6.90). There was a statistically significant difference between male and female employees in terms of employees' readiness to change (t=2.01, p=0.04). Male employees were significantly readier to change than female employees (See Table 2).
There was also a statistically significant difference across different ages in terms of employees' readiness to change F= (3,415) =3.66. p=0.01 Older employees showed higher readiness to change in comparison to younger employees. The Tukey post hoc comparison analysis was used to test the differences between specific age groups. The result showed that the mean value for employees' readiness to change with the age of 50 and above (M=44.423) was significantly higher than the mean value for the employee between the age of 40 to 50 years old (M=41.315).
There was no significant difference between academic and non-academic staff in terms of employees' readiness to change (t= -1264, p=0.207). There was a significant difference across different education backgrounds in terms of employees' readiness to change F=(6,421)=3.03, p < .001. Employees with higher education had higher readiness to change compared to employees with lower education. The Tukey post hoc comparison analysis was used to test the differences between specific educational backgrounds. We found that the mean values for the employees with a Bachelor's degree (M=44.423) were significantly higher than the mean value for employees who only graduated with a Diploma degree (M=45). There was no significant difference across different tenure in terms of employees' readiness to change F=(6,421)=1.384, p= 0.220.  05 *Indicate significant relationship between gender and predictors of employees' readiness to change *p>0.05 not significant As for the multi-group analysis, the first grouplevel analysis was gender differences. Bootstrapping analysis shows that different gender had different prominent indicators for employees' readiness to change. Appropriateness of change was significantly predicting employees' readiness for both males and females, similar to individual change efficacy. Management support significantly predicted employee readiness for females only, while openness to experience significantly predicted employees' readiness for males only. In contrast, the influence of individual spirituality on readiness to change cannot be explained according to gender differences. Moreover, although the results indicate that different gender may have different prominent predictors, further statistical analysis did not show the significant role of gender in moderating the relationship between psychosocial predictor of readiness to change with employees' readiness. Table  3.

Detailed information about this test is shown in
The next analysis was the job type. In the present study, two types of the job were examined: academic and non-academic employees. The bootstrapping analysis shows that appropriateness of change significantly affected readiness to change for both academic and non-academic staff. The effect of the appropriateness of change in non-academic employees is stronger than academic employees. Not only appropriateness but individual change efficacy also significantly predicted readiness to change for both academic and non-academic staff. The effect of individual change efficacy was more significant for academic staff rather than nonacademic staff. With regard to the management support, non-academic staff significantly required management support in order to have higher readiness to change than academic staff. Similarly, openness to experience has shown a significant impact on readiness to change for non-academic staff but not for academic staff. Individual spirituality does not have a significantly different impact on predicting employees' readiness to change among academic and non-academic staff. Similar with the analysis based on gender differences, job types cannot provide further explanation on the relationship between predictors of readiness to change with readiness to change as a single construct although the results indicated that one type of job seemed to have more favorable influence in terms of having readiness to change than the other others have the readiness to change from the others have readiness to change from the others (Table 4).  Next, we analyzed age. There were four categories for age in the present study: 21-30 years old, 31-40 years old, 41-50 years old, and more than 51 years old. Readiness to change in all group categories except for the 31-40-year-old was significantly predicted by the appropriateness of change. Management support was the only significant predictor for employees' readiness to change in age groups of 31-40 years old and 41-50 years old. Similarly, change efficacy was also a significant predictor for this age group. Individual spirituality only predicted readiness to change for the older employee with 51 years old and above, while openness to experience only predicted readiness to change for younger employees of 21-30 years old. Although the result indicates that different age groups may have different prominent predictors, further statistical analysis did not show the significant role of the age group in moderating the relationship between psychosocial predictor of readiness to change with employees' readiness ( Table  5).
The fourth analysis that we conducted education. There were five categories for educational background in the present study; SPM, Diploma, Bachelor Degree's, Master Degree's and Ph.D. Appropriateness of change was a significant predictor for employees' readiness across the educational background, except for the bachelor's degree. Management support was a significant predictor for employee readiness with Diploma, Bachelor's, and Ph.D. Change efficacy predictor significantly predicted employees' readiness to change in all educational backgrounds except for SPM. Openness personality only predicted readiness to change among employees with the diploma and bachelor degrees, while individual spirituality significantly predicts employees' readiness to change with Diploma and Master's degree. Although the t statistic of bootstrapping result indicates that there was a different prominent predictor of employees' readiness to change across educational backgrounds, further statistical analysis did not show the significant role of educational backgrounds in moderating the relationship between psychosocial predictor of readiness to change with employees' readiness ( Table  6).

Discussion
There was a significant difference between Male and Female employees in terms of employee readiness to change. This finding is inconsistent with Wittension (2008), who found that there is no significant difference across gender in terms of employee readiness to change. In the present study, male employees are more ready to change in comparing to female employees. One of the possible reasons for this difference is the differences in personality disposition between males and females. Usually, male employees are more open to experience and emotionally stable than female employees (Vakola et al. 2003). Therefore, male employees are more adaptable to organizational change. This result was supported by the cross-tabulation analysis.
There was a significant difference across different ages in terms of employees' readiness to change. The finding in this study indicates that older employees are more ready to change in comparison to younger employees. Perhaps, the reason behind this finding is older employees have more dependants than younger employees (Shah & Shah, 2010). Because they have more family responsibility, it is not easy for these employees to just leave organization, although they do not like the change initiative. Furthermore, older employees are usually members of top management who involves in the change process, design, change agent, or as the initiator for change initiative (Cuningham et al., 2000). Therefore, older employees is readier for the change in comparison to the younger employees. Another possible explanation is that older employees are employees who hold the value of Islamization tightly, while younger employees are not really looking for the Islamization of knowledge by putting the Islamic framework in teaching and research. Therefore, younger employees are less ready to change in supporting IIUM to become a premier global Islamic university. The result indicated there is no significant difference between academic and nonacademic staff in term of employee readiness to change.
In the present study, there was no difference in terms of academic and nonacademic staff in terms of readiness to change. This is because both academic and nonacademic staffs have equal involvement and participation during the change process, in addition to information received by both job types also similar (Elving,2005). Result of the present study indicated that both academic and nonacademic is moderately ready to change with approximately 50 percent of the respondent score above average in term of readiness to change.
With regard to educational background, the result indicates there is a significant difference across the different educational backgrounds in terms of employee readiness to change. The findings in the present study show that the more educated the employees, the more ready they are to adapt to change. An employee with a diploma educational background indicates very low readiness in comparison to other educational backgrounds. This finding in line with Shah and Shah (2010), who found an employee with a higher position and with a higher educational background are more ready to change. The reason for this, maybe because of employees with a higher educational background, is having higher skill, knowledge, and ability to adapt to the change initiative. In addition, employees with higher education are more confident to face the organizational change because they believed that their education could help them to face the change at ease.
The result shows that there were no significant differences across different tenure in terms of employee readiness to change. A past study done by Wittension (2008) supports this finding as he found that there is no significant difference between new employees who just employed within one year with older employees who had been employed for many years in terms of their readiness to change. This finding is also in line with O'Neil (2007), who found there is no significant difference between shorter and longer tenure in terms of employee readiness to change. This finding indicates that in this institution, new employees and old employees have a similar level of readiness toward IIUM becoming a premier global Islamic university. This is maybe because employees across different tenure perceived the same level of appropriateness of change and management support for change in IIUM. The result of cross-tabulation supported this finding in which 48.9 percent of an employee with tenure more than ten years score above average in terms of management support, while 51 percent of an employee with tenure less than ten years score above average in term of management support. A similar finding is found for appropriateness of change 49.5 percent of an employee with tenure more than ten years scores above average in terms of appropriateness of change. In contrast, 51 percent of an employee with tenure less than ten years score above average in terms of appropriateness of change.
The exploratory study also indicated that males and females show some differences in terms of indicators that predict their readiness. Readiness to change in males is predicted by openness to experience while; readiness to change in a female is predicted by management support. This finding is supported by the past study, which stated that male and female are different in managing change. As female employees are more multi-tasking, they highly need for management support. In contrast, a male employee is more open to new things. Therefore openness to experience personality is more important in predicting readiness among male employees (Patom &Dampster, 2002).
In the context of IIUM, a different approach can be emphasized on ensuring readiness between male and female employees. For a female employee, top management should focus on providing available support and day to day attention in helping subordinates dealing with a document that is needed for change, as well as providing a communication tool to discuss anything about change and material need to transform IIUM to become premier global Islamic university. Management should be able to be accessible by employees if they have problems and difficulties about their job during the transition period. For a male employee, openness to experience is very important; the supervisor at the workplace should encourage a male employee to support IIUM in becoming a premier global Islamic university by encouraging employees to be creative and innovative in doing their job.
The result of multi-group moderation shows that none of the demographic information significantly moderate the relationship between psychosocial predictors with employee readiness to change. However, some differences do exist. For example, individual change efficacy is more important in predicting readiness to change among academic staff than non-academic staff. Individual change efficacy is more important in predicting readiness to change among Ph.D. educational background than other educational backgrounds. In the IIUM context, academic staff is required to produce research and published a journal for the Islamization of human knowledge. To do this task, the academic staff needs to have skills and knowledge in research. If employees get enough training, guidance, and teamwork to do research work, they are confident in performing the task is increased and later on increase their readiness to change in supporting IIUM to become a premier global Islamic university.
Job nature for academic staff required high efficacy; therefore, individual change efficacy is very important for academic staff with a higher educational background in determining readiness to change. On the contrary, for nonacademic staff with lower educational background, other predictors, including management support, openness to experience, and appropriateness of change is more important. This is because their nature of job required more support from management. Change efficacy may be less important than other predictors because non-academic staff already have skills needed to support IIUM in becoming a premier global Islamic university, such as providing the supporting document for the new platform of IIUM.
Individual spirituality predictor is found to be more significant in predicting readiness to change for the older employee than the younger employee in IIUM. This is maybe because older employees are wiser and looking for wisdom and meaning in their life. Younger employees are more focused on the career path, self-growth, and promotion. Therefore change efficacy, openness to experience, and management support is more important predictors for their readiness to change. Another possible reason is that older employees usually stay longer in IIUM than younger employees; older employees have been working in the Islamic community with Islamic work ethics longer than younger employees. Therefore spirituality has an important role in their work-related attitude.

Conclusion
We found that there were some differences in terms of employee readiness to change across demographics, in which Male employees have been found to be readier in supporting organizational change than female employees. Moreover, older employees with a higher educational background were readier to change than a younger employee with low educational background. There was no statistically significant difference across group-level analysis in terms of psychosocial factors of employee readiness to change. It has been found that management support is more significant in predicting employee readiness to change for females than males, while openness to experience is more significant in predicting employee readiness for male than female employees.
Openness to experience, management support, and appropriateness of change were more significant in predicting employee readiness for non-academic staff than academics, while individual change efficacy is more significant in predicting readiness among academics. Individual spirituality was more significant in predicting readiness to change for an older employee than a younger employee. Individual change efficacy was more significant in predicting readiness to change for Ph.D. educational background than academics with other educational backgrounds. Therefore, readiness to change intervention should focus on female employees with lower academic background. Academics need more self-efficacy intervention, while non-academic staff needs more management support intervention. .