Change management practices and employee adaptability of commercial banks in South-South, Nigeria

The emergence of new technology, regulatory reforms, innovations in digital banking and the growing competition in the banking sector have made organizational transformation in the Nigerian banking industry inevitable. Despite all these changes, many of the commercial banks are still facing problems due to the inability of their employees to adjust themselves to the changing demands of the organization. The study examined the relationship between change management practices and employee adaptability of commercial banks in South-South Nigeria with psychological empowerment as the moderator. In particular, the study examined the relationships between communication, participation, training, leadership support, and employee flexibility and the moderating effects of psychological empowerment. The study was based on the following theories, which were used as anchors; Kotter's eight-step change theory, organizational readiness for change theory and psychological empowerment theory. The study employed cross sectional survey research design and the positivist philosophy. The study involved 4986 workers from 20 commercial banks in South-South Nigeria. A sample size of 370 was calculated by the Taro Yamane formula and 400 questionnaires were issued by multi-stage sampling technique. The data collected were primary data which was analyzed by descriptive statistics and Spearman rank correlation coefficient and partial correlation analysis at 0.05 level of significance. Communication (ρ = 0.228; p = 0.000), participation (ρ = 0.453; p = 0.000), training (ρ = 0.269; p = 0.000) and leadership support (ρ = 0.509; p = 0.000) were all found to be positive and statistically significant with the employee flexibility. The study also confirmed that psychological empowerment significantly enhanced the relationship between change management practices and employees' adaptability (r = 0.708; p = 0.000). The study found that the integrated change management practices have significant positive effect on the adaptability of the employees in commercial banks. It thus suggested to increase leadership support, participatory decision making, ongoing employee training, effective organizational communication and psychological empowerment to improve the adaptability of employees in organizational changes. The study added to the body of knowledge because it had shown that psychological empowerment is complementary in enhancing the relationship between change management practices and employee adaptability in the Nigerian banking sector.