Islamic University- Gaza
Dean of Postgraduates Studies
Faculty of Commerce
Business Administration Department

The Relationship between Leader-Member Exchange and Resistance to Change in Organizations: A case study on Mercy Corps (INGO)

By

Hazar Jaber

Supervisor
Dr. Sami Abou-Al-Ross

A dissertation plan submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration

Dec 2014 * Introduction Many research studies have shown that leaders have a strong effect on their subordinates’ behavior and attitudes (Van Dam, Oreg & Schyns, 2008). This relationship is often referred to as the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) relationship, which demonstrates the relationship between supervisor and subordinate during their work (Gerstner & Day, 1997; Liden & Maslyn, 1998). Practically speaking, many of organizational change programs fail because of employees’ resistance to change and management approaches that neglect the human dimensions during change (Bovey & Hede, 2001). In other words, the quality of LMX relationships affects employees’ resistance to the change (Van Dam et al., 2008). However, resistance to change is an important component through organizational changes since it has consequences such as decreasing employee’ satisfaction, output, absenteeism and turnover rates (Van Dam et al., 2008). In this context, many of previous research studies examined the way in which employees deal with organizational change and manage uncertainty (e.g. Furst & Cable, 2008; Fugate, Kinicke & Scheck, 2002; Bordia et al., 2004). Nevertheless, few studies are concern of employees’ emotions and how employees regulate their emotions during organizational change. Emotion control is important in change circumstances because the way people control their emotions affect the way they respond to perceived