The influence of a change management 
process on work-related attitudes: The case of 
Emalahleni Local Municipality 
 
MM Skosana 
orcid.org 0000-0001-6727-5904 
 
 
Mini-dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the 
requirements for the degree Master of Business 
Administration at the North-West University 
 
Supervisor:   Ms N Khumalo 
 
 
Examination: May 2018 
Student number: 28289064 
 
 
 
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
 
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to God for providing me with strength 
to pursue my studies in MBA & for completing my dissertation. I further wish to 
extend my appreciation to my family particularly my husband Mr V.L Skosana and 
my four kids for the support they gave me during my studies. 
To my employer Nkangala District Municipality and the Executive Mayor Cllr Linah 
Malatjie, thank you very much for the support, for funding my studies and for 
providing me with time-off to do my school works. I also thank the employees of 
Nkangala District Municipality for the administrative support they offered me during 
my studies. 
My sincere appreciation to my study leader Ms Ntseliseng Khumalo for the great 
support and the guidance she gave me during the compilation of this dissertation. I 
also appreciate the encouragement she gave me to push for completion of the 
dissertation, thank you so much. 
Lastly I wish to thank the Emalahleni Local Municipality Municipal Manager for 
allowing me to conduct the research on the Municipality. I also wish to acknowledge 
the Municipality’s employees who participated in the research and the corporation I 
received from them during the completion of the questionnaires. 
Thank you all and may the Almighty God bless you. 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
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ABSTRACT 
Employees work attitudes towards change has become a major concern for most 
organisations both private and public sector. This research investigates the degree to 
which change management processes impacts on employee’s attitudes, performance, 
and trust in management as well as employee morale in Emalahleni Local Municipality. 
Emalahleni Local Municipality as a case study falls under Nkangala District Municipality 
in Mpumalanga Province geographically. The study aims to assess the influence of 
change management process on work related attitudes of the Municipal employees. 
The primary research objective was to examine how change management process 
affects workers attitudes towards their work with a specific objective of determining the 
relationship between organisational change management process and job performance, 
to establish the impact of organisational change management process on trust in 
management and to determine the relationship between organisational change 
management process and employee morale.  
 
Quantitative research approach was chosen in order to achieve the principal objectives 
of the study. The research was conducted using closed questionnaire which was 
developed with reference to the literature review and was distributed to 150 participants 
who are employees of Emalahleni Local Municipality. Data was analysed by University 
Statisticians using the SPPS version 23. The study discovered that change programs 
implemented within the organisation do have an impact on their performances on the 
job and employees at Emalahleni Local Municipality are yet to realise the positive 
change in their jobs after the implementation of change programs. The study 
recommended that it is important for senior management, Councillors and staff to be 
aware of all the relevant provisions of the change management framework, and 
ensuring sufficient consultation and communication during change implementation.  
 
KEYWORDS: Change Management, Job Performance, Trust, Employee morale 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................................................... I 
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................................................. II 
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................................. III 
LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................................................... V 
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................................................... VI 
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ....................................................................................................................... VII 
CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................................................ 1 
SCOPE OF THE STUDY ............................................................................................................................................. 1 
1.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................ 1 
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT ............................................................................................................................................... 3 
1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES .............................................................................................................................................. 5 
1.4 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY ........................................................................................................................................ 5 
1.5 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ......................................................................................................................................... 6 
1.6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY APPROACH ......................................................................................................................... 6 
1.7 THE RESEARCH INSTRUMENT ...................................................................................................................................... 7 
1.8 DATA COLLECTION .................................................................................................................................................... 7 
1.9 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION .......................................................................................................................... 8 
1.10 THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY / LIMITATIONS .................................................................................................................... 8 
1.11 SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................................................ 9 
1.12 CHAPTER OUTLINE .................................................................................................................................................. 9 
CHAPTER TWO ..................................................................................................................................................... 11 
LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................................................ 11 
2.1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................................... 11 
2.2 REVIEW OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT MODEL ............................................................................................................... 15 
2.2.1 Kurt Lewin’s change management model .......................................................................................... 15 
2.3.3 Strengths & Weaknesses of Change Management Model of Kurt Lewin ...................................... 17 
2.3 OPERATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT ....................................................................................................................... 17 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATION OF ACCOUNTANTS AND FINANCIAL PROFESSIONALS IN BUSINESS (2015) ................. 19 
2.4 CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS ON JOB PERFORMANCE ............................................................................................... 21 
2.5 CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND TRUST IN MANAGEMENT ....................................................................................... 24 
2.6 CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND EMPLOYEE MORALE ............................................................................................. 27 
2.7 FACTORS IMPEDING SUSTAINABLE CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES AND WORK-RELATED ATTITUDES OF EMPLOYEES IN 
MUNICIPALITIES IN SOUTH AFRICA ................................................................................................................................... 30 
2.8 SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................................................ 31 
CHAPTER THREE ................................................................................................................................................... 33 
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................. 33 
3.1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................................... 33 
3.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY / PARADIGM ..................................................................................................................... 34 
3.3 RESEARCH DESIGN .................................................................................................................................................. 34 
3.4 POPULATION AND SAMPLE ....................................................................................................................................... 35 
3.4.1 Population ................................................................................................................................................ 35 
3.4.2 Sample and sampling method .............................................................................................................. 35 
3.5 THE RESEARCH INSTRUMENT .................................................................................................................................... 37 
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3.6 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY ........................................................................................................................................ 38 
3.6.1 Validity...................................................................................................................................................... 38 
3.6.2 Reliability ................................................................................................................................................. 39 
3.7 PROCEDURE FOR DATA COLLECTION ........................................................................................................................... 39 
3.8 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION ........................................................................................................................ 40 
3.9 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ...................................................................................................................................... 41 
3.10 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 41 
3.11 SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................................................... 43 
CHAPTER FOUR .................................................................................................................................................... 44 
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................. 44 
4.1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................................... 44 
4.2 DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE ........................................................................................................................................... 44 
4.3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS & JOB PERFORMANCE .................................. 46 
4.4 THE CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND TRUST IN MANAGEMENT ................................................................................. 53 
4.5 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND EMPLOYEE MORALE .............................. 59 
4.6 COMPARISON ALL THREE DIMENSIONAL OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY USING CORRELATION CO-EFFICIENT ANALYSIS ....................... 65 
4.8 SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................................................ 66 
CHAPTER FIVE ...................................................................................................................................................... 67 
MAIN FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................. 67 
5.1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................................... 67 
5.2 MAIN FINDINGS ..................................................................................................................................................... 67 
5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................................................................... 69 
5.4 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH .............................................................................................. 71 
5.5 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................................... 72 
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................................... 73 
APPENDIX A – QUESTIONNAIRE ........................................................................................................................... 93 
APPENDIX B: APPROVAL LETTER FROM EMALAHLENI LOCAL MUNICIPALITY ....................................................... 99 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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LIST OF TABLES 
 
TABLE 4. 1: RESPONDENTS’ DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILES ..................................................................................... 45 
TABLE 4. 2: CORRELATION BETWEEN CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES AND JOB PERFORMANCE ................... 47 
TABLE 4. 3: CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND JOB PERFORMANCE ............................................................ 47 
TABLE 4. 4: JOB PERFORMANCE VERSUS LEVEL EMPLOYMENT TEST OF HOMOGENEITY OF VARIANCES ............... 49 
TABLE 4. 5: JOB PERFORMANCE VERSUS LEVEL OF EMPLOYMENT ROBUST TESTS OF EQUALITY OF MEANS .......... 49 
TABLE 4. 6: POST-HOC TEST – MULTIPLE COMPARISONS OF JOB PERFORMANCE VERSUS LEVELS OF EMPLOYMENT
 ............................................................................................................................................................ 50 
TABLE 4. 7: JOB PERFORMANCE VERSUS YEARS OF EXPERIENCE TEST OF HOMOGENEITY OF VARIANCES ........... 51 
TABLE 4. 8: JOB PERFORMANCE VERSUS YEARS OF EXPERIENCE ROBUST TESTS OF EQUALITY OF MEANS .......... 51 
TABLE 4. 9: POST-HOC TEST – MULTIPLE COMPARISONS OF JOB PERFORMANCE VERSUS YEARS OF EXPERIENCE 52 
TABLE 4. 10: CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS ON TRUST IN MANAGEMENT ...................................................... 53 
TABLE 4. 11: CORRELATION BETWEEN CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES AND TRUST IN MANAGEMENT ........... 54 
TABLE 4. 12: TRUST IN MANAGEMENT VERSUS LEVEL EMPLOYMENT TEST OF HOMOGENEITY OF VARIANCES ....... 55 
TABLE 4. 13: TRUST IN MANAGEMENT VERSUS LEVEL OF EMPLOYMENT ROBUST TESTS OF EQUALITY OF MEANS.. 55 
TABLE 4. 14: POST-HOC TEST – MULTIPLE COMPARISONS OF TRUST IN MANAGEMENT VERSUS LEVELS OF 
EMPLOYMENT ........................................................................................................................................ 56 
TABLE 4. 15: TRUST IN MANAGEMENT VERSUS YEARS OF EXPERIENCE TEST OF HOMOGENEITY OF VARIANCES ... 57 
TABLE 4. 16: TRUST IN MANAGEMENT VERSUS YEARS OF EXPERIENCE ROBUST TESTS OF EQUALITY OF MEANS .. 57 
TABLE 4. 17: POST-HOC TEST – MULTIPLE COMPARISONS OF TRUST IN MANAGEMENT VERSUS YEARS OF 
EXPERIENCE .......................................................................................................................................... 58 
TABLE 4. 18: CORRELATION BETWEEN CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND EMPLOYEE MORALE ..................... 59 
TABLE 4. 19:CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND EMPLOYEE MORALE ........................................................... 60 
TABLE 4. 20: EMPLOYEE MORALE VERSUS LEVEL EMPLOYMENT TEST OF HOMOGENEITY OF VARIANCES ............. 61 
TABLE 4. 21: EMPLOYEE MORALE VERSUS LEVEL OF EMPLOYMENT ROBUST TESTS OF EQUALITY OF MEANS ....... 62 
TABLE 4. 22: POST-HOC TEST – MULTIPLE COMPARISONS OF EMPLOYEE MORALE VERSUS LEVELS OF 
EMPLOYMENT ........................................................................................................................................ 62 
TABLE 4. 23: EMPLOYEE MORALE VERSUS YEARS OF EXPERIENCE TEST OF HOMOGENEITY OF VARIANCES ......... 63 
TABLE 4. 24: EMPLOYEE MORALE VERSUS YEARS OF EXPERIENCE ROBUST TESTS OF EQUALITY OF MEANS ........ 64 
TABLE 4. 25: POST-HOC TEST – MULTIPLE COMPARISONS OF EMPLOYEE MORALE VERSUS YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
 ............................................................................................................................................................ 64 
TABLE 4. 26: CORRELATIONS CO-EFFICIENT OF ALL DIMENSIONS – CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS ON JOB 
PERFORMANCE, TRUST IN MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE MORALE ............................................................ 65 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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LIST OF FIGURES 
FIGURE 2. 1: KURT LEWIN’S 3-STEP MODEL OF CHANGE ..................................................... 15 
FIGURE 2. 2: KUBLER-ROSS (2009) GRIEVING CYCLE ........................................................ 19 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 
MBA  : Master in Business Administration 
CLLR  : Councillor 
SPSS  : Statistical Package for Social Sciences 
EBP  : Evidence-Based Policy 
RCT  : Randomized Controlled Trials 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER ONE 
SCOPE OF THE STUDY 
1.1 Introduction 
Organisational change has increasingly become a critical area of inquiry, as private 
firms, Non-government organisations and government bodies seek to maintain and 
improve efficiency. Organisations improve their operations or disintegrate depending on 
how they respond to change. Changes in Local Government space are unavoidable due 
to constant changes in leadership every five years in terms of the South African 
applicable legislations. The change in leadership leads to change in vision, mission, 
goals and objectives of the organisation. The above strategic changes lead to changes 
in operations where employees are directly affected as they are expected to implement 
such changes. According to Al-Ali, Singh & Sohal, (2017) the rate of change in current 
times has increased significantly and change is expected in any organisation. This is 
caused by the evolving world which makes change management as the eternal aspect 
of any organisation to achieve objectives of the organisation. Implementation of 
organisational changes may be pro-actively done by organisations or naturally forced on 
them due to changes in the world. Managing organisational change requires willingness 
from leadership that must direct change, change in organisational culture and the 
commitment of implementers of change together with implementation disregarding 
nature of the changes that must be put to effect.  
 
The democratic dispensation was an achievement appreciated by most citizen in the 
country with various challenges faced by the municipalities to embrace changes 
expected to happen such as amalgamation of urban with rural areas and improvement 
of the areas that were behind with development and service delivery. Citizens in small 
and rural towns still continue to struggle in this democratic dispensation due to various 
failures by local Municipalities (Ashton, 2013). These areas have experienced poor 
service delivery due to a combination of incompetence, lack of resources or poor use of 
resources. Even well-resourced urban Municipalities like City of Johannesburg are still 
facing similar challenges such as billing problems, poor governance and lack of housing 
2 
 
provision with City of Cape Town having challenges of property developers’ dominance 
which results in lack of provision for housing for the poor while EThekwini municipality 
also urban planning problems (Allameh, et al., 2012). Structural and institutional reforms 
in local municipalities remain a challenge that is bedeviled by numerous problems 
(Ashton, 2013). The problems range from governmental which include expectations to 
fulfill ‘unfunded mandates’ to institutional problems like financial mismanagement, poor 
service delivery, financial non-compliancy and lack of application of change 
management processes. The result has been that some municipalities have been 
placed under administration whereby Provincial Government takes over the Municipality 
for a specific period of time. The situation is prevailing in five provinces within the 
country (Ashton, 2013). 
 
These problems are found in Municipalities across the country and reform cannot take 
place as long as Municipalities and political leaders remain unaccountable to their 
constituencies which they are meant to serve thus structural change is required. Other 
problems which have affected successful change in South African municipalities include 
ways in which changes are implemented and often seen as the reason for change 
resistance, and employees stress when change initiatives are being implemented 
(William, 2003).Change management in local government is inevitable as there are 
continuous changes in the legislation, political and top management leadership as 
guided by the acts governing Municipalities and other external factors that compel the 
Municipality to effect change management and to ensure change management 
processes are in place to implement such changes. 
 
Based on State of Local Government in South Africa report, Department of Cooperative 
Governance and Traditional Affairs (2009) change management initiatives whether 
strategic or operational fails in Local Government because of lack of monitoring on 
implementation of change and lack of cooperation with other relevant stakeholders 
which is one of the critical element outlined in Lewin’s model on change management 
as reflected on refreezing stage where it emphasizes on reinforcing the new behaviour 
or culture in the organisation to prevent regression as changes would be short-lived if 
3 
 
refreezing stage is overlooked in this change management model. It is expected that to 
effect operational changes in an organisation like Emalahleni Local Municipality with 
3443 number of employees will come with its challenges and if such change 
management processes are not communicated properly and/or well received by 
employees they will have an impact on the work attitudes of the employees to accept 
such changes which will subsequently affect the performance of the Municipality to 
deliver the services to the communities. 
1.2 Problem Statement 
Employees work attitudes towards change has become a major concern for most 
organisations both private and public sector. The research seeks to investigate the 
degree at which change management processes impacts employee’s attitudes, 
performance, and trust in management as well as employee morale in Emalahleni Local 
Municipality. According to El-Farra & Badawi (2012) organisations that are willing to 
adopt and adapt to change create a better competition for the business. Organisational 
change has a significant impact on people working for that organisations and it provides 
for growth and development while it can also be viewed as threats from creating new 
skills, relationships and activities. More often organisational change processes fail to 
meet their intended purpose resulting in negative impacts on the organisations and 
workforce. These include fruitless and wasteful expenditures, leading to low productivity 
from the employees (Wanza & Nkuraru, 2016). Implementation of changes in any 
system, structure or process makes individual change to become vital as any change 
starts with individual’s ability to accept change and unless majority of individuals are 
willing to change their attitudes or behaviour no organisational change may occur (El-
Farra & Badawi, 2012). 
 
It is also common for municipalities to devise strategies to manage and implement 
change in closed boardrooms without the full involvement of those assigned to 
implement such changes and implementing the strategies thereof without consultations. 
This approach, as far as Keller and Aiken (2009) are concerned, fail mainly because the 
understanding of change management failure is rooted in poor understanding of human 
4 
 
behaviour. According to Cunningham (2014), change in the non-private sector is more 
difficult because of the various factors but he emphasized on a few with the major one 
being the number of the employees the change process is going to affect. In private 
organisations, they can include almost everyone in the change process decision making 
and there will be less resistance in the organisational change and this is different with 
the public sector organisation like the organisation in this study. Most decisions are 
made behind closed doors and then dictated to the employees which may lead to 
resistance. He also mentioned the resources and the time that will be needed if the 
change process had to include everyone therefore this is a big problem in the 
organisation on factors that might be necessary to include everyone. 
 
In a Study by Ellen (2014), a study focusing on the Kenyan legislatures, showed that 
most change programmes in public organisations fail. There is a long list of reasons 
why there is failure in implementation of change which includes capability of public 
sector organisation to align with the political environment and integrating the political 
preferences, taking note of the individuals that are in a position of power, good 
managerial discretion using parameters and employee empowerment and having good 
responses to the change parameters and evaluation in public services. The capability of 
success can be made better by countering intuitive insights about how employees see 
the environment and their favorite line of response. There is still a gap of research 
literature on change management concerning local government hence there are still 
challenges on change implementation due to general laws of change as applied in the 
sector. The ineffective change management processes in Municipalities affects service 
delivery directly which will lead to community protests and subsequently affects the 
functionality of the Municipality. Based on the State of Local Government in South Africa 
report which indicates that from January to August 2009 only, 52 protests were 
encountered in the country to due service delivery to the communities by Municipalities 
which cost the country billions of rand to fix the damaged properties during the protest 
and affected the country’s economy. 
 
5 
 
Using Emalahleni Local Municipality case study within Nkangala district municipality in 
Mpumalanga Province, the research aim to measure the influence of change 
management process on work related attitudes of the Municipal employees. The 
assessment is on organisational change management using Lewin’s change 
management model to analyse determinants such as attitudes, work performance, trust 
of management by employees and employee’s morale after the implementation of 
change as amongst factors that prevails in support of change management 
programmes. 
1.3 Research Objectives 
The main research objective will be to examine how change management process 
affects workers attitudes towards their work. 
The specific research objectives are as follows: 
 To determine the relationship between organisational change management 
process and job performance. 
 To establish the impact of organisational change management process on trust in 
management. 
 To determine the relationship between organisational change management 
process and employee morale. 
The research questions for the study will attempt to provide answers to the objectives of 
the study. The research questions are highlighted below: 
 What is the relationship between organisational change management process 
and job performance? 
 What is the impact of organisational change management process on trust in 
management? 
 What is the relationship between organisational change management and 
employee morale? 
1.4 Rationale for the Study 
Municipalities in the country are facing various challenges ranging from basic services 
backlog of water, sanitation, electricity, waste removal and roads accessibility to budget 
6 
 
constraints due to increasing demands from the communities for basic services. While 
on one hand the employees are expected to provide these services seems to be less 
productive and disengaged which leads to more pressure on Government to meet the 
society needs. Hence establishing the core source of these challenges will assist 
managers to find solutions tailored for Local Government. The study rationale will be to 
measure how processes of change are administered in Emalahleni Local Municipality 
and explore whether they have any effects on employee attitudes towards work, 
performance, trust in management and morale as such factors subsequently affects the 
performance of the municipality on delivery the above mentioned services. 
 1.5 Ethical Considerations 
Approval will be required from the Municipal Authority to conduct the study at 
Emalahleni Local Municipality with the Municipal employees as participants. The 
questionnaire will include the disclaimer indicating that participant’s anonymity shall be 
protected, and the questionnaire shall be handled confidentially. Participants shall 
further be assured that the participation on the study is voluntary and participants can 
withdraw from participation if they wish to do so. The Municipality will be assured that 
the study will not be published without their approval and the study is for academic 
purposes only. The research study will comply with the requirements from the North 
West University and has undergone all ethical processes as required by the University. 
1.6 Research Methodology Approach 
The study will use quantitative approach. Quantitative research was defined as a typical 
research approach which involves gathering of numerical data, while regarding the 
connection of research and theory as empirical, generally preferring a natural science 
approach and assumes social reality on objectivist conception (Bryman & Bell, 2015). 
Quantitative research therefore will be more appropriate for this study given that the 
objective is to advance a deeper understanding of change management in a particular 
organisation namely, Emalahleni local municipality. The questionnaires from previous 
studies have been adopted with amendments and additions to ensure the research 
question is fully covered. A minimum of 150 questionnaires will be circulated to the 
identified workers of the Municipality. 
7 
 
 
Table 1. 1: Profile of Respondents 
Respondents Quantity 
Top management (Head of Departments) 10 
Middle management (Operations Managers) 20 
Team Supervisors 45 
Artisans 35 
General Workers 40 
The table above reflects the targeted participants for the study as they are deemed 
relevant for the study as the implementers of changes in Municipalities are those at 
lower level hence 80% of the targeted participants are junior employees. 
1.7 The Research Instrument 
Quantitative approach will be used for the study as it focuses on gathering numerical 
data and analyzing the data across groupings of individuals or to describe a specific 
occurrence which is relevant for this research type (Babbie, 2010). Questionnaires will 
be used as the research instrument as it is easier and faster to use than to interview a 
lot of people. Closed questionnaires will be used to gather data for the study. The 
questionnaires shall be circulated amongst all the selected employees for them to 
complete. The questionnaire will use the Likert scale to extract employees’ responses 
for achievement of study objectives.  
1.8 Data Collection 
Data will be collected through closed questionnaire to 150 participants. Once 
questionnaires have been completed, the forms shall be collected manually from 
Emalahleni Local Municipality by the researcher and verified whether the information is 
filled correctly and in full. The data then will be manually captured onto SPSS in 
preparation for data cleaning and coding. Thereafter, it will be analyzed per section in 
preparation for report writing.  
8 
 
1.9 Data Analysis and Interpretation 
The researcher shall make use of the University SPSS data analysis software for 
analyzing the coded data. The software will be used to facilitate data interpretation to 
answer the research objectives, to generate findings and subsequent recommendations 
thereof. Cronbach alpha coefficients shall be utilized to evaluate the measuring 
instrument’s reliability for all variables. Correlation coefficient analysis shall be utilised to 
measure the strength of variables relationship. The study objectives will be to 
investigate whether the relationship exist between change management process and 
job performance, trust in management and employee morale hence correlation 
coefficient is critical in responding to the research question. Descriptive statistics will be 
used to measure central tendency by way of mean and standard deviation with 
frequency tables measuring the participant’s responses in line with their biographic 
information. Lastly Anova test will be utilized to measure if there is a significant 
difference in participant’s answers based on other independent variables. 
1.10 The Scope of the Study / limitations 
The primary limitation on the study is that it is focused in one municipality and therefore 
its findings cannot be generalized to other municipalities. Furthermore the study will be 
conducted using a quantitative approach and some of the findings that could be 
extracted using the qualitative approach might not be well covered in this study. Other 
methodological limitations includes the following: 
The researcher encountered the following limitations;  
 Limitations on language barrier as the questionnaires shall be prepared in 
English and some of the participants might struggle to understand the 
questionnaire.  
 Time to conduct the research is limited due to a set deadline for submission by 
the University which creates limits for the researcher to include more participants. 
 The research scope of discussions, findings and conclusions are limited to time 
and conditions that were prevailing during the time of the study at Emalahleni 
Local Municipality and thus should be considered in that respect. 
9 
 
1.11 Summary 
This chapter discussed the underlying challenges related to change management in 
Local Government, objectives and research question that will be addressed were 
discussed together with the aspect of methodological process to be applied in this 
study. There are various sources in the literature that have reported the occurrence of 
little efficiency, lack of enthusiasm of the employees and lack of monitoring were raised 
in a number of municipalities across the country as the contributing factor to poor 
service delivery. The report further indicates that the employees’ morale is affected by 
poor cooperation, weak communication and weak relations between management and 
organised labour caused by lack of trust between both parties which led to weaker 
connection of management and employees in many municipalities. Hence this study is 
more relevant to find solutions to the challenges as stated above.  
 
1.12 Chapter outline  
CHAPTER ONE comprises the introductory chapter of the whole study. The chapter will 
serve to put the research into context by providing a detailed information of the research 
with clear definition of problem statement. It will also give the objectives, approach, 
research questions and study rationale together with study limitations.  
CHAPTER TWO which is the following one shall be the literature review. It will discuss 
and analyse the theoretical perspectives governing operational change in public sector 
as well as various change management model applicable in the public sector. The 
chapter will also deal with several aspects of change management processes including 
the drawbacks of the attitude of managers and workers and their impact on the 
outcome. 
 
CHAPTER THREE will constitute the research design and methodology. The chapter 
will discuss chosen research paradigm and approach will be expounded and the reason 
for the selection of each paradigm and approach will be explain. The chapter will also 
state the sample and the sample size selected for the study. Besides this, the chapter 
10 
 
will explain the research instrument, validity and reliability, ethical considerations and 
study limitations. 
CHAPTER FOUR will cover data presentation and data analysis collected on the field. 
Tables, figures plus graphs may be used for data presentation. Statistical tables of 
mean, median, mode and frequencies will also be used. Analysis will be done with the 
use of the literature review.  
CHAPTER FIVE will conclude the study and offer recommendations based on the 
conclusions and research findings. The discussions of main findings will be done 
preceding conclusions. After recommendations the chapter will include further areas of 
study for future researches. The chapter will close with a conclusion. 
 
 
 
 
11 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
LITERATURE REVIEW 
2.1 Introduction 
This chapter of literature review is to evaluate how change management process affects 
employees’ attitudes towards their work. It looks at the change management process, 
and how its aspects impact on the attitudes of management and employees in an 
organisation. It begins by looking at the accepted definitions of ‘change management’, 
the theories underpinning the subject, and reviews literature related to global and local 
perspectives on the subject. Special emphasis is placed on public sector change 
management and how it affects public sector workers’ attitudes towards their work. The 
review also looks at the barriers experienced by municipalities on execution of change 
management processes and how these can be overcome; borrowing viewpoints and 
solutions from contemporary change management thinking and practice around the 
world. 
 
Change is believed to be unavoidable in our modern lives. Ground-breaking change 
becomes more and more important if not an imperative above all for organisations 
projecting to attain positive outcomes on a long-term basis. Therefore, 
managers/executives are becoming more concerned about the noticeable and 
successful methodologies to use to implement organisational changes that are efficient 
and workable with minimal negative alterations to the existing structures. Change is not 
limited to certain organisations or institutions whether their work emphasis is on public 
or private sector. While all organisations are subject to change, some others are more 
concerned of implementing adequate measures that strengthen the working relationship 
leading to positive outcomes. Among the institutions that require deep change are 
public services especially those that deal with community services like municipalities. 
Given the recurrent challenges faced by these institutions and due to their ‘operative, 
demanding, dynamic and complex environments’, local government is pointed out as 
fitting change in many ways (Govender, 2016). 
12 
 
 
However, one of the key issues that should be emphasised in the change management 
processes as in the case of South Africa and other developing nations is to consider the 
improvement of the capacity of the public workers. The more managers and staff 
members that deal with the flux demands of the communities are well-capacitated in 
terms of management of human resource and other aspects, the more effective service 
will be offered to their clients. Also, they are likely to be less misbehaving in applying 
work-related principles that encourage better behavioural traits in the working 
environment.  
 
Change management is defined as processes that is involved in renewing continuously 
the way a company is led, structures and handle its aptitudes in order to attend to the 
needs of its clients (Moran & Brightman, 2001). While Burnes (2014) defines change as 
something that sticks in our daily life strategically and operationally which organisations 
need to consider to bring about change where it requires to secure the future of the 
organisation. Booysen (2007) and Nkomo & Kriek (2011) present change management 
as a process that consists in slightly changing the organisation strategy to improve the 
way forward about the planned outcomes be reached with success using appropriate 
methods and procedures. Prosci (2012) postulates that change management is an 
empowering structure for handling the social aspects of change. Therefore, it can be 
noted that Change management can be classified as a precise examination of practical 
fundamentals involving organisation measures together with tools regulating reasons for 
change together with the proposition that measures the determination for things to 
change completely as change is entrenched to begin with people (Queensland 
Government, 2014).  
 
Organizational change management reflects the complete organization and 
requirements for change, whereas change management might be used only to consider 
the impact on employees that such organizational change affects. It considers various 
disciplines, within the organisation for enhancement of business operations while Moran 
& Brightman, (2001) defines it as a process that is involved in renewing continuously the 
13 
 
way a company is led, structured and handles its aptitudes in order to attend to the 
needs of its clients. Change management as a recognised discipline has been in 
existence for over half a century (Ashkenas, 2013), and has become a recurring theme 
for examination by academicians, consultants and practitioners (Ndahiro, 2015). 
Business is rapidly evolving and on daily basis, improved technologies and 
developments provide prospects to flourish or to fail and enduring in this atmosphere 
means learning to speedily adjust to and embrace change, unlike attempting to resist it 
(Williams, 2017). These rapid environmental changes characterised by heightened 
competitive forces, constantly changing stakeholder and customer expectations, and an 
increased knowledge-based workforce have become the general operating 
circumstances for organisations. Change is forthwith an ever so-present part of 
organizational life (Burnes, 2004), and firms experience a key changes nearly once 
every three years, and smaller ones are happening frequently (Nicolaidis & Katsaros, 
2007).  
 
It is against this background that in order to remain efficient; firms needs to continually 
increase their performance by ensuring reduction of costs, improving quality, and 
distinguishing their products and services through the use of their human capital to 
achieve their operational goals as well as to gain sustained competitive advantages 
(Ndahiro, 2015). Organizational changes introduces new forms of actions, beliefs and 
attitudes in response to challenges and chances that appears from the internal and the 
external environment (Nicolaidis & Katsaros, 2007). The need for spontaneous 
modification to peripheral circumstances has set increase to the idea of ‘striving 
organizations’, with the ability to embrace constant adaptation to external environmental 
changes (Griffin, 2006). Many organisations are presently experiencing some elements 
of change with many of the change guided by the needs for organisations to align 
themselves in the aspect of changing competitive environments (Balogun, 2001).  
 
Every organization that aims to sustain or be successful in today’s environment has to 
manage change properly by adopting effective change management practices (Agarwal 
& Khan, 2017). To keep pace, organisations often implements change initiatives such 
14 
 
as re-engineering, mergers, acquisitions, and management of quality to decrease 
operating costs, enhance organisational performance, and to improve productivity 
(Mosadeghrad, 2014). Sizeable investments have been devoted to change tools, 
employee training, and books; but research studies show that between 60-70% of 
change projects do not succeed coming from as far as 1970’s (Ashkenas, 2013). Many 
organisations experienced challenges to implement organisational changes effectively 
and major challenges for organisational change implementation programmes are 
caused by inadequate training and capacity of employees in terms of skills, lack of 
support from management, poor leadership, inappropriate organisational culture, scarce 
resources, and lack of communication, poor monitoring and measurement system 
(Mosadeghrad, 2014). Change management does not distinguish between the private 
and public sectors. However, most studies on change management tend to concentrate 
on the non-public sector and to originate their methods to change from private sector 
(Coram & Burnes, 2001).  
 
While many researchers draw parallels between private and public sector change 
management needs, some believe it to be more challenging in the public sector (Edge, 
2005). Operationally, the public sector now requires contemporary ways of improving 
service delivery; more so in South Africa where service delivery is a problem and 
solutions are needed to tackle issues that affect administrative and other problems 
(Gau, 2011).While some scholars have argued that change management strategies and 
tactics are the same across the public and private sectors due to similarities in 
overreaching principles, firms must also consider the organisation culture, unions, 
employee mind-set and the capacity of the executives to initiate changes (Coram & 
Burnes, 2001). Coram & Burnes (2001) further argue that there isn’t one approach to 
achieve organisational change but that public sector organisations must adapt an 
approach to change which aligns to their needs and situation. Within the available public 
sector change management literature, a bigger focus has been given to government 
structural changes (Schmidt, 2017).  
15 
 
2.2 Review of Change Management Model 
The model that is more applicable to the study will be a model that deals with attitudes 
of individuals towards change in an organisation. An attitude can be described as 
person’s beliefs, emotional state and social trends towards significant objects, groups, 
occasions or symbols (McLeod, 2014). According to McLeod (2014) assumes that the 
relation amongst the attitudes and behaviour is consistent as an individual’s attitudes 
will influence the behaviour towards that specific matter. Kurt Lewin three step change 
management model is found to be more relevant to this study as it is based on resolving 
social behavioral conflict on employees which is operational matters of change 
management in an organisation (Sarayreh, Khudair & Barakat, 2013). Below is the 
discussion of change management model by Kurt Lewin in details: 
2.2.1 Kurt Lewin’s change management model 
Kurt Lewin believed that planned change was the most effective way of resolving 
conflicts and that learning was central to planned change. Through learning Lewin 
believed that the employee perceptions can be reshaped so that they could understand 
their environment. Lewin’s believed that the planned change consisted of group 
dynamics, field theory, action research and the 3 step model which was all considered 
as essential elements of the planned change. However researchers now consider these 
elements as separate (Sarayreh, Khudair & Barakat, 2013). The 3- Step model will be 
analysed for this research. The model comprised of 3 stages; unfreeze, change and 
freeze. 
Figure 2. 1: Kurt Lewin’s 3-Step model of change 
 
 
 
 
16 
 
Step 1; Unfreeze 
The model is on assumptions that the human behaviour was based on stationery 
equilibrium and that this behaviour had to be destabilized before any change can be 
done. This destabilization is what he termed ‘unfreezing’. The view was that old 
behaviours had to be replaced by new ones (Sarayreh, Khudair & Barakat, 2013). Lewin 
stated that it was not easy and there was not a single universal method to do this. It was 
also acknowledged that unfreezing could result in emotional problems for those involved 
in the process. Resistance and group conformity were also other problems that could be 
encountered. However Lewin believed that all this was necessary to bring about the 
required change. 
Step 2; moving (transition) 
According to Lewin unfreezing creates a vacuum that has to be filled by learning. He 
stated that unfreezing actually motivates learning but a direction of the learning has to 
be provided. The transitional stage can be accelerated through persuasion of 
employees of the impending future benefits, working together with them, encouraging 
them or through leadership support for the change (Sarayreh, Khudair & Barakat, 2013). 
Lewin thus advocated for learning based on action- research. This he noted would be 
crucial to bring about the desired new behaviours. 
Step 3; Refreezing 
The third step seeks to reinforce new behaviours. Lewin noted that refreezing is done to 
stabilize new behaviours and to prevent regression from such behaviours. This stage 
involves the institutionalizing of the new behaviours so that they become the values and 
traditions. The change would be short lived if the refreezing stage is overlooked (Addy, 
2007).  Lewin also went further to highlight that it is imperative that there be a 
supportive environment for the learner so that the environment and the required 
behaviours will be in sync.  
Lewin viewed change as a collective activity rather than being individualistic. Thus he 
highlighted the necessity of changing group norms and behaviours as crucial for 
changing individual behaviours (Muchinsky, 2000). Refreezing in an organisational 
context will thus involve changing the organisational culture, policies, practices and 
norms.  
17 
 
2.3.3 Strengths & Weaknesses of Change Management Model of Kurt Lewin 
Lewin planned model has however attracted criticism in the recent past, the main one 
being that his theory suggests that organizations function in an unchanging conditions, it 
was only appropriate for minor change projects, did not consider organizational 
authority and political environment and lastly was top-down and management-driven 
(Burnes, 2004). The model has its own defenders, with Morrison (2014) arguing that the 
Lewin’s theory is still applicable currently as it was when it was initially developed. 
According to Morrison (2014), critics misunderstand the model and its intent, and using 
Lewin stages gives people a structure to put an effort on change, and that freezing is 
actually a necessary step if people are not to regress once the change process is 
complete.  
 2.3 Operational change management 
According to Terrell (2015), change initiatives are categorized in two categories: 
strategic change and operational change. While a focus of the study is on operational 
change management strategic change is described as initiatives which considers 
changes in the culture, vision or the business mission or organisation, and tends to view 
organizational change management events as an important part of the project; and 
affect the organization itself and the way workers think about the organization (Terrell, 
2015). Operational change initiatives include employees’ ways of workings, and central 
to systems changes, procedures, and can be viewed as a strategic change if such 
changes results in changing the mission or ways in which the organisation runs (Terrell, 
2015). These changes are regularly positive actions to adjust to industry changes or to 
enhance procedures for modest benefit (Kokemuller, 2018). The operational change 
management is mostly in a smaller scope than strategic changes and changes can 
mostly influence all employees in an organisation or focused on divisions or 
departments within the organization with the process usually led internally by executives 
or heads of departments (Kokemuller, 2018).  
 
The operational side of an organisation, from a local municipality perspective includes 
its core activities which are service delivery, logistics, financial management, 
18 
 
information technology and social services. Operations pertain to the execution of 
everyday businesses. For a local municipality these constitute service delivery 
operations, attending to consumer queries, efforts at improving efficiency and 
determination of tariffs. Continuous improvement is necessary for municipalities to 
deliver quality services to the consumers constantly. Failure to deliver on the 
operational side will mean that the strategic goals of the municipalities will be rendered 
unattainable when strategic goals are long-term, usually more than 5 years. It is critical 
for leaders to recognize and differentiate between the strategic and operational side of 
an organisations performance and how they complement each other to drive an 
organisation to success. The challenges faced by most organisations is that at times, 
there is no demarcation between what constitutes operational and strategic aspects of 
the organisation. An attempt to focus on one side of change will be detrimental for an 
organisation’s success. There is thus a need to balance aspects of both changes so 
that the organisation remains effective and sustainable. To manage both strategic and 
operational change thus requires a disciplined approach to change management. 
 
2.3 The effects of operational change on employees 
Operational change is inevitable in any organisation (Terrel, 2015). Employees will thus 
react differently from an emotional perspective depending on their emotional 
predisposition and levels of adaptability. Levels of resistance will differ with each 
individual based on their willingness to accept the change. Kubler-Ross (2009) Grieving 
Cycle can be used to show the stages of the individual responses to change.  
19 
 
 
Figure 2. 2: Kubler-Ross (2009) Grieving Cycle 
Source: Association of Accountants and Financial Professionals in Business 
(2015) 
The curve above shows the emotional response of an employee to change given 
adequate time. The more emotionally depressed the employee the lower the business 
performance hence the deep in the curve which eventually rises over time as the 
employee gradually accepts the change. For successful considerations of change, the 
performance levels of the employee must exceed the levels it was before the change 
program as shown in the curve above (Kubler- Ross, 2009). The Grieving Cycle 
includes six stages which are discussed below as follows: 
 Stage 1 PRE-INITIATIVE: This is the stage before the introduction of the change. 
The emotional state of the employee at this stage depends on the cultural 
context of the organisation (Kubler- Ross, 2009). At this stage an assessment of 
the organisation’s culture is done to gauge the level of resistance that may 
emerge.  
 Stage 2 DENIAL: Denial will be encountered in the second phase. The 
employees will express a lack of belief in the relative worth of the new system 
and will anticipate that it will fail. Consequently their performance levels will drop 
slightly (Barth & Bean, 2012). 
20 
 
 Stage 3 ANGER, PESSIMISM AND DESPAIR: At this stage the employees will 
shift from a denial stage and face the reality that change is going to happen. 
They will likely respond with anger and pessimism. They are irritated with the 
change and their performance levels drop even lower than the denial stage. As 
the change program continues they will experience despair in fear of losing their 
jobs and this constitutes the lowest level of drop for the curve. According to 
Kubler-Ross (2009) employees are likely to respond in one of the three ways at 
this stage (1) they will quit (2) they will get on board and (3) they may need to be 
relieved of their duties. The aspect of relieving employees of their duties is a 
tough decision but one that may have to be made business wise which is not 
commonly found in Municipal environment.   
 Stage 4 TESTING: Testing is crucial to find out the effectiveness of a change 
program and any improvements. Employees will be given the chance to work in 
the new environment and this is when testing will be done to note any 
improvements on their jobs (Kubler- Ross, 2009). Negative emotions will 
disappear if the experience is positive for them however the experience can 
produce negative results. Negative results can be caused by poorly designed 
training methods, poor testers or other factors. If the negative emotions develop 
the employees’ performances can drop further down. As such all efforts must be 
directed towards designing a program that will succeed. 
 Stage 5 ACCEPTANCE: This is the phase towards the end of the program and it 
is associated with employees’ acceptance of the change program. Performance 
levels will likely reach the same level as it was before the training program 
started (Barth & Bean, 2012). Employees will face the new jobs with renewed 
hope and confidence that they would not lose their jobs. The initiative should 
meet the deadline because if it fails to do so there is a possibility that the 
employees’ performances will slide further downwards. 
 Stage 6 POST-INITIATIVE SUCCESS: At the stage the performance of the 
employees is expected to be higher than it was before the start of the program. If 
the employees are still struggling then the program was a failure and more still 
needs to be done to improve it. Adequate steps will have been taken in order to 
21 
 
make employees understand their new roles. They should not create 
workarounds the new system but should adopt the new methods, workarounds 
are usually inefficient and a waste of resources (Kubler- Ross, 2009). 
2.4 Change management process on Job performance 
Hose (2017) describes job performance as the way employees perform their duties 
assigned to them. Job performance relates to how individuals perform in their job duties 
and good employee performance is an important factor on achievement of set goals and 
objectives of the organisation and as such, managers needs to consider the factors that 
impacts employees’ performance and take them into considerations when making 
organisational changes (Wanza & Nkuraru, 2016). A study by Ndahiro (2015) has 
revealed that a strong synergy exist between organisational culture and employee 
productivity and organisational culture creates momentum that encourages employees 
to work together as a unit towards realizing organisational vision thereby enhancing 
their overall performance. Therefore, managing change is important to ensure that 
employee motivation does not impair their performance negatively. Effective 
communication is one of the critical factors to consider towards positive change 
management in any organisation. 
 
Organisational leadership should be conscious of their management of change 
processes on employees’ performance. Impactful leadership styles are highly likely to 
increase employee motivation, motivating them to surpass anticipated outcomes. 
Therefore, a change initiative that is result driven is capable of increasing employees’ 
levels of performance. Omar, Mohammed, Abdullah & Nura (2013) found that 
correlation exist between change management process and job performance. It can be 
constructive or destructive depending on the process adopted to implement such 
changes. 
 
A study carried out by Wanza & Nkuraru (2016) to examine the relationship between 
change management and job performance at a Kenyan municipality revealed that 
structural changes and organizational leadership impacts on employees’ performance 
22 
 
positively. The key findings of Wanza & Nkuraru’s (2016) study was that a positive 
correlation between structural change and employee performance do exist. In other 
words change management enhanced employee performance. The study also revealed 
that changes in technology increased employee performance and the explanation given 
for this is that employees were much more inclined towards accepting technological 
changes because they made their jobs simpler and more effective. Another notable 
finding from Wanza & Nkuraru’s (2016) study was that the influence of culture also in 
the increasing the employees performance should also be acknowledged. The study 
revealed that a strong culture creates momentum for teamwork and consequently 
increases in performance.  Wanza & Nkuraru (2016) concluded that changes in 
structure, leadership, technology and culture positively influenced employee 
performance. The study indicates useful insights into the effect of change on employee 
performance and was useful for informing the study as was carried out in an African 
context. However the differences in culture between Kenya and South Africa warrant a 
research on its own within the South African culture in order to approve or disprove the 
results.  
 
Rieley & Clarkson (2010) did a study on impact of change on performance. Rieley & 
Clarkson (2010) discovered that contemporary organisations are faced with the 
impending need to improve performance and that has constituted the biggest challenge 
facing organisations. Thus their study found out that an analysis of the interplay of the 
dynamics within the organisation are crucial for change management to induce 
increased performance. The study found out that in order for the organisation to 
address these interrelated dynamics it needs to map out the relationship between the 
nature of the work the employees do and the way they perform it; their level of 
understanding of organisational principles and values; understanding that structure is a 
major influence of behaviour; and planning by objectives. The study by Rieley & 
Clarkson (2010) noted that understanding the relatedness of these dynamics were 
pertinent for organisations to get the best out of employees during change. The study 
was useful in that it acknowledges the influence of the organisational dynamics on 
employee performance, something which most studies have not been able to do.  The 
23 
 
change process interferes with employees work routine, provides mental and emotional 
instability, and depresses on productivity (Stringer, 2007). The mental and emotional 
instability brought about by organisational change have implications on employee job 
performance since employees’ work-related happiness is negatively impacted (Muia, 
2015). This is confirmed by the study done by Fong (2011) which revealed that to keep 
employee performance high during the change process, variables such as quality of 
leadership, employee development, employee tolerance to change, quality of 
communication, and procedural justice are critical to successful change. Employee 
attitudes and their performance is also affected by how well the change programme is 
communicated to them. Bradshaw (2016), argues that discussion on the application of 
change strategies warrants dedication and importance for employees, and change 
success can be realized by leaders by developing a strongly held set of corporate 
values that offer an organisation with intentions that motivates employees. 
 
Knapp (2011) mentioned some factors that can help keep the job performance at a 
good pace during the organisational change which are discussed below. This already is 
a high stress scenario and the best thing an organisation undergoing change can do is 
to keep their employees in good shape during the change process. Below are some of 
the things the employer can do during this time: 
 Trust your staff: they already know what is happening most of the times and 
some are keen to work with the process at hand. They have to feel valued at this 
time and this will reduce the level of stress that can be felt during the change 
processes. 
  Communicate clearly with all staff: there isn’t supposed to be any ambiguity 
when dealing with employees at this time. Everyone on board has to have the 
communicated details ready on hand with them so that they don’t remain in the 
shadow. 
 Self-assessment of the organisation: the organisation has to undergo a type of 
assessment so as to see where it is in the current change process. 
24 
 
 Line manager awareness: the line managers have to be aware of the current 
situation so that they are able to identify and deal with the individuals under 
stress. 
 Emotional resilience: Organisation must help build the wellness of the employees 
especially those that have jobs under risk in the change protocol. 
 Provide sufficient time: since the organisation is dealing with individuals not 
machines, the time factor is important as some of the changes have to stick in 
and this sometimes may take time, therefore patience must be exercised. 
2.5 Change management process and trust in management 
Trust in management is a process by which individuals becomes trustworthy for other 
individuals. This is a very important concept in change management because it build 
confidence in the changes being implemented by the management. Change is 
inevitable and unavoidable by any organisation. It is of paramount importance to explore 
how organisational change affects relations amongst organisational leaders. For change 
management processes to add value in any organisation, leaders need to know the 
motives informing change in their organisations and communicate them clearly to the 
rest of organisational leaders. This is important for maintaining a positive organisational 
culture that deepens respect and trust among other attributes. The converse is 
detrimental. When change is conceptualized and initiated without communicating 
effectively among other levels of organisational leadership, weakens the relational fabric 
in the organisation, creating an environment of mistrust to breed and fester if not 
addressed. According to Noble (2014) change management process involves 
establishment of new systems, procedures and may also include re-organizing roles 
which might affect other cadres negatively and if not properly managed, it may lead to 
negative attitudes amongst leaders in management level.  
 
Ahmad (2017) on a study on effect of trust in management on the success of change 
management in Malaysian municipalities. According to Ahmad (2017) change in an 
organisation takes place when an organisation is in a period of transition from one state 
to another with the ultimate objective being to increase its effectiveness. Ahmad (2017) 
25 
 
acknowledge the presence of some form of resistance and cost in every change 
program but however stated that the objective of those in charge of the change program 
should be to keep these at the greatest minimum level possible. The study focussed on 
measuring the success of organisational change management among several 
constructs in Malaysian municipalities an area where there had been limited research. 
Ahmad (2017) endeavored to accomplish two objectives namely; finding out the 
employee’s attitude towards change management and; factors influencing the readiness 
of employees to accept change. The study found out that change does not take place in 
isolation, it was largely structured, thorough and it had far reaching implications on 
people; both teams and individuals within an organisation. In addition to that the 
research by Ahmad (2017) investigated the influence of change management on 
employees had consequences on three factors; trust in the management, 
communication and employee commitment to the organisation. The study revealed that 
well-structured change management made employees to have more trust in the 
management. Communication between employees and management during the change 
process was also found to be positive. Increased commitment by employees was also 
exhibited through their willingness to speak positively about their organisation to 
outsiders. The study by Ahmad et al (2017) advocated for the need for adequate 
change planning as it is positively aligned to a successful implementation of change 
programs in Malaysian local authorities. 
 
Hasle & Pejtersen’s (2011) study endeavored to analyse trust relations in change 
management at Danish firms. Their study investigated the dynamics of trust on two 
organisations undergoing transformation changes at around the same period. The study 
proved that the transformational change created uncertainty in employees and put the 
management under great scrutiny and the end result was that there was a lack of trust 
in management. The employees also had tendencies to exaggerate management 
actions due to the high levels of uncertainty caused by the transformational change. The 
study showed that management also reciprocated with negative interpretations of the 
employee relations signifying a breakdown in trust relations between the two parties. 
Thus Hasle & Pejtersen (2011) proposed a framework on how trust can be repaired by 
26 
 
management in cases where it has been broken. The model could also be used for 
analysis purposes on the relationship between trust and change.  Hasle & Pejtersen 
study is backed by the study by Morgan & Zeffane (2003) which indicated that constant 
consultation between supervisors and employees on change initiatives by the 
organisations increase the trust confidence level on the employees who are the 
implementers of change. It creates a cohesion in the workplace and provides for an 
easy acceptance of change and willingness to effect such changes by employees. 
 
The research on the impact of change management on trust done by Lines, Selart & 
Espedal (2005) whereby their study investigated the relationships between 
organizational change and trust in management. Their study investigated the 
relationships between organizational change and trust in management. Lines, Selart 
and Espedal (2005) just like Hasle & Pejtersen (2011) asserted that change 
management was a period which put the levels of trust between management and 
employees to test. According to them it was a crucial episode in which either trust in 
management could either be produced or destroyed altogether. Lines, Selart and 
Espedal (2005) stated that the issue of trust in management may best be indicated from 
a psychological perspective and that change can arouse trust issues within 
organisational members to the extent that they reevaluate the levels of trust they have 
in the management. Their study noted that trust depended on the magnitude and 
direction of change. The study differentiated trust based on the outcomes of change and 
trust based on how the change process was done. The empirical results showed that 
using referential accounts to justify change caused emotional stress and had negative 
consequences on trust in the management after the change. On one hand the 
outcomes of their study showed that using participation and ideological accounts during 
the change had positive effects on trust in the management after the change. Lines, 
Selart and Espedal’s (2005) study find out that the building on trust during change was 
also influenced by the time allocated for the implementation of the change. 
Stanford (2017) outlines the importance of trust in organisational change. The 
managers and the change initiators must create strong bonds and relationships with the 
workforce especially those that are dealing with the change. This is done by spreading 
27 
 
the information on the change process itself. Building trust eventually results in four 
conditions that truly describe an organization changing at determined probable: 
 Condition 1. Trust is apparent everywhere. Employees have a great degree of 
trust for the managers and are not afraid to face the risks as they are aware of 
them due to the fact that some of the change duties are delegated to them.  
 Condition 2. Alignment is realized. Employees are associated with the 
organisational attempt to initiate change and there are cascading targets for 
every level keep the workforce focused.  
 Condition 3. Processes support people. The organisation is working well with the 
change just like a newly serviced machine. The issue of growth is finalized 
thorough out the organisation. Finally, the organisation concentrates on 
empowering the leaders. 
 Condition 4. Clarity creates cohesion. The organisation would have had success 
on how success feels like and there are a number of rewards and motivators set 
in place upon completion. 
2.6 Change management process and employee morale 
High employee morale is important to an organisation. Scholars split the element of 
morale into two components of which the first is about feeling valued by the organisation 
as can be expressed by the support an individual receives from the organisation  for 
what the individual is doing which has been shown to improve mood (Hardy, 2016). The 
other component to morale involves the individual’s perception of having value to the 
organisation especially as regards the fact whether they think they are doing useful 
work that contributes to the overall objective of the organisation, an element that has 
been shown to improve productivity and performance (Hardy, 2016). According to El-
Farra & Badawi (2012) the morale of many public-sector employees is adversely 
affected when change initiatives are implemented without proper communication to 
workers and the impact of such change on their life. One of the effects of such lack of 
communication is mistrust of management intentions when implementing changes. 
Yang (2009) argues that employees’ work morale is hard to untangle and it is very 
unsettling, highly active and complex to multilevel factors not only of employees’ 
28 
 
changes, but also of jobs and workplace differences. His study establish that teamwork 
is important to managerial work morale, and the increasing intent to reduce 
organizational hierarchy may ultimately hurt managers’ pride in working for their 
employers. 
 
Mekgoe (2008) on a study on the relationship between strategic change and employee 
morale. Mekgoe (2008) stressed the inevitability of strategic change in any organisation 
and therefore highlighted the need for organisations to expect change. She indicated 
that the nature of global competition has necessitated the need for organisations to 
adapt for survival. Of note in her study was also the inevitability of resistance to change 
especially in situations where organisations carry out structural changes. Changes like 
downsizing were discovered to have effects on employee morale, commitment and 
performance.  Mekgoe’s (2008) study found out that South Africa faced unique 
challenges that consideration needed to be taken when instituting change in 
organisations and these include; a high unemployment rate, the likelihood of collective 
job actions from employees as a form of resistance to change, political transformations 
currently taking place, the threat of global competition and an emerging economy with 
free markets. 
 
Mekgoe’s (2008) study highlighted that the issue of strategic change within an emerging 
economy like South Africa was one which was scarcely researched and it was an area 
which was still devoid of comprehensive literature. Thus there was a gap in knowledge 
in that area as most change strategies were based on Western environments. The 
study aim was to determine the impact of change on employee morale, commitment 
and performance at a South African telecommunication organisation. Mekgoe (2008) 
sought to find out whether there were negative effects of downsizing in South Africa and 
also to recommend ways by which strategic change can be successfully implemented in 
a South African organisation. The empirical study used a questionnaire to establish the 
effects of downsizing on employee morale, commitment and performance. The 
questionnaire design was done based on extensive literature review for the purposes of 
ensuring validity and reliability. 
29 
 
 
Zondi & Mutambara (2016) study investigated the impact of organisational change on 
employee morale and performance at a South African pharmaceutical company. Zondi 
& Mutambara (2016) acknowledged the existence of numerous literature and empirical 
studies on organisational change in private sector organisations. The study aimed to 
find out how organisational change impacted on employee performance and morale. 
The changes that were scheduled to take place at the organisation included structural, 
behavioural and turnaround strategies. These strategies among others included a 
change in culture, sales increases strategy and restructuring of departments. The 
study’s findings indicated that these changes caused significant decreases in employee 
morale. This decline in morale was attributed to lack of employee involvement and 
participation in the planning of change, low job security, role ambiguity and confusion 
among employees concerning what constituted the desired behaviours. On the other 
hand the study revealed that performance remained unaffected and employees stated 
that they are still making efforts to adjust to the new changes. Zondi & Mutambara 
(2016) study recommended that the management in future should allow for employees 
to participate in planning for any changes that will be done since the change affected 
the career progression of the employees.  
 
The morale of the employees has to be kept in line during the organisation change 
process. Even during this time work has to carry on effectively. There are six points to 
consider as stated by Benjamin (2013) and there are as follows: 
 
 Communication: there must be constant communication with the employees and 
the organisation must allow them to come up with questions and concerns about 
this whole issue. When they have clarity, they can perform better. 
 Uniting the employees: during the change process, some of the changes can 
bring about some divisions’ amongst the employees. This has to be under 
constant check and the managers must have a mind to resolve and unite the 
employees during the time of change.  
30 
 
 Fair treatment and respect: this is a very critical factor of morale. If respect and 
fair treatment is abundant during the time of the change process, the workers feel 
a lot safe and remain motivated low morale leads to low productivity. 
 Appreciation for worker effort: some of the change procedures that take place are 
very hard for the employee therefore showing appreciation for the effort made 
goes a long way as far as morale is concerned. 
 Personal meetings: meeting employees and asking them about the change 
happening is a good thing. Some employees can be motivated totally by these 
one -on-one meeting.  
2.7 Factors impeding sustainable change management processes and work-
related attitudes of employees in municipalities in South Africa 
The sustainability of change management processes is part of the strategy that 
managers use to initiate specific goals to attain its objectives. Other researchers on 
change management processes suggest that there are number of arrangements, 
techniques and organisations that need to take place for change to happen. Negative 
work-related attitude of workers is also one of the factors that contribute to failures in 
implementing change management process. As indicated by Mazibuko (2012) the work-
related attitudes in municipalities in the South African situation recognized different 
motivations including the ‘destructive perceptions of executives or customer 
observations connected to service delivery challenges in global public-service 
environment’. 
 
The sustainability of change management process in Municipality is dependent on 
longevity of Municipal leadership tasked with implementing changes as high 
management employees turn over will make any change initiatives unsustainable which 
lead to failure. The resistance to change by employees is also likely to impact on the 
organisation’s results requiring that there is improvement in the manner to communicate 
to resolve the fighting behaviours. Other motivations pertaining to attitudes must also be 
considered from the perceptions of workers in public service. Politics can also impedes 
successful change management initiatives if there was no proper consultation done to 
31 
 
political leadership and ensuring buy-in from political leadership as they play a critical 
role in the Municipal environment. Lack of communication and sufficient consultation 
particularly on those employees affected by changes has a potential to hinder 
implementation of change management process. Municipal environment is highly 
unionised therefore caution must be taken by implementers of change to ensure 
sufficient consultation is done to avoid dispute which in the end may derail the 
implementation of change. 
 
Again, matters pertaining to work environment, salaries, the employee’s attitudes 
towards the organisation and monitoring at work and the employee’s health and age are 
critical matters to contemplate. It is important to look at these aspects because they 
have instantaneous and substantial outcome on employees in the organization. These 
aspects may motivate employees to develop attitude problems as well as job frustration. 
On one hand, employees have always adversely considered change in many cases 
because of more work pressure and stress related with the change process (Self & 
Schraeder, 2009). On the other, research insists that workforces are as well worried 
about the degree of change in the way it affects their work (Bartnek, 2006). As a 
consequence, managers are required to understand that scheduling and the whole 
process of change has always played a crucial role due to the fact that change remains 
one of the main concerns. Preparedness, consultation of projected change with 
workers, timing and effective implementation of the planned change are important 
aspects to consider if we want change to work effectively.  
 
2.8 Summary 
Change is certain and a part of contemporary organisational life. Although there are 
models that assist change managers in the change management process, there are no 
simple formulae to manage the process. One method that works in one situation will not 
work in another which means organisational change should be sensitive to the context 
in which it occurs. Because change affects the lives of people, it should be executed in 
a sensitive manner, taking into consideration that the change management process is 
32 
 
disruptive and unsettling, and will in most cases affect employee morale, trust and 
performance. The speed at which change is happening in organisations requires 
effective change management to improve implementation outcomes. From this review, 
we have discovered that managers should cultivate the right working conditions to the 
possibility of better worker attitudes and reduce strife. Management tools exist to 
improve worker-manager relationships in organisations that are undergoing change, 
and change managers should set the right conditions to ensure that negative change 
process outcomes are minimised. These matters are applicable to both the private and 
public enterprises like Emalahleni Local Municipality. A recurring theme from the review 
is that high-performing government organisations should resemble well-run private 
entities to reduce all the barriers that persist in public organisations. Successful change 
and sustained organisational performance in public organisations in particular requires 
the identification of solutions to obstacles of positive change.  
 
Chapter three presents a research design and methodology that was used to acquire 
requisite data to achieve the objective of the study. 
33 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 
 3.1 Introduction 
This chapter of research design and methodology aims to define measures to be taken 
to study a research problem and the reason for implementation of certain procedures or 
techniques used to categorize, select, and assess information applied to considering the 
problem, it will also discuss the validity and reliability of measuring instruments and 
outline data analysis procedures to be followed. There are three various research 
methodology that can be used for this study which are qualitative, quantitative and 
mixed design approach. For the purpose of this study a quantitative research approach 
was used and is described as follows: 
 
 Quantitative Research is used to measure problem by way of numerical data 
generated from participants or such information converted into workable data. 
Quantitative research examines attitudes, views, performances, and various 
variables that considers outcomes taken on a bigger sample population. It uses 
quantifiable data to determine facts and determine configurations in research. 
Quantitative data collection methods are better structured than qualitative 
methods which include surveys, interviews and systematic observations using 
the questionnaire (DeFranzo, 2011). Quantitative research give emphasis to 
impartial determinations and the statistical, or numerical examination of data 
gathered from polls, questionnaires, and surveys, or using pre-existing statistical 
data by making use of computational methods. It focusses on collecting 
numerical data and considering it through individuals groups or to define a 
specific occurrence (Babbie, 2010). 
 
34 
 
3.2 Research Methodology / Paradigm 
The field of research has always been constituted by specific utilization of the type(s) of 
methods as explained above. It looks as well to aspects connected to whether the 
researcher has decided to employ one or two methodologies. There is an underlying 
theoretical hypothesis about the determination of what really establishes a valid 
research and the appropriate research methods involved in process to attain study 
objectives. Therefore, it is important to underline that the knowledge of 
assumptions/hypothesis is a key factor in conducting a research. This research applied 
quantitative method to measure the influence of change management process towards 
the work related attitudes which encompasses job performance, trust and employees 
morale in the workplace. As stated above by DeFranzo (2011) that quantitative methods 
are best at measuring the attitudes, performances and behaviour, the chosen methods 
was deemed more suitable for the study as it aimed at measuring similar variables. 
Quantitative research must, therefore, be understood as an adequate distinguishing 
methodology that focuses on collecting numerical data, looks at the possible 
relationship existing between issues of concept and exploration leading to inferential but 
rather selects a normal tactic and approves an objectivist conception of social reality 
(Bryman & Bell, 2015).  
3.3 Research Design  
A case study approach was chosen as a research design. This approach is used to 
produce thorough, complex understanding of a compound issue in its real-life context. It 
is an established research design that is used broadly in a wide selection of disciplines. 
It is also commonly used in areas where a single organisation is earmarked for the 
study. The approach has been found to be appropriate for research study as the study 
is focused on Emalahleni Local Municipality only. The advantages of using the case 
study it allows for the investigation and exploration of the organisation thoroughly and 
deeply and is more convenient where there is limited time to conduct the research. 
However the disadvantages of the case study is that it cannot be replicated and its 
findings cannot be assumed to be the same in a similar organisation and it may also 
35 
 
create biasness on the researcher due to participants being limited to one organisation 
(Willis, 2014). 
3.4 Population and Sample 
3.4.1 Population 
Vonk (2011) suggests that the population is a crowd or huge gathering of individuals 
taking part of a methodical survey. Given the fact that some research needs to focus on 
an important size of the population to cover, it becomes a challenge for the researcher 
to include total population concerned or qualified for the study. One of the reasons is 
that covering a huge number of populations in a research is both expensive and takes a 
long time to access and complete the entire population. The total population was 1471 
which are total employees of Emalahleni Local Municipality whereby 150 participants 
were identified.  
3.4.2 Sample and sampling method 
An activity that consists in selecting members from a given population for research 
purposes is known as sampling method (Ross, 2005). Research suggests there are two 
types of sampling methods commonly known as probability and non-probability 
sampling (Vosloo, 2014). The difference between the two concepts is that Probability 
sampling method has the opportunity to give a chance to choose from a group of 
participants, while in non-probability sampling method it does not give a chance to a unit 
or component to be selected. This means that one is able to include full targeted 
participants, while the other does not have that opportunity. Considering the plan of this 
research, non-probability sampling was the chosen sampling strategy for this research. 
The choice of this strategy is motivated by the fact that the samples to be included 
progressively does not give a fair chance to the entire staff of the Emalahleni Local 
Municipality to be part of the investigation. It is fundamental as well to underline that the 
different elements of the population that participated in the research do not have any 
probabilities connected to the fact that they have been selected to participate, alluding 
that there should not be a generalization of the findings. 
 
36 
 
Other researchers have suggested that the choice of the non-probability sampling 
strategy is highly motivated because of its homogeneity of the targeted population 
making non-probability sampling procedure becomes more convenient in the situation 
where it is impossible to include the whole population. In conclusion, based on various 
advantages and disadvantages given above the researcher opted for non-probability 
sampling method using the purposive (judgmental) non-probability sampling strategy. 
For purpose of this research, the participants in the research included the senior 
managers (Head of Department), Middle Management (Operations Managers), Team 
Supervisors Artisans and General Workers of the Emalahleni Local Municipality, which 
is one of the local Municipality in Nkangala District Municipality in the Mpumalanga 
Province. The inclusion of the top managers and the other lower staff in the 
investigation was important because there was a need to balance the opinions from all 
three categories of employees. The senior managers are believed to be the people in 
charge of the administration, which allows us to have a legal viewpoint on change 
management effect and its effect on performance of the lower staff. In many cases, 
change management affects the implementers of change which are predominantly 
supervisors, artisans and the general workers in this case. Below is the sample as 
constituted: 
 
Table 3. 1: Profile of respondents: 
Respondents Quantity 
Top management (Head of Departments) 10 
Middle management (Operations Managers) 20 
Team Supervisors 45 
Artisans 35 
General Workers 40 
TOTAL 150 
 
37 
 
 3.5 The Research Instrument 
This research used a closed questionnaire as a research instrument. Questionnaires 
are adequate ways of collecting data from participants because are easy to understand 
and complete. Unfortunately, there are advantages and disadvantages that come with 
using questionnaires on different levels. On the one hand, the advantages of closed 
questionnaires are that they do not allow the participants to evade the main focus of the 
questions as they only have a single choice to respond to the questionnaire and easy to 
complete while the disadvantage is that the closed questionnaires do not allow 
participants to express their other views which they might want to freely express 
(DeFranzo, 2011). The 5-point Likert scale was used in the questionnaire of this study. 
The scale is commonly used as the most reliable scale to measure opinions, 
perceptions and behaviors. The answers provided on the questionnaire ranges from 1 – 
being strongly disagree to 5 – being strongly agree where participants tick on one that is 
mostly appropriate to them.  
 
The researcher adopted with amendments questionnaires from various sources to 
measure four identified variables for this study for achievement of the research 
objectives as follows: 
Change management process in the organisation, the questionnaire from Noble 
(2014) was adopted where it was measuring the impact of change management on job 
satisfaction of employees in Ghana’s banking sector with 140 participants and the 
Cronbach alpha coefficient on the employee attitude variable of 0.72. The sample item 
includes “I feel the organisational change made positive attitudes towards work”. For the 
present study the Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.91. 
 
Organisational change management process and job performance, the 
questionnaire from Noble (2014) was adopted and the Cronbach alpha coefficient was 
0.81. The sample item includes “Change management implementation reduces time 
taken to perform an activity”. For the present study the Cronbach alpha coefficient was 
0.95. 
38 
 
Organisational change management process on trust in management, 
questionnaire from Morgan & Zeffare (2003) was adopted where it was measuring 
employee involvement, organisational change and trust in management with 19 155 
participants and Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.85 and sample item includes “There is 
trust between management and employees when change management processes are 
effected”. 
Organisational change management and employee morale, questionnaire from 
Yang (2009) was adopted where it was measuring the longitudinal changes in white 
collar employee’s morale in a time of organisational restructuring with 516 out of 874 
participants and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.90. Sample item includes “The 
employees’ morale is improved after changes are effected”.  
 
A biographical section with intentions to access information on gender, age, race, 
years of experience, educational level and employment level from the participants also 
forms part of the questionnaire. 
3.6 Validity and Reliability 
3.6.1 Validity 
According to Heale & Twycross (2015) validity is described as a degree to which a 
concept is correctly determined in a quantitative study with the measure of quality of the 
study in quantitative being reliability. Some researchers suggest that validity in 
quantitative investigations involves accurate processes allowing the summation of 
numerical measures. Creswell (2013) for instance provides some different rationality or 
validity strategies among which we have: (1) inspecting the outcomes by interpreting 
them with the participants, (2) connecting peers in the gathering and examination of the 
data as well as underlining negative or discrepant information. For this study face 
validity was used whereby the questionnaire was examined by the study leader with 
vast years of experience in the field of study and statistician from the University. A pilot 
study was carried out at Emalahleni Local Municipality to test the research instrument 
which was also be used as other form of testing for validity (Muchinsky, 2000). A 
sample of 20 respondents took part in the pilot study. The pilot study highlighted the 
39 
 
need to increase more open ended questions to the questionnaire, the need to edit the 
wording on some of the questions to remove ambiguity and the need to add more 
claims to the Likert scale to increase validity of the instrument. The questionnaire was 
subsequently edited to consider the inputs received from the pilot study. 
3.6.2 Reliability 
Heale & Twycross (2015) indicated that Cronbach’s alpha is commonly used to test the 
internal consistency of an instrument with number between 0 and 1 with acceptable 
reliability score that is at 0.7 and higher. In case of this research as reflected in Table 
3.3 below the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for all four variables are above 0.9 which 
affirms a very good reliability. 
 
Table 3.2: Cronbach Alpha Coefficients: Reliability Statistics 
Variables Cronbach's 
Alpha 
Cronbach's Alpha Based 
on Standardized Items 
No. of Items 
Variable 1 0.906 0.907 5 
Variable 2 0.954 0.955 10 
Variable 3 0.965 0.965 11 
Variable 4 0.941 0.942 8 
 
3.7 Procedure for Data Collection 
The process of distributing the questionnaires followed all official procedures including: 
getting consent from the participants, agreeing on other aspects that might infringe the 
confidentiality of the participants etc. The documents related to non-violability of the 
participants’ privacy, questionnaires, consent forms and so forth will be found in the 
appendix section. A total of 150 questionnaires distributed to employees in Emalahleni 
Local Municipality. Questionnaires were self-distributed and received back by the 
researcher from the participants. For a better understanding of the questionnaires, an 
explanation was given on how to complete the questionnaire. Distribution of the 
questionnaires was in October (2017) and the collection of the questionnaires from the 
40 
 
participants was done during November (2017) where only 71 (49%) questionnaires 
were returned back by participants.  
3.8 Data Analysis and Interpretation 
The analysis of data collected in Emalahleni Local municipality was analysed following 
the steps leading to assembling, consolidating and examining to allow the identification 
of trends. Reference has been made as well that the use of the SPSS played an 
important role because of its distribution of the results in forms of graphs, tables, pie 
charts and bar charts from quantitative analysis perspective grouped into various 
themes. As a result, the themes that will emerge from the data analysis will finally be 
associated with the aim, objectives and the main outcomes of the study. 
 
Cronbach alpha coefficients were utilized to evaluate reliability of measuring instrument 
for all variables. The Cronbach value ranges between 0 to +1 where a value close to +1 
indicates an acceptable reliability (Heale & Twycross, 2015). Correlation coefficient 
analysis was used to examine the strength of relationship between all four variables. 
The correlation coefficient varies between -1 and +1 where negative figure indicates that 
a negative relationship exist between variables and zero figure indicates that the 
relationship does not exist between the variables while the positive figure towards +1 
indicates the strong relationship between variables (Wright, 2002). The research 
objectives of this study is to establish whether the relationship exist between change 
management process and job performance, trust in management and employee morale 
hence correlation coefficient is critical in responding to the research question. 
Descriptive statistics was used to examine central tendency by way of mean and 
standard deviation with frequency tables used to evaluate participants responses in line 
with their biographic information. Lastly Anova test has been utilized to measure a 
significant differences in participant’s responses based on other independent variables. 
The value of less than 0.05 indicates that a significant difference in participants 
responses based on other independent variables while above 0.05 there is no 
significant difference. 
41 
 
3.9 Limitations of the Study 
Given recommendations in the study field requiring that a well-identified setting be 
identified to conduct an investigation, this research has taken place in Emalahleni Local 
Municipality. Of great importance, limitations must be understood as aspects that the 
researcher cannot control.  Several limitations might be identified linked to the available 
information related to the topic. The following limitations were encountered during the 
investigation:  
 The choice of the Emalahleni Local Municipality as the single pace to collect the 
data. This is amongst one of the important limitation of this research because it is 
limited to a single area. Therefore, it is impossible to generalise the findings 
generated by this particular area to the situation of other municipalities; 
 
 Time to conduct the research is limited due to a set deadline for submission by 
the University which creates limits for the researcher to include more participants. 
 
 The research findings and conclusions are limited to time and conditions that 
were prevailing during the time of the study at Emalahleni Municipality and thus 
should be considered in that respect. 
 
 Language barrier existed on some of the lower level employees which delayed 
the completion of the questionnaire, however the questionnaire was explained in 
the language they could understand. 
3.10 Ethical Considerations 
The researcher observed the following ethical considerations during research; 
 Permission to carry out the research by the municipal authority 
Before conducting a research, a researcher must prepare a proposal describing 
research objectives, participants’ treatment in the research and the expectations from 
the study, to the institution under study (Oakes, 2002). The institution under study must 
then take adequate steps to ensure that the study is ethical before granting permission 
42 
 
(Snee, 2008). Approval was sought and granted by the Municipal Authority to conduct 
the study at Emalahleni Local Municipality with the Municipal employees as participants.  
 Informed consent 
Consent constitutes a fundamental ethical principle (Swatman, 2012). Consent also 
involves debriefing the participants of the characteristics of the study and the potential 
risks and harm involved, if any (Williams, 2015). Voluntary participation was sought from 
the respondents at Emalahleni Local Municipality to carry out the research. Indications 
were given to respondents of their rights to pull-out of the study anytime they wish to do 
so. 
 Confidentiality and anonymity  
Confidentiality relates to an agreement between the researcher and the participants 
regarding what must be done with the information gathered during a study (Woodfield et 
al, 2013). Privacy also relates to limited access regarding to what participants can 
divulge during a research process (Iphofen, 2011). This means that participants have 
the right not to divulge thoughts they regard as private or personal during a research. 
The researcher informed all the participants that the information that they were going to 
supply during the research was to be kept strictly confidential and the research would 
not include any names. The questionnaire was done with the disclaimer that 
participant’s anonymity shall be protected, and the questionnaire shall be handled 
confidentially. 
 Protection of participants from danger or harm 
The Non- maleficence principle states that researchers should not expose participants 
to harm or unnecessary risks (Houston, 2016). The harm in question could be loss of 
self-esteem, frustration or loss of ones earnings. The research did not pose the risk of 
danger or harm. There was no section or question in the research instrument that 
exposed the participants to any emotional or psychological harm. The research did not 
in any way attempt, confuse, coerce or harass the participants throughout the research 
process. 
43 
 
3.11 Summary 
The chapter discussed research methodology, research design, sampling technique, 
research instrument and data collection procedure and the procedure to be followed to 
assess the information and interpretation. The adopted research approach is 
quantitative approach as it is viewed as the most appropriate approach to the 
achievement of the objective of the study. Scholars suggests that using quantitative 
methods is not related to unsurprisingly having all data related to the research in 
quantitative form. The design of the questionnaire were made easier for completion as 
some of the targeted participants were general workers with low level of education. The 
analysed data further revealed a high Cronbach alpha co-efficient which provided 
confidence data reliability. The chapter dealt with important aspects related to the 
collection of data, analysis of the data using appropriate tools as well as issues 
connected to the non-infringement of the procedural requirements of conducting a 
scientific research. 
 
Chapter four presents a data presentation and analysis 
44 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS 
 4.1 Introduction  
This chapter presents outcomes received from statistical analysis undertaken on the 
study regarding influence of a change management process on work-related attitudes in 
Emalahleni Local Municipality with the study objectives to determine the relationship 
between organisational change management process & job performance, establish the 
impact of organisational change management process on trust in management and 
finally determine the relationship between organisational change management process 
and employee morale. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for 
analysis of data using University statistician with results discussed below. The 
techniques used for data analysis was nonparametric correlations and descriptive 
analysis extracted from the 5-point Likert scale questionnaire which ranges from 1 – 
being strongly disagree to 5 – being strongly agree. The value of 3 represented the 
median or middle value of the five-point scale, which meant that when respondents 
answered below the median, they disagreed, and when they answer above the median, 
they agreed with the variable. Given that the data collected and used in the study was 
based on Likert scale, the Spearman’s rho was used as the suitable technique for 
computing correlations. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) test has been utilised to test 
equality of variances based on the One-Way ANOVA Levene statistic and Brown-
Forsythe techniques. In scenarios were significant differences in means were detected, 
the Tukey HSD post hoc tests were conducted. The demographic variables on which 
ANOVA tests were performed include “level of employment” and “years of experience 
with current employer”.   
4.2 Demographic Profile  
This section outlines frequencies on demographic profiles of participants from whom 
data was composed from and the total sample size was 150 randomly selected from 
1471 population with only 71 respondents who returned the completed questionnaire. 
 
45 
 
Table 4. 1: Respondents’ demographic profiles 
 Frequency (n) Proportion (%) 
Gender   
Male  39 55% 
Female 32 45% 
Age group   
18 to 24 years 20 28% 
25 to 34 years  35 49% 
35 to 44 years  8 12% 
45 to 54 years  
55 years and above 
5 
3 
7% 
4% 
Years of experience   
0-5 years 17 24% 
6-10 years  30 42% 
11-15 years 13 18% 
16-20 years 
21 years and above 
8 
3 
12% 
4% 
Level of education   
No schooling  15 21% 
Primary completed  
Matric completed  
College/University 
10 
19 
27 
14% 
27% 
38% 
Level of employment    
Executive management 3 4% 
Middle management 10 14% 
Junior management  
Clerical assistants 
General workers 
14 
19 
25 
20% 
27% 
35% 
 
Frequencies shown in Table 4.1 show that from the total 71 respondents, the largest 
proportion of 55% were males with females at 45%. This does not indicate the ratio of 
male to female employees at Emalahleni Local Municipality. Respondents aged 
between 18 and 34 accounted for 77% which is still within the youth bracket while 23% 
was between ages 35 to above 55 years. The modal age group was the 25-34 years 
age group at 49%. This may be because 72.5% of the Municipal population is between 
46 
 
the ages of 15 and 64 years with 24.5% being under 15 years of ages which provide 
indication that the Municipal area is dominated by youth (Statistics SA, 2016). In relation 
to the years of experience 66% of participants had 10 years or less years of experience 
which correlates with their ages as interpreted above as 77% of respondents were 
below the ages of 35 years hence the less years of experience and the possibility that 
the Municipality may be having high labour turnover as only 4% had years of experience 
above 21 years. 65% of respondents had a minimum of matric certificate with only 21% 
had no schooling at all and 14% managed to reach primary school level. This correlates 
with the level of employment as 35% of respondents are general workers where mostly 
minimum requirements of the posts are generally low. 82% of the respondents’ level of 
employment was at junior management and below. This was in line with the objective of 
the study as it is aimed at assessing the operational change management processes of 
the Municipality hence only 4% of the respondents were at Executive Management 
level. 
4.3 The relationship between organisational change management process & job 
performance 
The first objective was to determine the relationship between organisational change 
management process and job performance. The correlation co-efficient test was done 
on the study to answer the research question relating to the objective whether there is a 
relationship between change management process and job performance. The results 
presented in Table 4.2 below revealed a statistically significant and a positive 
correlation between change management process and job performance (β = 0.543, p = 
0.01). The results confirmed that a relationship do exist between change management 
process and job performance. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
47 
 
Table 4. 2: Correlation between change management processes and job 
performance 
Correlation Co-efficient 
 Change management 
process  
Job performance 
Spearman's 
rho 
Change 
management 
process 
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .543** 
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000 
N 71 71 
Job performance 
Correlation Coefficient .543** 1.000 
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 . 
N 71 71 
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 
 
The extent of the relationship between change management process and job 
performance was further tested using descriptive analysis where mean and standard 
deviation were used as a unit measure as reflected in table 4.3. The findings confirms 
that change management process impacts directly on job performance. 
  
Table 4. 3: Change management process and job performance 
Descriptive Statistics of Organisational change management process and job performance 
 Organisational change management process and job performance Mean 
Std. 
Deviation 
Change management process at work has direct impact to my job performance 4.20 0.876 
After change implementation my job becomes easier and quicker to perform 4.13 0.825 
Change management improves my skills which enhance my job performance 3.80 1.142 
Change management encourages developments at work 3.87 1.081 
Improved performance is always a result of change.  3.62 1.126 
Time taken to implement changes has a positive effect on my work.  3.69 1.050 
Change management processes initiated by the organisation aims to enhance job 
performance. 
3.89 1.008 
Change management implementation reduces time taken to perform an activity. 3.46 1.119 
Change management promotes continuous training at work which improves work 
efficiency 
3.85 1.037 
Performance of the Municipality improves every time changes are effected 2.31 1.191 
 
48 
 
Table 4.3 indicates a high level of agreement from respondents that change 
management process directly impacts on the job performance and job performance 
becomes quicker and easier after changes have been implemented ( mean = 4.20, 
4.13, SD = 0.876, 0.825) respectively. The respondents agree that change management 
process impacts positively towards their job performances and it further improves work 
efficiency with the average mean being above 3 and standard deviation being below 
1.5. However respondents disagree that performance of the Municipality improves every 
time changes are effected (mean = 2.31, SD = 1.191). This can be influenced by the 
process taken to effect any changes in the Municipality.  
 
The current study findings are in line with Omar, Mohammed, Abdullah & Nura (2013) 
findings that there is a correlation between the change management process and job 
performance which can be positive or negative depending on process adopted to 
implement change. Ndahiro (2015) argues that change management processes creates 
a significant contribution to organizational competencies which increases the firm’s 
performance and innovativeness which is in line with the finding on this study as 
respondents highly agrees that change management process promotes efficiency on 
their job performances. Respondents believes change management processes 
encourages developments at work and promotes continuous training which 
subsequently improves work efficiency as outlined by Fong (2011) that to keep the 
employee performance high during the change process the organisation needs to 
consider employee’s development during such change. However the employees do not 
agree that the Municipal performance improves every time changes are effected which 
could be as the results of poor leadership which fails to effect changes successfully in 
the organisation (Bradshaw, 2016).  
 
Anova test was also done as reflected below in table 4.4 to 4.9 to determine the 
significant differences on job performance responses based on the level of employment 
and years of experience. No significant difference revealed based on level of 
employment in responding to job performance variable. However on years of 
experience there was a significant difference across the five categories which showed 
49 
 
signals of significant differences in job performance exist among employees with 0-5 
years of experience versus employees with equal to or greater than 21 years of 
experience, 6-10 years of experience versus equal to or greater than 21 years of 
experience in Emalahleni Local Municipality. This could be interpreted that employees 
with more years of experience reacts differently to change management processes than 
those with less experience due to high level of experience which builds confidence on 
their job performance and results in quicker acceptance of changes in the Municipality. 
 
Table 4. 4: Job performance versus level employment test of homogeneity of 
variances 
Test of Homogeneity of Variances 
Job performance   
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. 
1.242 4 66 .302 
 
The test of homogeneity of variances based on the Levene’s statistic tests the null 
hypothesis that the within-group variances are constant across groups. The Levene 
statistic (= 1.242) with a p-value (= 0.302) greater than the 0.05 significance level show 
that the null hypothesis of homogeneity of variance could not be rejected. The null 
hypothesis (no difference) for the assumption of homogeneity of variance was retained. 
Therefore, there is no significant difference between the four group’s variances in 
respect of job performance for the four different levels of employment in municipality. 
Results confirm that the assumption of homogeneity of variance was met.  
 
Table 4. 5: Job performance versus level of employment robust tests of equality 
of means 
Robust Tests of Equality of Means 
Job performance   
 Statistica df1 df2 Sig. 
Brown-Forsythe 1.095 4 58.525 .367 
a. Asymptotically F distributed. 
 
50 
 
Consistent with the Levene statistic’s p-value (= 0.302) greater than the alpha level of 
0.05 given in Table 4.5, results of the Brown-Forsythe statistic robust test of equality of 
means (p = 0.367) confirm that the assumption of equal variance was not violated. In 
order to further confirm that there were no significant differences in job performance 
across levels of employment, the Tukey HSD post hoc test was conducted.    
 
Table 4. 6: Post-hoc test – multiple comparisons of job performance versus levels 
of employment   
Multiple Comparisons 
Dependent Variable:   Job performance   
Tukey HSD   
(I) Level of 
employment 
(J) Level of employment Mean 
Difference (I-
J) 
Std. Error Sig. 95% Confidence Interval 
Lower 
Bound 
Upper 
Bound 
Executive 
management 
Middle management -.665 .430 .535 -1.87 .54 
Junior management -.700 .420 .462 -1.88 .48 
Clerical assistants -.778 .415 .342 -1.94 .39 
General workers -.725 .412 .405 -1.88 .43 
Middle 
management 
Executive management .665 .430 .535 -.54 1.87 
Junior management -.035 .281 1.000 -.82 .75 
Clerical assistants -.112 .274 .994 -.88 .65 
General workers -.060 .268 .999 -.81 .69 
Junior 
management 
Executive management .700 .420 .462 -.48 1.88 
Middle management .035 .281 1.000 -.75 .82 
Clerical assistants -.078 .258 .998 -.80 .65 
General workers -.025 .252 1.000 -.73 .68 
Clerical assistants 
Executive management .778 .415 .342 -.39 1.94 
Middle management .112 .274 .994 -.65 .88 
Junior management .078 .258 .998 -.65 .80 
General workers .053 .244 1.000 -.63 .74 
General workers 
Executive management .725 .412 .405 -.43 1.88 
Middle management .060 .268 .999 -.69 .81 
Junior management .025 .252 1.000 -.68 .73 
Clerical assistants -.053 .244 1.000 -.74 .63 
 
The Tukey HSD post hoc reveals no significant differences in job performance across 
the four levels of employment in Emalahleni Local Municipality.  
51 
 
 
Table 4. 7: Job performance versus years of experience test of homogeneity of 
variances 
Test of Homogeneity of Variances 
Job performance   
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. 
1.141 4 66 .345 
 
The test of homogeneity of variances based on the Levene’s statistic tests the null 
hypothesis that the within-group variances are constant across groups. The Levene 
statistic (= 1.141) with a p-value (= 0.345) greater than the 0.05 significance level show 
that the null hypothesis of homogeneity of variance could not be rejected. The null 
hypothesis (no difference) for the assumption of homogeneity of variance was retained, 
and concludes that there are no significant differences in the variances in job 
performance between five group’s relating to years of experience in the municipality. 
The assumption of homogeneity of variance was therefore statistically satisfied.  
 
Table 4. 8: Job performance versus years of experience robust tests of equality of 
means 
Robust Tests of Equality of Means 
Job performance   
 Statistica df1 df2 Sig. 
Brown-Forsythe 5.752 4 55.915 .001 
a. Asymptotically F distributed. 
 
Consistent with the ANOVA F-statistics (5.026) and the associated p-value (= 0.001), 
results of the Brown-Forsythe statistic robust test of equality of means (p = 0.001) show 
that there were significant differences in job performance among employees across 
different categories of years of experience. In order to detect the categories of years of 
experience with significant differences in job performance, the Tukey HSD post hoc test 
was further conducted.  
 
52 
 
Table 4. 9: Post-hoc test – multiple comparisons of job performance versus years 
of experience   
Multiple Comparisons 
Dependent Variable:   Job performance   
Tukey HSD   
(I) Years of experience 
with current employer 
(J) Years of experience 
with current employer 
Mean 
Difference (I-
J) 
Std. 
Error 
Sig. 95% Confidence Interval 
Lower 
Bound 
Upper 
Bound 
0 - 5 years 
6 - 10 years -.236 .218 .817 -.85 .38 
11 - 15 years -.656 .269 .118 -1.41 .10 
16 - 20 years -.595 .235 .097 -1.26 .07 
21 years and above -1.276* .321 .002 -2.18 -.38 
6 - 10 years 
0 - 5 years .236 .218 .817 -.38 .85 
11 - 15 years -.421 .258 .482 -1.14 .30 
16 - 20 years -.360 .222 .491 -.98 .26 
21 years and above -1.041* .311 .012 -1.91 -.17 
11 - 15 years 
0 - 5 years .656 .269 .118 -.10 1.41 
6 - 10 years .421 .258 .482 -.30 1.14 
16 - 20 years .061 .273 .999 -.70 .83 
21 years and above -.620 .349 .396 -1.60 .36 
16 - 20 years 
0 - 5 years .595 .235 .097 -.07 1.26 
6 - 10 years .360 .222 .491 -.26 .98 
11 - 15 years -.061 .273 .999 -.83 .70 
21 years and above -.681 .324 .230 -1.59 .23 
21 years and above 
0 - 5 years 1.276* .321 .002 .38 2.18 
6 - 10 years 1.041* .311 .012 .17 1.91 
11 - 15 years .620 .349 .396 -.36 1.60 
16 - 20 years .681 .324 .230 -.23 1.59 
*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. 
 
Tukey HSD post hoc results show signals of significant differences in job performance 
exist among employees with 0-5 years of experience versus employees with equal to or 
greater than 21 years of experience, 6-10 years of experience versus equal to or 
greater than 21 years of experience in Emalahleni Local Municipality.  
53 
 
4.4 The change management process and trust in management 
The second objective was to establish the impact of organisational change 
management process on trust in management. The descriptive analysis was done on 
the study to answer the research question relating to the objective on the impact of 
organisational change management process on trust in management. The findings 
indicates that the change management process have impact on trust in management by 
employees. Table 4.10 below indicates that employees are uncertain if there is trust 
between management and employees after change processes have been effected 
(mean = 3.00, SD = 1.192). Respondents lowly agrees that are involved in the change 
management processes and management consult employees when effecting changes 
and that are further given the opportunity to influence change processes but the level of 
agreement is very low with the mean below 3.5. This indicates that there are still areas 
of improvements that the Municipality will need to implore to improve the trust between 
management and employees when change processes are effected.  
 
Table 4. 10: Change management process on trust in management 
Descriptive Statistics of Organisational change management process on trust in management 
Organisational change management process on trust in management Mean 
Std. 
Deviation 
There is trust between management and employees when change management 
processes are effected. 
3.00 1.192 
Management explains the processes to be used to effect changes. 3.43 1.105 
Relationship between employees and management improves after changes. 3.51 1.093 
Employee queries on proposed changes are taken seriously and responded to by 
management.  
3.42 1.156 
All affected employees are consulted about changes by management. 3.48 1.079 
The municipality provided employees with enough information & education on the 
change processes. 
3.46 1.183 
Employees are given an opportunity to adapt to change.  3.54 1.023 
Sufficient time is given to employees to engage on any change initiatives. 3.36 1.163 
Supervisors discusses changes with their employees. 3.64 1.071 
Employees are able to influence change management processes. 3.39 1.088 
Employees are part of change management committees. 3.49 1.106 
 
54 
 
The study revealed that change management process impact on trust between 
management and employees. It also appears that the level of agreement is quite low on 
involvement of the employees during the change management processes which could 
be interpreted as the reason for the lack of trust due to non-involvement of employees. 
The result of this research question support the previous research by Morgan & Zeffane 
(2013) who argued that constant consultation between supervisors and employees on 
change initiatives by the organisations increase the trust confidence level on the 
employees who are the implementers of change. Sorensen & Hasle (2011) found that 
when change is conceptualized and initiated without communicating effectively among 
other levels of organisational leadership, weakens the relational fabric in the 
organisation, creating an environment of mistrust to breed and fester if not addressed. 
Scholars highlight the importance of trust to successful organizational change caused 
by rapid change processes in contemporary organizations which makes establishing 
long-term employee relationships difficult because these change actions transform the 
traditional social relations and can become a challenge to trust.  
 
Table 4. 11: Correlation between change management processes and trust in 
management 
Correlation Co-efficient 
 Change management 
process 
Trust in 
management 
Spearman's rho 
Change 
management 
process 
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .496** 
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000 
N 71 71 
Trust in 
management 
Correlation Coefficient .496** 1.000 
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 . 
N 71 71 
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 
 
Table 4.11 above indicates the correlation co-efficient analysis and the result revealed a 
positive correlation between change management process and trust in management (β 
= 0.496, p = 0.01) and the results were found to be statistically significant. This further 
55 
 
affirm that change management process do impact on trust in management by 
employees.  
 
Anova test was also done as reflected below in table 4.12 to 4.17 to determine the 
significant differences in trust in management responses based on the level of 
employment and years of experience. The results revealed that there is no significant 
difference based on level of employment and years of experience in responding to trust 
in management variables. 
 
Table 4. 12: Trust in management versus level employment test of homogeneity 
of variances 
Test of Homogeneity of Variances 
Trust in management   
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. 
.674 4 66 .612 
 
The test of homogeneity of variances based on the Levene’s statistic tests the null 
hypothesis that the within-group variances are constant across groups. The Levene 
statistic (= 0.674) with a p-value (= 0.612) greater than the 0.05 significance level show 
that the null hypothesis of homogeneity of variance could not be rejected. The null 
hypothesis (no difference) for the assumption of homogeneity of variance was retained, 
and concludes that there are no significant differences in the variances in trust in 
management between the four group’s relating to the four levels of employment in the 
municipality. The assumption of homogeneity of variance was therefore met.  
 
Table 4. 13: Trust in management versus level of employment robust tests of 
equality of means 
Robust Tests of Equality of Means 
Trust in management   
 Statistica df1 df2 Sig. 
Brown-Forsythe 1.316 4 63.064 .274 
a. Asymptotically F distributed. 
 
56 
 
In line with the Levene statistic’s p-value (= 0.612) greater than the alpha level of 0.05 
given in Table 4.13, results of the Brown-Forsythe statistic robust test of equality of 
means (p = 0.274) confirm the assumption of equal variance was not violated. In order 
to confirm that there were no significant differences in trust in management across 
levels of employment, the Tukey HSD post hoc test was conducted. 
 
Table 4. 14: Post-hoc test – multiple comparisons of trust in management versus 
levels of employment   
Multiple Comparisons 
Dependent Variable:   Trust in management   
Tukey HSD   
(I) Level of 
employment 
(J) Level of employment Mean 
Difference (I-
J) 
Std. 
Error 
Sig. 95% Confidence Interval 
Lower 
Bound 
Upper 
Bound 
Executive 
management 
Middle management -.661 .398 .465 -1.78 .46 
Junior management -.614 .389 .517 -1.70 .48 
Clerical assistants -.788 .385 .255 -1.87 .29 
General workers -.564 .381 .580 -1.63 .51 
Middle 
management 
Executive management .661 .398 .465 -.46 1.78 
Junior management .047 .260 1.000 -.68 .78 
Clerical assistants -.127 .253 .987 -.84 .58 
General workers .097 .248 .995 -.60 .79 
Junior 
management 
Executive management .614 .389 .517 -.48 1.70 
Middle management -.047 .260 1.000 -.78 .68 
Clerical assistants -.174 .239 .949 -.84 .50 
General workers .050 .233 1.000 -.60 .70 
Clerical assistants 
Executive management .788 .385 .255 -.29 1.87 
Middle management .127 .253 .987 -.58 .84 
Junior management .174 .239 .949 -.50 .84 
General workers .224 .226 .858 -.41 .86 
General workers 
Executive management .564 .381 .580 -.51 1.63 
Middle management -.097 .248 .995 -.79 .60 
Junior management -.050 .233 1.000 -.70 .60 
Clerical assistants -.224 .226 .858 -.86 .41 
 
Tukey HSD post hoc results show that there are no significant differences in trust in 
management on all four levels of employment in Emalahleni Local Municipality.  
57 
 
 
Table 4. 15: Trust in management versus years of experience test of homogeneity 
of variances 
Test of Homogeneity of Variances 
Trust in management   
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. 
.366 4 66 .832 
The test of homogeneity of variances based on the Levene’s statistic tests the null 
hypothesis that the within-group variances are constant across groups. The Levene 
statistic (= 0.366) with a p-value (= 0.832) greater than the 0.05 significance level show 
that the null hypothesis of homogeneity of variance could not be rejected. The null 
hypothesis (no difference) for the assumption of homogeneity of variance was retained, 
and concludes that there are no significant differences in variances in the trust in 
management across five groups of years of experience in the municipality. The 
assumption of homogeneity of variance was therefore statistically satisfied. 
 
Table 4. 16: Trust in management versus years of experience robust tests of 
equality of means 
Robust Tests of Equality of Means 
Trust in management   
 Statistica df1 df2 Sig. 
Brown-Forsythe 4.221 4 51.491 .005 
a. Asymptotically F distributed. 
 
Results of the Brown-Forsythe statistic robust test of equality of means (p = 0.005) show 
that there were significant differences in trust in management across the five categories 
of years of experience. The Tukey HSD post hoc test confirm that there were significant 
differences between different categories of years of experience.  
 
 
 
 
58 
 
Table 4. 17: Post-hoc test – multiple comparisons of trust in management versus 
years of experience   
Multiple Comparisons 
Dependent Variable:   Trust in management   
Tukey HSD   
(I) Years of experience 
with current employer 
(J) Years of experience 
with current employer 
Mean 
Difference (I-
J) 
Std. 
Error 
Sig. 95% Confidence Interval 
Lower 
Bound 
Upper 
Bound 
0 - 5 years 
6 - 10 years -.146 .208 .955 -.73 .44 
11 - 15 years -.417 .257 .489 -1.14 .30 
16 - 20 years -.387 .224 .427 -1.02 .24 
21 years and above -1.156* .306 .003 -2.01 -.30 
6 - 10 years 
0 - 5 years .146 .208 .955 -.44 .73 
11 - 15 years -.270 .246 .806 -.96 .42 
16 - 20 years -.241 .212 .786 -.83 .35 
21 years and above -1.010* .297 .010 -1.84 -.18 
11 - 15 years 
0 - 5 years .417 .257 .489 -.30 1.14 
6 - 10 years .270 .246 .806 -.42 .96 
16 - 20 years .030 .260 1.000 -.70 .76 
21 years and above -.739 .333 .185 -1.67 .19 
16 - 20 years 
0 - 5 years .387 .224 .427 -.24 1.02 
6 - 10 years .241 .212 .786 -.35 .83 
11 - 15 years -.030 .260 1.000 -.76 .70 
21 years and above -.769 .309 .105 -1.63 .10 
21 years and above 
0 - 5 years 1.156* .306 .003 .30 2.01 
6 - 10 years 1.010* .297 .010 .18 1.84 
11 - 15 years .739 .333 .185 -.19 1.67 
16 - 20 years .769 .309 .105 -.10 1.63 
*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. 
 
Tukey HSD post hoc results show signals of significant differences in trust in 
management exist among employees with experience of 21 years and above versus 
employees with 0-5 years and 6-10 years of experience in the municipality.  
59 
 
4.5 The relationship between organisational change management process and 
employee morale 
The last objective was to determine the relationship between change management 
process and employee morale. The correlation co-efficient test was done on the study 
to answer the research question relating to the objective whether there is a relationship 
between change management process and employee morale. The results presented in 
Table 4.18 below revealed a statistically significant and a positive correlation between 
change management process and employee morale (β = 0.494, p = 0.01) and the 
results were found to be statistically significant. The results confirmed that a relationship 
do exist between change management process and employee morale. 
 
Table 4. 18: Correlation between change management process and employee 
morale 
Correlation Co-efficient 
 Change management 
process 
Employee 
morale 
Spearman's 
rho 
Change management 
process 
Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .494** 
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000 
N 71 71 
Employee morale 
Correlation Coefficient .494** 1.000 
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 . 
N 71 71 
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 
 
The extent of the relationship between change management process and employee 
morale was further tested using descriptive analysis where mean and standard 
deviation were used as a unit measure as reflected in table 4.19 below. The findings 
confirms that change management process do affect the employee morale in the 
workplace. 
 
 
 
 
60 
 
Table 4. 19:Change management process and employee morale 
Descriptive Statistics of Organisational change management process and employee morale 
Organisational change management process and employee morale Mean 
Std. 
Deviation 
The employees’ morale is improved after changes are effected. 2.37 1.922 
I feel happy to be a part of this organization even after implementation of change. 2.67 1.818 
I feel secured in my job even after the change. 4.71 0.308 
The change has reduced labor turnover. 3.44 0.942 
The municipal change has resulted in employees to be more at work. 3.54 0.928 
Change motivates employees to improve their skills and career development.  3.89 0.941 
Change creates cohesion among employees.  3.77 0.951 
I feel honored when change initiatives are communicated before implementation for my 
input. 
3.84 0.927 
 
The interpretation above indicates that respondents disagree that change management 
processes improves the morale in the workplace and that employees feels happy to be 
part of the organisation after implementation of changes (mean = 2.37, 2.67, SD = 
1.922, 1.818) respectively. However respondents highly agree that they feel secured on 
their jobs even after changes are effected (mean = 4.71, SD = 0.308). This could be 
influenced by that most workers are permanently employed on their positions and it is 
very rarely that the municipality can undergo retrenchment or restructuring that can 
make the Municipality to reduce the workforce. Therefore most employees knows that 
their jobs are secured whether the change processes are successful or fails. There is 
low level of agreement that change management process reduces labour turn-over and 
made the employees to be more at work (mean = 3.44, 3.54 and SD = 0.942, 0.928) 
respectively. Moderately respondents agrees that change processes encourages 
improvement of skills and creates cohesion amongst employees and further delights 
employees when such change initiatives are communicated to them before 
implementations (mean = 3.89, 3.77 and 3.84 with SD = 0.941, 0.951 and 0.927) 
respectively. The above table provides and indications that the change management 
process influences the employees’ morale in the work place. It is also established that 
employees are not view change management process as threatening their job 
securities. 
61 
 
The current study findings are in line with findings by El-Farra & Badawi (2012) that the 
morale of many public-sector employees is adversely affected when change initiatives 
are implemented without proper communication to employees and the impact of such 
change on their life. A study by Nicolaidis & Katsaros (2007) revealed that employees 
feel nervous, stressed and their self-confidence declines whenever there are 
organizational changes and makes the employees to be unhappy which correlates with 
the current study.  
 
Anova test was also done as reflected below in table 4.20 to 4.25 to determine the 
significant differences on employees morale responses based on the level of 
employment and years of experience. The outcomes shows that no significant 
difference on level of employment except on homogeneity variances and sum of 
squares tests which revealed significant differences. The results reveals that employees 
in management positions are affected differently on morale than those in junior 
positions. The study revealed that there are significant differences on respondents 
responses based on the years of experience which indicates that those with more years 
of experience react differently to employee morale to those with less years of 
experience. 
 
Table 4. 20: Employee morale versus level employment test of homogeneity of 
Variances 
Test of Homogeneity of Variances 
Employee morale   
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. 
3.219 4 66 .018 
 
The test of homogeneity of variances based on the Levene’s statistic tests the null 
hypothesis that the within-group variances are constant across groups. The Levene 
statistic (= 3.219) with a p-value (= 0.018) less than the 0.05 significance level show that 
the null hypothesis of homogeneity of variance was rejected. The null hypothesis (no 
difference) for the assumption of homogeneity of variance was not retained, and 
conclude that there are significant differences in the variances of employee morale 
62 
 
between the four group’s relating to the four levels of employment in the municipality. 
The assumption of homogeneity of variance was therefore not satisfied.  
 
Table 4. 21: Employee morale versus level of employment robust tests of equality 
of means  
Robust Tests of Equality of Means 
Employee morale   
 Statistica df1 df2 Sig. 
Brown-Forsythe 1.356 4 63.186 .259 
a. Asymptotically F distributed. 
 
Results of the Brown-Forsythe statistic robust test of equality of means (p = 0.259) 
confirm the assumption of equal variance was not violated. In order to further confirm 
that there were no significant differences in employee morale across levels of 
employment, the Tukey HSD post hoc test was conducted.  
  
Table 4. 22: Post-hoc test – multiple comparisons of employee morale versus 
levels of employment   
Multiple Comparisons 
Dependent Variable:   Employee morale   
Tukey HSD   
(I) Level of 
employment 
(J) Level of employment Mean Difference 
(I-J) 
Std. 
Error 
Sig. 95% Confidence Interval 
Lower 
Bound 
Upper 
Bound 
Executive 
management 
Middle management -.734 .400 .364 -1.86 .39 
Junior management -.719 .392 .362 -1.82 .38 
Clerical assistants -.745 .387 .314 -1.83 .34 
General workers -.625 .384 .484 -1.70 .45 
Middle 
management 
Executive management .734 .400 .364 -.39 1.86 
Junior management .015 .262 1.000 -.72 .75 
Clerical assistants -.011 .255 1.000 -.73 .70 
General workers .109 .250 .992 -.59 .81 
Junior 
management 
Executive management .719 .392 .362 -.38 1.82 
Middle management -.015 .262 1.000 -.75 .72 
Clerical assistants -.027 .241 1.000 -.70 .65 
63 
 
General workers .094 .235 .995 -.57 .75 
Clerical assistants 
Executive management .745 .387 .314 -.34 1.83 
Middle management .011 .255 1.000 -.70 .73 
Junior management .027 .241 1.000 -.65 .70 
General workers .120 .228 .984 -.52 .76 
General workers 
Executive management .625 .384 .484 -.45 1.70 
Middle management -.109 .250 .992 -.81 .59 
Junior management -.094 .235 .995 -.75 .57 
Clerical assistants -.120 .228 .984 -.76 .52 
 
Tukey HSD post hoc results reveals that there are no significant differences in 
employee morale across the four levels of employment in Emalahleni Local Municipality. 
  
Table 4. 23: Employee morale versus years of experience test of homogeneity of 
variances 
Test of Homogeneity of Variances 
Employee morale   
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. 
1.054 4 66 .386 
 
The test of homogeneity of variances based on the Levene’s statistic tests the null 
hypothesis that the within-group variances are constant across groups. The Levene 
statistic (= 1.054) with a p-value (= 0.386) greater than the 0.05 significance level show 
that the null hypothesis of homogeneity of variance could not be rejected. The null 
hypothesis for the assumption of homogeneity of variance was retained, and conclude 
that no significant differences in variances in employee morale across five groups of 
years of experience in the municipality. The assumption of homogeneity of variance was 
therefore statistically satisfied. 
 
 
 
 
 
64 
 
Table 4. 24: Employee morale versus years of experience robust tests of equality 
of means 
Robust Tests of Equality of Means 
Employee morale   
 Statistica df1 df2 Sig. 
Brown-Forsythe 5.626 4 59.679 .001 
a. Asymptotically F distributed. 
 
Consistent with the ANOVA computed F-statistic (4.780) and the associated p-value (= 
0.003), results of the Brown-Forsythe statistic (= 5.626) robust test of equality of means 
(p = 0.001) indicate that there were significant differences in employee morale among 
employees across different categories of years of experience. In order to detect the 
categories of years of experience which have significant differences in employee 
morale, the Tukey HSD post hoc test was further conducted.  
 
Table 4. 25: Post-hoc test – multiple comparisons of employee morale versus 
years of experience   
Multiple Comparisons 
Dependent Variable:   Employee morale   
Tukey HSD   
(I) Years of experience 
with current employer 
(J) Years of experience 
with current employer 
Mean 
Difference (I-
J) 
Std. 
Error 
Sig. 95% Confidence Interval 
Lower 
Bound 
Upper 
Bound 
0 - 5 years 
6 - 10 years -.117 .205 .979 -.69 .46 
11 - 15 years -.164 .253 .967 -.87 .55 
16 - 20 years -.470 .221 .223 -1.09 .15 
21 years and above -1.203* .302 .002 -2.05 -.36 
6 - 10 years 
0 - 5 years .117 .205 .979 -.46 .69 
11 - 15 years -.047 .242 1.000 -.73 .63 
16 - 20 years -.353 .209 .446 -.94 .23 
21 years and above -1.086* .293 .004 -1.91 -.26 
11 - 15 years 
0 - 5 years .164 .253 .967 -.55 .87 
6 - 10 years .047 .242 1.000 -.63 .73 
16 - 20 years -.306 .256 .754 -1.02 .41 
21 years and above -1.039* .328 .019 -1.96 -.12 
16 - 20 years 0 - 5 years .470 .221 .223 -.15 1.09 
65 
 
6 - 10 years .353 .209 .446 -.23 .94 
11 - 15 years .306 .256 .754 -.41 1.02 
21 years and above -.733 .304 .126 -1.59 .12 
21 years and above 
0 - 5 years 1.203* .302 .002 .36 2.05 
6 - 10 years 1.086* .293 .004 .26 1.91 
11 - 15 years 1.039* .328 .019 .12 1.96 
16 - 20 years .733 .304 .126 -.12 1.59 
*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level. 
 
Tukey HSD post hoc results show signals of significant differences in employee morale 
exist among employees with working experience of 21 years above versus employees 
with 0-5 years’ experience, 6-10 years of experience and 11-15 years’ experience. 
4.6 Comparison all three dimensional objectives of the study using correlation 
co-efficient analysis 
Table 4.26 below revealed that there is a positive correlations between all three 
objectives of the study as results show that the highest statistically significant and 
positive correlation exists between job performance and employee morale (β= 0.696), 
followed by trust in management and employee morale (β= 0.660), and job performance 
and trust in management (β= 0.647). This means that organisation change 
management process have an impact on job performance, trust in management and 
employee morale and it is important that implementers of operational change 
management in the organisation considers the three aspects when effecting changes to 
ensure the success of change initiatives. 
 
Table 4. 26: Correlations co-efficient of all dimensions – change management 
process on job performance, trust in management and employee morale 
Correlation Co-efficient 
 Change 
managemen
t process 
Job 
performance 
Trust in 
managemen
t 
Employee 
morale 
Spearman's 
rho 
Change 
management 
process 
Correlation 
Coefficient 
1.000 .543** .496** .494** 
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000 .000 .000 
66 
 
N 71 71 71 71 
Job 
performance 
Correlation 
Coefficient 
.543** 1.000 .647** .696** 
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 . .000 .000 
N 71 71 71 71 
Trust in 
management 
Correlation 
Coefficient 
.496** .647** 1.000 .660** 
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 . .000 
N 71 71 71 71 
Employee 
morale 
Correlation 
Coefficient 
.494** .696** .660** 1.000 
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 . 
N 71 71 71 71 
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 
 
4.8 Summary 
The chapter presented findings from statistical analysis undertaken on the influence of a 
change management process on work-related attitudes in Emalahleni Local 
Municipality. Three techniques namely, Correlation co-efficient, descriptive analysis and 
ANOVA test were used to achieve the objectives of the study. Findings were briefly 
discussed in comparison with previous research studies. 
 
The next chapter will be on main findings, conclusion and recommendations. 
67 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
MAIN FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 
 
5.1 Introduction 
The chapter presents main findings, conclusions and recommendations of the research 
that aims to measure the influence of a change management process on work related 
attitudes at Emalahleni Local Municipality. The primary research findings are discussed 
in line with research objectives (to determine the relationship between organisational 
change management process & job performance, to establish the impact of 
organisational change management process on trust in management and to determine 
the relationship between organisational change management process & employee 
morale) and an extent to which they were addressed. An overall conclusion of the 
research will follow and recommendations to Emalahleni Local Municipality on how they 
can best deal with work related attitudes when implementing change and the future 
research on the similar research area. 
5.2 Main Findings 
The research used a quantitative research approach whose main thrust is to collect 
statistical data for analysis. A case study approach was adopted using Emalahleni local 
municipality and principal research instrument used was the questionnaire. 71 
respondents took part on the research. The primary research objective was to evaluate 
how change management process affects the attitudes of workers towards their work 
based on job performance, trust in management and employee morale. 
 
The finding was that the relationship between the organisational change management 
process and job performance do exist and the study indicated a positive correlation 
between change management process and job performance which affirm the 
relationship between change management process and job performance. There was 
high level of agreement from respondents that change management process directly 
68 
 
impacts on the job performance and job performance becomes quicker and easier after 
changes have been effected and it further improves work efficiency. However 
respondents disagreed that performance of the Municipality improves every time 
changes are effected. 
 
Establishing the impact of organisational change management process on trust in 
management descriptive analysis was used using mean and standard deviations and 
the findings indicated that the change management process have impact on trust in 
management by employees. As revealed by respondents there was uncertainty if there 
is trust between management and employees after change processes have been 
effected. Respondents modestly agreed that are involved in the change management 
processes and management consult employees when effecting changes and that they 
are further given the opportunity to influence change. This indicates that there are still 
areas of improvements that the Municipality will need to implore to improve the trust 
between management and employees when change processes are effected.  
 
It has been established from the analysis that a positive correlation between change 
management process and employee morale exist which affirms that the relationship 
between change management process and employee morale. The respondents 
disagreed that change management processes improves the morale in the workplace 
and that employees feels happy to be part of the organisation after implementation of 
changes. However respondents highly agreed that they feel secured on their jobs even 
after changes are effected. There was low level of agreement that change management 
process reduces labour turn-over and made the employees to be more at work. 
Respondents moderately agreed that change processes encourages improvement of 
skills and creates cohesion amongst employees. This is an indications that the change 
management process influences the employees’ morale in the work place.  
 
The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests conducted revealed no significant differences 
for all three objectives on the level of employment by respondents. However significant 
differences on job performance and employee morale were identified with regards to 
69 
 
years of experience. This means that change management processes affects 
employees differently based their years of experience. 
5.3 Recommendations    
The outcomes of the research findings yielded the following recommendations:  
5.3.1 The importance of employees’ consideration when implementing changes 
The Municipality needs to ensure when implementing operational change management 
that employees attitudes towards the proposed changes are taken into consideration for 
change initiatives to be successful and sustainable as expected that overall Municipal 
performance needs to improve after implementation of changes. 
5.3.2 Prepare for the change management and build awareness towards it 
It is very important for senior management and staff to be knowledgeable of all the 
important aspects of the change management framework and models available, and 
before any more progress has been made reach an agreement on what those matters 
and how they can be best implemented. Emalahleni local municipality should consider 
upfront the South African statutory obligations that relate to change programs and what 
they require to achieve in terms of employee management and labour relations. The 
municipality will have to anticipate all potential problems both before and after the 
implementation of change programs: possible disputes with the relevant trade unions 
over terms and conditions of affected staff; the emotional impact on affected staff and 
the potential for associated stress. 
5.3.3 Increase communication and consultation with employees 
Emalahleni Local municipality needs to increase the levels of communication and more 
consultations with employees so as to integrate them into the change management 
programs. The management should establish a clear sense of strategic direction from 
the beginning of the change programs, and constantly maintain continuous 
communication amongst all parties concerned. The change committees should be more 
consultative. This would ensure that the employees are able to embrace the change on 
70 
 
a personal level, and will develop a personal interest in seeing the change process 
succeed. 
5.3.4 Providing a Strategic direction 
If change initiatives are understood by emloyees and the municipality’s strategies, goals 
and expectations clearly defined, then employees are more likely to be open to have 
constructive deliberations on things needed to be done, and will accept  the decisions 
that will be taken eventually. Employees therefore need to be fully informed on the 
whole program and its implications from the onset – as soon as the municipality and 
senior management understand that changes are likely to happen. Even if there is no 
pertinent information, discussion and exchange of views between council, management 
and employees is better than anxious speculation and predictions of through the 
grapevine. 
5.3.5 Catering for individual differences when implementing change 
The prospect of addressing the unique needs of individual may be daunting for an 
organisation like Emalahleni municipality but when done right it will ensure that the 
employees are more receptive of the change processes. Employees reacts differently to 
prospects of change, and acceptance or rejection of change will be in different forms to 
each employee. One-on-one contacts with employees in particular must show an 
appreciation of these individual differences. It is important the any individual who is 
affected directly by any change initiative be informed individually on the impact on their 
work privately. In this regard, the municipality should ensure that they have access to 
suitable professional support for counselling needs, such as through Employee 
Assistance Program. 
5.3.6 Development of training strategies 
Workplace changes at Emalahleni Municipality and any local authority in South Africa, 
require all affected to understand that organisational renewal requires the willingness to 
improve efficiency, productivity and the wellbeing of the employees, it requires a 
renewed and continuous commitment to education, training and skills development. 
71 
 
From the onset, a key strategy should be to make sure that the local authority adopts 
training plans that will be implemented continuously. This ensures continuity and 
certainty for employees to feel secured on their jobs and positions. 
5.3.7 Establishing credibility to regain trust 
In order to build trust within the various groups in the organisation striving for credibility 
should be a priority for the management. The management team must strive to create 
its credibility, and this will generally come from two sources – demonstrated expertise 
and productive relationships. Credibility and respect can be gained at the beginning of 
the change process by ensuring sufficient communication with the workforce and  
showing that Municipal leadership is well-informed about measures for change and 
matters involved, and the process together with the short-term goals that must be 
achieved, and how best to proceed. 
5.4 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research 
This research study carried some limitations. Firstly, the study was based in one 
institution being Emalahleni Local Municipality therefore the outcomes are limited to 
Emalahleni Local Municipality and cannot be used in other similar institutions. There 
were few respondents who participated in the study in order for the sample size to draw 
generalization of the findings on municipalities.  Sample size used for this study was 
reasonably big but not sufficiently adequate to draw generalized conclusions on a 
bigger scale. As such, the sample size used placed a considerable question on the 
generalizability of the study’s findings. There was limited time given to conclude the 
research which limited exploration to utilize bigger sample size and to in-depth analyse 
the data collected to include other elements that links to change management process 
in the Municipality. 
 
Therefore suggestions for further research may include larger scale sample size may be 
considered on the similar future studies. Future studies would benefit from using 
supplementary measures to cross-validate conclusions of the determinants of 
successful organisational change especially in complex organisations like Municipalities 
72 
 
where the environment is led by politics. Change management process in public 
institutions has not been researched in-depth, therefore future research can be done on 
change management process in public sector particularly Municipalities focussing on 
various Municipalities in the country. The study has identified that the relationship do 
exist between change management process, job performance and employee morale, 
therefore future research can consider the impact of these relations on the Municipal 
business process and performance as an institution. The study further established that 
change management process do impact directly on trust in management by employees 
further studies can be conducted to establish behavioural patterns and /or conduct of 
employees on management due to change management process. It has been 
established as well that respondents with many years of experience responds differently 
from those with less experience, therefore further research can be done to establish the 
impact of long work experience on receptive of change management. 
 
There are huge multifarious areas under organisational change management which in 
fact haven’t yet been sufficiently and empirically investigated including areas relating to 
the unfavourable effects of organisational change on employee emotional interests. 
Additional reproductions of the same study that will be done with a bigger and different 
sampling group will also deliver a great addition of future studies and its outcomes might 
differ from the current study. 
5.5 Conclusion 
This chapter has provided main findings, recommendations, conclusion as well as 
suggestions for further research to the study. Change management implementation in 
various organisation is still a huge challenge and in organisations like Municipalities is 
very complex as there are two levels of leadership being administration and political 
leadership. Therefore care needs to be exercised at all times when implementing 
changes whether strategic or operational changes. 
 
 
 
73 
 
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93 
 
APPENDIX A – QUESTIONNAIRE 
DEAR PARTICIPANT 
THE INFLUENCE OF A CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESS ON WORK RELATED ATTITUDES: THE 
CASE OF EMALAHLENI LOCAL MUNICIPALITY (QUESTIONNAIRE) 
My name is Margaret Millicent Skosana a MBA student at North West University Business School. For my 
mini dissertation, I am doing a research as per the above mentioned title. Because you are an employee 
of Emalahleni Local Municipality, I am inviting you to participate in this research study by completing the 
attached questionnaire. 
Data collected will be kept confidential and will only be used for educational purposes hence you are 
requested NOT to include your name on the questionnaire. The participation is voluntary and a participant 
can withdraw at any time if not comfortable to complete the questionnaire. Please note your name will not 
be revealed to any third party, so your inputs will remain confidential and you are requested to be as 
honest as possible when answering the questions. 
The intention of the questionnaire is to examine how change management process affects workers 
attitudes towards their work at Emalahleni Local Municipality. 
The estimated time for the completion of the questionnaire is approximately 20 minutes. 
For any clarity seeking questions, you can contact the undersigned at maggiem@inbox.com. 
Thank you for taking time to assist me in my academic efforts. 
Yours Sincerely 
MM Skosana 
Student No: 2828 9064 
NWU Business School, MBA Candidate. 
 
  
1. Biographical Information / Demographics:  
1.1. Gender 
REFERENCING Tick (x) 
1 Male  
2 Female  
 
1.2. Age 
REFERENCING  Tick (x) 
1 18 to 24 years  
2 25 to 34 years  
3 35 to 44 years  
4 45 to 54 years  
5 55-64 years  
6 65 years and 
above 
 
 
1.3. Race 
REFERENCING  Tick (x) 
1 Black  
2 White  
3 Coloured  
4 Indians  
5 Other: Specify  
 
1.4. Years of experience (from first day at work until to date) 
 
REFERENCING  Tick (x) 
1 0-5 years  
2 6-10 years  
3 11-15 years  
4 16-20 years  
5 21 years and 
above 
 
 
1.5. Years of experience with current employer (only at Emalahleni Local Municipality) 
REFERENCING  Tick (x) 
1 0-5 years  
2 6-10 years  
3 11-15 years  
4 16-20 years  
5 21 years and 
above 
 
 
  
1.6. Level of education 
REFERENCING  Tick (x) 
1 No schooling  
2 Primary completed  
3 Matric completed  
4 College/University  
 
1.7. Level of employment 
REFERENCING  Tick (x) 
1 Executive Management (Directors, departmental heads etc.)  
2 Middle management (operations managers, assistant 
managers etc.) 
 
3 Junior Management (e.g. artisans, technicians etc.)  
4 Clerical assistant (secretaries, admin clerk etc.)  
5 General workers / assistants  
 
2. Change management process in the organisation: 
2. Implementation of 
Change management 
process in the 
organisation: 
1 2 3 4 5 
Strongly 
disagree 
Disagree Neither 
agree or 
disagree 
Agree Strongly 
Agree 
2.1 I feel the organisational 
change made a positive 
attitudes towards work. 
     
2.2 I strongly align with 
change initiatives that 
the organization 
implements.  
     
2.3 I feel more confident 
with my job even after 
the changes are made.  
     
2.4 Change management 
process improves my 
turn-around time on 
completing my work.  
     
2.5 I feel fulfilled when 
changes are 
implemented 
successfully by me. 
     
 
 
 
 
  
3. Organisational change management process and job performance: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3. Relationship 
between 
organisational 
change management 
process and job 
performance: 
1 2 3 4 5 
Strongly 
disagree 
Disagree Neither 
agree or 
disagree 
Agree Strongly 
Agree 
3.1 Change management 
process at work has 
direct impact to my job 
performance 
     
3.2 After change 
implementation my job 
becomes easier and 
quicker to perform 
     
3.3 Change management 
improves my skills 
which enhance my job 
performance 
     
3.4 Change management 
encourages 
developments at work 
     
3.5 Improved performance 
is always a result of 
change.  
     
3.6 Time taken to 
implement changes 
has a positive effect 
on my work.  
     
3.7 Change management 
processes initiated by 
the organisation aims 
to enhance job 
performance. 
     
3.8 Change management 
implementation 
reduces time taken to 
perform an activity. 
     
3.9 Change management 
promotes continuous 
training at work which 
improves work 
efficiency 
     
3.10 Performance of the 
Municipality improves 
every time changes 
are effected 
     
  
4. Organisational change management process on trust in management: 
4. The impact of 
organisational 
change management 
process on trust in 
management 
1 2 3 4 5 
Strongly 
disagree 
Disagree Neither 
agree or 
disagree 
Agree Strongly 
Agree 
4.1 There is trust between 
management and 
employees when 
change management 
processes are 
effected. 
     
4.2 Management explains 
the processes to be 
used to effect 
changes. 
     
4.3 Relationship between 
employees and 
management 
improves after 
changes. 
     
4.4 Employee queries on 
proposed changes are 
taken seriously and 
responded to by 
management.  
     
4.5 All affected employees 
are consulted about 
changes by 
management 
     
4.6 The municipality 
provided employees 
with enough 
information & 
education on the 
change processes 
     
4.7 Employees are given 
an opportunity to 
adapt to change.  
     
4.8 Sufficient time is given 
to employees to 
engage on any 
change initiatives. 
     
4.9 Supervisors discusses 
changes with their 
employees. 
     
4.10 Employees are able to 
influence change 
management 
processes. 
     
4.11 Employees are part of 
change management 
committees. 
     
  
5. Organisational change management process and employee morale 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
5. The relationship 
between 
organisational 
change management 
process and 
employee morale 
1 2 3 4 5 
Strongly 
disagree 
Disagree Neither 
agree or 
disagree 
Agree Strongly 
Agree 
5.1 The employees’ 
morale is improved 
after changes are 
effected. 
     
5.2 I feel happy to be a 
part of this 
organization even 
after implementation 
of change. 
     
5.3 I feel secured in my 
job even after the 
change. 
     
5.4 The change has 
reduced labor 
turnover. 
     
5.5 The municipal change 
has resulted in 
employees to be more 
at work. 
     
5.6 Change motivates 
employees to improve 
their skills and career 
development.  
     
5.7 Change creates 
cohesion among 
employees.  
     
5.8 I feel honored when 
change initiatives are 
communicated before 
implementation for my 
input. 
     
  
APPENDIX B: APPROVAL LETTER FROM EMALAHLENI LOCAL MUNICIPALITY