Impact of LMX and organizational trust on resistance to change vis-A-vis mediating effect of employee perception of organizational justice

Saudi Arabian economic environment is currently undergoing a major shift from government expenditure dependence to market dependence. All major sector which were dependent since long on government are devising new strategies to cope with this change. One of the largest sector is construction which has felt more pressure of this change and it is undergoing major restructuring, rightsizing and thereby evolving new roles. Employees in this sector are at a risk of job loss due to future uncertainty and naturally are in state of resistance to change initiatives of the organizations. This research aims to measure the impact of such resistance to change specifically in the state if there LMX and organizational trust existed. We have also tested to see the role of organizational justice in this relationship and to see how change is facilitated. The study was restricted to only nine companies registered in Saudi Arabia stock exchange dealing in real estate development and construction businesses. Sample was taken from senior managers and employees from well ranked companies which included (63) senior directors and (385) employees. From the senior position holders, we received valid responses from (60) individuals, thus having response rate as 95%, while from employees we received valid responses from (373) singles and obtained 97% response rate. Overall higher response rate was merely due to conducting in-depth interviews from the respondents during the information gathering process. The statistical analysis of the results lead us to draw conclusions that LMX and both informational and interactive justice dramatically reduce employee resistance to change initiatives, whereas, procedural justice does not appear to have helped in reducing the resistance of employees in change process. The statistical results also indicate the direct mediating influence of employee perception of justice and minimizing resistance. Alternative testing of trust also found to have significantly playing the role as a mediator in leadership-member exchange relationship and resistance to change.