Perceived Organizational Readiness for IT-Based Change and its Antecedents: An Exploratory Study in the Healthcare Sector

This study builds on the change management literature and identifies variables associated with perceptions of organizational readiness for change in the specific context of health information systems. A questionnaire was distributed to the future users of a telehomecare project in 11 home care organizations. A total of 138 questionnaires were returned, for a response rate of 90%. Our findings reveal that project managers would benefit from explicitly addressing change content perceptions when pre-implementing information systems. More specifically, all three types of change sentiments – vision clarity, change appropriateness and change efficacy – have a positive influence on users’ perceptions of organizational readiness. Furthermore, we observed that users’ perceptions of the organization’s flexibility were positively related to organizational readiness for change. In short, as organizations continue to invest in IT to improve performance, understanding the factors that influence organizational readiness for change represents an important avenue for future research.