Individual Responses to Organisational Change: An Interoceptive Predictive Processing Account

Abstract

<p>Organisational change is a ubiquitous phenomenon within contemporary workplaces, yet it is consistently reported that over 70% of organisational change attempts fail. Organisational change is characterised by uncertainty and conflict and is associated with decrements in health and well-being for employees and a reduction in organisational performance. The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying individual responses to organisational change have not been widely researched. The current study sought to apply the interoceptive predictive processing framework to examine how the central and peripheral nervous system is impacted by organisational change. An integrated electroencephalogram (EEG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) study was carried out in an organisation undergoing change. Fortyeight English speaking employees volunteered to participate in the study. EEG and electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings were taken as employees undertook an affective face word Stroop (AFWS) task, which pairs an affectively expressive face with either a congruent or incongruent emotion word to produce emotional interference and adaptation effects similar to those reported for the colour-word Stroop paradigm. EEG results showed left hemisphere dominant control related cortical activation in regions associated with cognitive, perceptual, and executive processes which were functionally connected to right pre-supplementary and supplementary motor areas. These findings indicate that organisational change is positively correlated with cognitive control when faced with conflicting affective challenges. ECG results showed that allostatic (cardiac) responses were negatively correlated with organisational change. The interoceptive predictive processing model provided a unitary framework for describing both seemingly paradoxical results. The novel findings have practical implications for organisations undergoing change and add to the nascent field of organisational neuroscience.</p>