Change leadership and change embeddedness in public organizations: connecting macrolevel reform to microlevel implementation

Abstract

Governments initiate major public sector reforms for variousreasons. Although change leadership appears crucial, its role inimplementing reforms in public organizations receives scantattention. Insights from public administration and change man-agement literature help to bridge the gap between thesemacrolevel and microlevel perspectives. Our multilevel study oftwo youth care organizations addressing public sector reformexplores how leadership behavior—and in interaction betweentop and middle managers—contributes to the concept of whatwe callchange embeddednessamong front-line employees. Theuse of leadership behaviors during the reform that are leadercentric (shaping) appear to be associated with greater ambiguityand worse change embeddedness. However, leadershipfocused onengagingemployees andboundary spanningwithexternal organizations seems to support the embeddedness ofthe reform, especially when these behaviors are connected toa clear sense of purpose around the change.