Strategic communication in organizational change: Exploring the impact of two-sided messages on legitimacy judgments and commitment to change

Employees' commitment to organizational change largely determines the success of change initiatives, and communication arguably can strengthen this commitment. By building on attribution theory and knowledge about legitimacy judgments, the current research investigates how two-sided messages, which contain both negative and positive information, affect employees’ commitment to change, through the serial mediation of credibility and legitimacy judgments. A vignette experiment with 227 participants reveals, in findings that conflict with some prior contributions, that in a change context, two-sided messages directly reduce credibility. Two-sided messages are also indirectly linked to commitment to change through the proposed serial mediation. Contrary to our hypotheses, the indirect association is negative. The study thereby adds to research on strategic communication and legitimacy during organizational change and provides valuable insights for practitioners regarding the use and context-specific limited persuasiveness of two-sided messages.