THE DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF THE COMMUNICATING-FOR-CHANGE QUESTIONNAIRE

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire that measures the effectiveness of communication during organisational change interventions. A draft questionnaire was completed by a sample of convenience comprising 521 participants. The questionnaire contained 109 items in question format with a Likert-type response scale anchored at the extreme ends. The data was factor analysed and an iterative item analysis was executed. The results yielded a single scale with a Cronbach

the need for change as it evolves in the context of a more rapidly changing environment. Within this realm, organisations can either initiate or submit to change. To be able to stay in business, however, change will have to be accommodated, one way or another. Given the premise that change is unavoidable, it would make sense to search for ways to manage change in a manner that best serves the interests of the organisation. Change, of whatever nature, puts great strain on a changing organisation where the most taxing aspects of major organisational change are often found to be the people and culture dimensions. Pendlebury et al. (1998) stated that change programs of any significant scale are simply threatening to most people as they foster a variety of anxieties.
Literature on change management strategies and methodologies amplifies the importance of effective communication, implying that appropriate communication during the change process could add greatly towards the success of the change intervention. This statement is substantiated throughout the literature review to follow. The study built upon the assumption that effective communication is a crucial part of a successful change process and that aspects within the changing organisation may either facilitate or impede effective change communication. The primary aim of this research, then, was the development and validation of a measuring instrument that would measure the effectiveness of change communication in an organisational context. To achieve this goal, a conceptual model delineating the domain of communicating-for-change had to be constructed and a questionnaire had to be developed to comprehensively measure the effectiveness of the change communication process across the specified domain.
Change management in an organisational context Change management may be defined as the transforming of the organisation so that it is aligned with the execution of a chosen business strategy (Digrius, 1996). According to this view, change management implies the following: The management of the human element in a large-scale change project such as a merger, business process reengineering process or even an information technology initiative. It includes activities such as: culture change (values, beliefs and attitudes), developing reward systems (measurement and appropriate incentives), organisational design, stakeholder management, human resource policies and procedures, executive coaching, change leadership training, team building, communication planning, and execution. Pendlebury et al. (1998) argued that change is not a "natural" condition in business, because businesses are designed to work, to satisfy customers' needs, to produce, and not to change.
Although change is important for organisational survival, it necessitates destabilisation of the status quo, which may impact negatively on the short-term performance of the organisation. It is consequently necessary to manage this change and to return to a situation of optimal performance, as soon as possible (Pendlebury et al., 1998). It can, therefore, be argued that change is an important management issue. In this respect, many models of change management exist. As a baseline for this study, three prominent models of organisational change management are briefly reviewed (Cummings & Worley, 1997): The Change Model of Kurt Lewin The Action Research Model and The Contemporary Action Research Model.
The essence of the change model of Kurt Lewin presented in Figure 1, involves a three step change process during which forces maintaining the present organisational behaviour are removed, "old" organisational behaviour is moved to "new" organisational behaviour, values and attitudes, and change is institutionalised by means of supporting mechanisms such as culture, norms, policies and structures. The Action Research Model in Figure 2 focuses on change as a cyclical process, where research provides information to guide subsequent action. After change (action), data is gathered to measure and determine the effects of the action and feedback is provided to the organisation to guide new action.
The Contemporary Action Research Model presented in Figure 3 focuses on change in total systems. This model implies the importance of member involvement, of taking a positive approach to change, and of utilising the positive aspects of the current organisation to define what the organisation could look like in the future. In an effort to move the organisation towards its future state, members make changes, assess the results and effect the necessary adjustments. Within each of the three baseline models of change management mentioned above, the role of communication is apparent. Referring specifically to the work of Kanter, Stein and Jick (1992), Kotter (in Ivancevich & Matteson, 1996), Lidstone (1996) and Pendlebury et al. (1998), it is possible to recognise communication as one of the critical determinants of successful change management interventions (see Table 1).

Compelling Vision
The creation of a compelling future state that energises the organisation.

Transformational
Exercising the ability to influence an Leadership organisation or a group towards the achievement of goals -by means of influencing, motivating, stimulating and individualised consideration.
Transference of the Purpose The transference and understanding of meaning, by whatever means necessary.

Obtaining Participation
Participation refers to the extent that a person's knowledge, opinions and ideas are included in the transformation/ change process.
Executing the (Change/ Walking the talk, showing tenacity in the Transformation) Purpose activities that support change and rewarding appropriate behaviour to enhance the probability of that behaviour being repeated.
Communication as a key to successful organisational change Many authors attest to the view that communication is a crucial link in the total change management process. Both the 1997ProSci Reports (Pro Sci, 1997Pro Sci, 1998) indicated that the change management activities that had the greatest impact on project success were: Open and consistent communication.
Personnel changes to support the new organisation. Support from all levels of management. Pre-implementation training of employees.
Shockley-Zalabak (1991) stated that organisational excellence (and by implication: excellent change management) may be enhanced by effective communication, especially where human and technological communication systems within organisations are responsible for creatively solving increasingly complex problems, such as the problems associated with major organisational change. Young and Post (1993) argued that effective communication is vital to any organisation undergoing significant change and that affected employees, teams and stakeholders need information so that they can continually assist the organisation to achieve its objectives.
Communication, according to Plunkett and Attner (1998, p. 351), is the transition of information (data in a coherent, usable form), from one person or group to another with the aim of establishing a common understanding among the parties of each communication. Tosi, Rizzo and Carroll (1996, p. 370) defined effective communication as the degree to which a message is received and understood, and the receiver's reaction to the message corresponds to the sender's purpose in sending it.
Organisations, according to Tosi et al. (1996, p. 368), are human communities in which the members are tied together in complex relationships where the nature of these relationships is influenced by the quality of communication amongst the members. Within this context the primary purpose of communication is: To obtain a common focus or direction among members.
To integrate the effort of specialists.
To aid in making high-quality decisions.
To build a community of employees with high morale and trust among themselves.
In order to better understand the process of communication, a simplified model of communication, adapted from Tosi et al. (1996), indicates the following basic building blocks in communication: Figure 4: A simplified communication model (adapted from Tosi, Rizzo & Carroll, 1996) The model in Figure 4 indicates that the transference of meaning (communication) is the process whereby a sender transfers a message, by means of a specific method, to a receiver who needs to receive the message, needs to understand it and needs to react to it in a purposeful manner. Feedback in this context is a mechanism used to ensure that the receiver understands the purpose of the message, before acting.
Transference of meaning, however, is never simplistic. The communication model presented in Figure 5 (Shockley-Zalabak, 1991) depicts a more complex model of communication, indicating that the essence of communication is the transferring of information between two or more

Method
Feedback individuals for a specific purpose. In this process of communication words are used to explain, to build realities and to code messages. Sources send messages via a specific medium, to be received by the "other party" or receiver, and to be decoded. When the message is decoded, it can either be understood or misunderstood, from where the whole process can be repeated in the other direction. According to Shockley-Zalabak (1991) the following elements may be distinguished within the communication process depicted above: Encoding and decoding which may be influenced by communicative competence (knowledge, sensitivity, skills and values of communicators), past experiences, perception of the competence of others, as well as the communication context. Distortion or noise, which acts as a barrier to clear communication and contributes to discrepancies between the meaning intended by the source and the meaning assigned by the receiver. Distortion or noise is always present and can range from physical distractions to psychological predispositions, where the type of noise contributes to the meanings assigned to messages received, as well as the encoding of new messages.
The channel or the medium through which the message is transmitted between the source and the receiver. Channels include all five senses, as well as technology used for message transmission. The channel used for transmission can distort messages, both technologically and in sensory reception.
Experiences of all the parties in the communication interaction, implying that each party acts from a specific set of experiences that frames his or her frame of reference. The more common the frame of reference, the easier it is to share similar meanings or construct shared realities. The communication context, detailing the environment for the communication interaction. The context implies specifics relating to time, place, roles, relationships and status of participants.
Communication effect, implying the result, consequence or outcome of the communication exchange.
Feedback, referring to information that flows between the sender and receiver indicating how the receiver perceives the message. Feedback turns the receiver into a sender of information and vice versa. This serves the purpose of refining the message until a common understanding is achieved.
Change communication can therefore be described as the process, with a variety of elements, through which shared realities are constructed, which are crucial for the management of change. Lasswell (comm2000/textbook/chapter02.html, 3/2/00) added understanding by describing communication as a process of "who says what to whom with what effect".
Within the context of organisational change, communication may then be viewed as the process through which managers give direction and sustain dynamism. Clarity about a vision for the future can only come from the top, and communication is needed to convey this vision to everyone in the organisation (Francis, 1987). Communication brings vision, hope, direction, value, importance and meaning in a language that can be understood. It thus provides the emotional glue that binds people together. According to Alexander (1993) the importance of the need to facilitate information exchange to ensure efficiency in the operation of organisations has made good communication an indispensable management skill. It may be necessary, however, to consider the aspects possibly impacting upon effective communication.
Aspects impacting on effective communication How well employees understand the rationale for change and how easily they are able to develop the skills necessary to contribute to their organisation's success depend largely on one factor, namely communication, or more specifically, effective communication (Sanchez, 1997). The rationale for identif ying those aspects that may inhibit or negatively influence effective communication is, therefore, to prevent change communicators from unknowingly falling pray to these. Aspects impacting on effective communication reflect difficulties intrinsic to most efforts to communicate about complex technical, value-laden and organisational change issues.
There are a number of aspects that can either inhibit or facilitate the effectiveness of communications. According to Tosi et al. (1996) these aspects manifest themselves in individual differences, in the form of communication used, in organisational characteristics, and in communication event characteristics. Developing a synthesis based on the work of Ettore (1995), Risk Communication (2000), Larkin and Larkin (1996), Plunkett and Attner (1998), Rogers and Roethlisberger (1999) and Tosi et al. (1996), the following basic model of the aspects that may affect communication can be compiled: Figure 6: A basic model of aspects that affect communication (adapted from Tosi et al., 1996) The aspects that may negatively affect communication could be viewed as barriers to effective communication. These barriers may be categorised as follows: Individual differences relating to variables such as personality, age, gender, race, ethnicity, level of education, occupational and organisational experience (Tosi et al., categorised into six secondary aspects, aimed at defining the context of the six primary aspects. Both the primary, as well as the secondary, aspects are believed to affect effective communication to a greater or lesser extent. These aspects impact on the transference of meaning and if these aspects succeed in distorting the message and/or the feedback relating to the message, the purpose and objective of the initial message will be negated. Having now identified both the aspects required for successful organisational change (drivers for change: see Table 2) and those aspects impacting on effective communication (barriers to communication: see Table 3), an integrated model accommodating both sets of aspects may be presented. This integrated change and communication model presents the two sets of aspects in a matrix format depicting the intricate inter-relationships between these two sets of variables (see Figure 7).

Individual
Factors such as personality, age, gender, Differences race, ethnicity, education and experience.

Selective
Receivers selectively see and hear based Perception on their needs, motivation, experience and background. Receivers also project interests and expectations into communications as they decode them.

Emotions
How the receiver feels at the time of aspects receipt of a message will influence interpretation, e.g. happy, depressed or angry.

Actions
Non-verbal communication that either supports or contradicts verbal or written communication.
Organisational Relates to the organisational structure, complexity hierarchy, span of control, reward Organisational systems, etc. that impact on the flow of aspects communication, and which can lead to aspects such as filtering or manipulation of information.
Content, mode Refers to the actual information being Message and quality transferred between sender and receiver, aspects of message and includes variables such the medium or the clarity of the message.
This model served as the theoretical basis for the development of the Communication-for Change questionnaire, by attempting to delineate the domain of "communicating-for-change".

METHOD
Two assumptions were used as a point of departure in this study: Assumption 1. Effective communication is a key imperative in successful organisational change interventions.
Assumption 2. Aspects pertaining to individual, organisational and message variables may impact upon the effectiveness of the change communication.

Sample
The population used in this study consisted of individuals employed in South African organisations, either in the midst of a large-scale organisational change process, or recently through such a process. Organisations from both the private sector (rendering 65, 8% of the responses), and the public sector (rendering 33,2 % of the responses) were included in the study. Individuals from the Defence, from the Police and from organisations within the communications and manufacturing industries made up the larger portion of the sample.
A sufficiently large sample was targeted, in order to ensure a relatively stable factor structure (Thorndike, 1982). Questionnaires were distributed to 750 individuals across all organisational levels of which 521 usable questionnaires were returned, resulting in a response rate of 69,5%. Participants represented four organisational levels, namely senior management (17,9%), middle management (26,9%), supervisory management (22,1%) and operational staff (33,2%). Participants presented with a mean age of 36,6 years and a mean length of service within the particular organisation of 12,2 years. Male participants made up 74,7% of the sample and female participants 25,3%. In terms of language preference, 48,4% of the participants indicated Afrikaans, 39,5% indicated English and 12,1% indicated another language as their home language. However, the last-mentioned group also indicated English as their preferred language of communication.
The above descriptive statistics of the sample is presented in Table 4.

Measuring Instrument
The following process was followed in developing the Communicating-for-Change instrument: Four st udies on successful change management were studied and integrated, resulting in the identification of five primary drivers for successful change (see Table 2). These five drivers for change were postulated as one dimension of the domain "communicatingfor-change". Several studies regarding communication effectiveness were investigated and integrated, resulting in the identification of three primary and six secondary aspects, which may impact effective communication. These aspects were postulated as a second dimension of the domain "communicating-forchange" (see Table 3). The results of the above two steps were posted in a matrix format, creating a framework depicting both the abovementioned dimensions of the domain "communicating-forchange" (see Figure 7). Based on the communication literature referenced in the study, a pool of question format items were developed to cover each of the 30 sub dimensions resulting from the process described immediately above. Subject matter experts evaluated the pool of items and only items complying with the criteria for standardised measuring instruments, as described by Schepers (1992), were retained. This process of expert scrutiny resulted in a draft questionnaire consisting of 109 questions, covering each of the 30 sub dimensions of the construct as depicted in Figure 7. The response format of the questionnaire was a seven-point Likert-type intensity scale, anchored at the extreme ends (Schepers, 1992

Research Procedure
Organisations were approached on an ad hoc basis and invited to take part in the study. A covering letter accompanied all Each organisation identified a contact person responsible for the distribution, collection and return of the questionnaires to the researcher. Contact persons were required to distribute questionnaires across all organisational levels, with the only requirement that of ensuring an adequate level of literacy on the part of the participants. Participation of organisations and individuals were voluntary and individual participants responded anonymously. Confidentiality was set as a nonnegotiable requirement.

Statistical Analysis
The procedure of statistical analysis as proposed by Schepers (1992, pp. 140-143) was used in this study. The Statistical Consultation Service of RAU did all the statistical analyses, using the SPSS statistical package. Principal Factor Analyses were conducted and the NP50 program of the NIPR was used for an iterative item analysis.

RESULTS
In order to counter the possible effects of differential item skewness and the creation of artefactors (Schepers, 1992), the factor analysis was conducted on two levels. Firstly, the 109 items of the questionnaire were intercorrelated. (The matrix will not be reproduced owing to size). Eigenvalues were calculated, and based on Kaiser's (1961) criterion of eigenvalues larger than unity, eight factors were postulated. A Varimax rotation was used to rotate this into a simple structure.
A second level factor analysis was subsequently undertaken by inter-correlating the eight simplified factor scores. The results of the inter-correlations are displayed in Table 5.  Again eigenvalues were calculated which yielded only one eigenvalue greater than unity (see Table 6). Resultantly, no further rotation was executed and only one scale was postulated. Significant item loadings were obtained on only five of the eight postulated factors. The factor-loadings in the unrotated factor matrix of the five simplified factors (items included in these five factors are also listed) on the obtained single scale are as follows: (See Table 7).
The subsequent iterative item analysis rendered a Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0,99.
Item statistics are reported in Table 8.

DISCUSSION
This study attempted to explore the domain of "communicatingfor-change" with the aim of developing and validating a measuring instrument that would measure the effectiveness of change communication in an organisational context. The results of this attempt yielded a single scale with a Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0,99, implying high internal consistency and a low error of measurement for the scale.
Three aspects of validity were considered in developing the questionnaire, namely content validity, face validity, and construct validity. Content validity was established by clearly defining the domain of "communicating-for-change as a first step, and thereafter systematically developing items to cover each of the sub domains of the construct as defined. Face validity was established through the process of expert scrutiny, eliminating any unsuitable items. The second level factor analysis, yielding a single scale with a very high internal consistency coefficient, suggests factorial validity -a dimension of construct validity (Allen & Yen, 1997).
It may, therefore, be concluded that the domain of "communicating-for-change" was reliably and validly measured through COMMUNICATING-FOR-CHANGE QUESTIONNAIRE 23 the use of the Communicating-for-Change questionnaire. The practical value of this instrument is believed to be its ability to identify the aspects impacting on communication effectiveness within an organisational change context, thereby enabling management to develop a communication strategy that will overcome these barriers, resulting in effective change communication. This will enhance the probability that the change strategy will succeed, because one of the critical factors that promote change success, namely communication, was effective and efficient. The output of the questionnaire could indicate the following: Communication focus areas, resulting in pro-active communication strategies, plans and activities. Communication content and mode dimensions, with reference to specific levels or units within the organisation. Deficiencies in the current change communication strategy.
The study succeeded in integrating various theories regarding change management and communication into a matrix that resulted in the development of an instrument that reliably and validly measures factors that impact on effective communication in a change context. The above should result in focused, need-specific communication plans that could enable the change drive and minimise the potential negative impact of change on individuals.
The following possible limitations to this study exist: The instrument was applied to a sample of convenience, as participation in the survey was voluntary.
The sample was not optimally representative in terms of gender and race.
The findings of the study should not be generalised to other organisations without considering the specific contextual factors.
Although the responses received were comprehensive and valuable for the purpose of this study, it is suggested that the questionnaire be administered to an even larger and more representative sample, covering organisations and industries in greater depth. It may also be beneficial to compare the results of the questionnaire between organisational levels; between industries and organisations; between genders; between language preferences; between different change management styles, i.e.: power-coercive, normative-educative and rational-empirical. These comparisons could also shed light on the discriminant validity of the scale.