Government centric : A relationship between organizational rigidity and readiness to change / Mohd Noh Hafifie Mapatoba and Boni Littor

Transformation policies introduced by the Prime Minister
have brought several major changes to the public sector.
Organizational rigidity in the public sector is undeniable
but somehow what is important is that the changes need to
be fully adapted in the respective organization. It is
possible only when the human resources are ready and are
willing to participate in the change effort. This paper
provides empirical evidence on the possibility of
organizational rigidity in determining the employees'
readiness to change in the public sector. The study
conducted was also meant to see the level of organizational
rigidity or in other words, government-centric and the level
of readiness to change which was particularly focusing on
the public sector . 1 5 1 public servants from five different
fields and departments in the public sector participated in
this cross-sectional survey. Data from a self-administrated
questionnaires were analyzed to measure organizational
rigidity or government-centric as well as their readiness to
change in the organization. The results indicated that the
relationship betweenboth readiness to change and
organizational rigidity in the selected public departments
was high. Even though the level of rigidity in the public
sector was high, yet it did not affect their level of readiness
towards change.