Be mindful in organizational change: team mindfulness and employee openness to change

Abstract

Combining social information processing (SIP) theory and the mindfulness literature, we propose that team mindfulness is positively related to both team psychological safety climate and team positive affective climate; in turn, these factors are positively related to employee openness to change. We further propose that a higher (versus lower) level of leader workplace mindfulness enhanced the positive effects of team mindfulness on team climates and the above indirect effects. We conducted two quantitative studies (i.e., a scenario-based experiment and a time-lagged and multi-source survey with Western and Chinese samples). Data largely support our hypotheses. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.