Development and Validation of the Change Behavior Continuum: An Instrument for Classifying Observable Behavior During Organization Change

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Organization Development & Change (D.O.D.C.)

Department

Organization Development

First Advisor

Steven H. Cady (Committee Chair)

Second Advisor

Michael J. Zickar (Committee Member)

Third Advisor

Carol Gorelick (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Rachel Vannatta (Other)

Abstract

Organizational change research has historically emphasized internal psychological states and unidimensional continua of resistance and support, leaving observable employee behavior under-theorized and imprecisely measured. This study addressed that limitation by developing and preliminarily validating the Change Behavior Continuum (CBC) instrument. The CBC is a 126-item observer-report measure grounded in classical behaviorism and organized around two structurally independent dimensions: behavioral valence (impeding, maintaining, or advancing the change) and behavioral activation (low, moderate, or high intensity of observable action). The resulting seven-zone framework differentiates Unethical Change Resistance, Productive Resistance, Change Withdrawal, Change Compliance, Change Commitment, Change Persistence, and Unethical Change Promotion. Following established scale-development procedures, the instrument was constructed through iterative item generation, expert content validation, and a functional pilot. A main validation study with 403 working adults who had experienced a significant organizational change within the past 12 months examined the CBC's preliminary structural validity. Exploratory factor analysis (principal axis factoring with Direct Oblimin rotation) yielded a clean seven-factor solution that explained 69.97% of the total variance, replicated across split-sample cross-validation, and demonstrated excellent internal consistency reliability at both the Behavioral Indicator (α = .842–.937) and zone levels (α = .960–.982). Correlational validity evidence with established constructs (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to quit, locus of control) and project-context composites further supported the framework. A secondary 42-item reduced version of the instrument, retaining one item per Behavioral Indicator, was also evaluated and demonstrated comparable psychometric performance (KMO = .944; 7-factor solution accounting for 67.944% of variance; zone-level α = .877–.942), offering a shorter administration option for applied settings. Results confirmed Change Compliance as the dominant and most consistent behavioral pattern observed during change initiatives. The study advances organizational change theory by providing a behaviorally precise, dual-dimensional classification system and offers practitioners a real-time diagnostic tool for monitoring and managing implementation responses. A post-hoc reduction of the validated 126-item instrument to a 42-item candidate version is also presented as a foundation for future confirmatory research. Implications for research and practice, limitations, and directions for confirmatory and longitudinal validation are discussed.

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