The Importance of Employee Expectations in Organizational Diagnosis

In this article, the authors advance arguments for empirically assessing expectations in terms of their importance in organizational diagnosis and the implementation of a change program. This study explores the feasibility of including in an organizational diagnostic survey a scale to measure employee expectations of the changeability of selected facets of organizational functioning. Exactly 437 employees from all levels of a mental health hospital completed a diagnostic survey. Each of the items on the survey included four parts pertaining to (a) a facet of organizational climate, (b) expectations of facet changeability, (c) facet importance, and (d) employee satisfaction with the facet indicated. Correlational analyses of responses to the four parts indicated that expectations of changeability could be measured independently of the remaining three parts. Moderated regression analyses clarify their nature and potential use.