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Correlates of managers' attitudes toward change

Kirton, M. J., Mulligan, Glenn

Journal of Applied Psychology · 1973 · Volume 58 · Issue 1

DOI: 10.1037/h0035425

Abstract

Correlated a measure of a general readiness to accept change and a measure of attitudes toward change in a specific area (promotions policy) with age, education, managerial rank, frustration-contentment, level of self-confidence, and extraversion and neuroticism (Maudsley Personality Inventory) in 258 managers. Older managers were more conservative than the younger managers, and the confident were more radical than the unconfident. Stable introverts and emotional extraverts tended to support innovation, while emotional introverts and stable extraverts did not. The relation between readiness to accept change and managerial status, education, and contentment depended on the type of change and was not always linear. Results support the notion of a general readiness for change underlying attitudes toward change in a specific area. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

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