Change Readiness and Organizational Learning (Case of Study: Tehran Municipality)

In today's world, changes are common in all fields of life, and trying to deal with it and with its related issues properly has caused vital challenges for man. Organizations need to have higher learning speed than environmental changes in order to survive, and this increases the importance of organizational learning. This research is intended to investigate the relationship between change readiness and organizational learning. This type of research requires descriptive-correlations method. The statistical population of the study consist of all employees of the department for social and cultural affairs of Tehran Municipality, from whom a sample of 265 employees was selected through cluster sampling. Two questionnaires were used to collect data, Dunham’s change preparedness questionnaire (including 17 items) as well as Krishna’s organizational learning (including three subscales relating to cognitive reaction, emotional response and behavioral intention). To analyze the data, descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics such as one sample test, Pearson correlation coefficient and simple linear regression were used. The results indicated that there is a significant relationship between readiness of change and organizational learning. Emotional response component, among all components of readiness for change, had the highest predictive power, and the component of behavioral tendency ranked second. The results also indicated that there is no significant difference between the male and the female employees of the social and cultural department of Tehran Municipality in terms of readiness for change. In addition to confirming the hypotheses and enriching the literature on organizational readiness and organizational learning, this research helps Tehran Municipality managers in decision making and improving the status of their organization.