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Top1. Introduction
To maintain pace with volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments, organizational transformation and change have emerged as critical elements in the life cycle of organizations (Acharya, 2016). Therefore, organizations are obliged to adapt successfully to internal and external environments such as business transformation, globalization, a dynamic economy, and substantial technological advancements for their sustenance and growth in the marketplace (Afsar et al., 2020). To thrive, expand, and sustain a competitive advantage (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2012), organizations continually strive to adjust and evolve in response to changing circumstances (Battilana et al., 2010). Nevertheless, all attempts to change are unsuccessful; 70% of change initiatives fail to achieve the intended objectives (Beer & Nohria, 2000; Dobrovič & Timková, 2017). Vakola (2014) claimed that significant change efforts failed owing to the factors such as an absence of managers and directors’ commitment, lack of long-term purpose, inadequate inter-personal communication channels, and overwhelming opposition to change.
In the context of manufacturing and information and technology (I.T.) service industries, these industries have undergone significant transformations due to factors such as the changing economic and legal environment, growing competition, and advancements in technology (Hasan et al., 2021). Consequently, organizations have to adopt new technology and amend to these changes quickly to stay competitive (By et al., 2008). Likewise, enterprises in India have been working hard to become well-known both at the national and international levels by pursuing global business trends, adopting new technologies, and implementing economic and social changes. Implementing these changes posed difficulties, and organizations could not execute them due to numerous aspects. The critical aspect is the “people” and their initial impression and perception of the changes in the organizations (Alqudah et al., 2022). The latest evidence has shown that one of the factors of successful technology adoption and organizational change success is how individuals of the organization (change recipients) respond and act in response to organizational changes, both in the context of the public organization (van der Voet, 2016) and in the context of private organizations (Oreg et al., 2011). In recent times, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is seen that organizations are forced to adopt new technologies at a far more rapid pace than before for the cause of their existence and growth, thus change in employee behavior and readiness for change has become a pre-requisite for bringing organizational change successfully (Chen et al., 2022). Employees' readiness for change is defined as “reflects the extent of individuals' cognitive and emotional tendency to accept and adopt a specific plan to purposefully change the status quo and move forward” (Wang et al., 2020, p. 20). In view of the above arguments, change readiness theory (Holt et al., 2007), comprised of four elements (“change content, change context, change process, and individual attributes”), was considered in the present study. The basic premise of this theory asserts that increasing an individual's readiness for change may be accomplished by promoting agility, learning a conducive environment, management support, instilling a proactive mindset, and developing employees’ attributes that are pivotal for successful change initiatives and enhancing the organizations’ agility (Nigam & Chavla, 2022).