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This systematic review examines how organisational culture (OC) influences organisational change in developing countries, addressing a literature gap concentrated in Western, high-income contexts. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we analysed 35 studies published between 2000 and 2025, spanning healthcare, manufacturing, higher education, public administration, and finance across 15 developing nations. The synthesis employed thematic analysis guided by the Competing Values Framework and institutional theory. Results indicate that organisational culture operates as a contingent mediator rather than a uniform driver or barrier. Clan culture consistently facilitates change through empowerment, trust, and participative decision-making. Conversely, a hierarchy culture typically impedes implementation through centralised authority, information hoarding, and suppressed psychological safety. Adhocracy and market cultures produce context-dependent effects, moderated by sectoral constraints and managerial practices. National cultural dimensions, political interference, and resource scarcity significantly moderate these relationships, often neutralising formal change policies. The findings demonstrate that change management practices mediate the culture-outcome link but require multi-level alignment to succeed. This review contributes a contextual model for OC-change dynamics, extending Western frameworks by showing that hierarchy in developing contexts is frequently an institutionalised norm rather than a managerial preference. Practically, the study provides evidence-based guidance for diagnosing cultural fit, adapting change strategies to national realities, and addressing systemic resource constraints.

Transformational leadership has been touted by several scholars as the real deal in necessitating organisational change. The approach encourages, inspires and motivates followers to be innovative and create change that necessitates growth and shapes organisational success. While several studies have confirmed that leadership plays a crucial role in effective change management, very few have gone further to identify the specific leadership style(s) necessary for effective change management. As such, the study sought to assess the influence of transformational leadership on organisational change in the mining industry with specific reference to ABC Mine in Zimbabwe. Guided by the interpretivism research philosophy and the inductive approach, the study adopted a qualitative research design where primary data was collected through semi structured interviews from 26 participants chosen through purposive sampling. The study found that transformational leaders act as key influencers in driving organisational change by fostering trust, inclusivity, and collaboration. It was also found that transformational leaders effectively address and mitigate employee resistance to change by fostering open communication and psychological safety. The study concluded that transformational leadership is effective and necessary in managing organisational change. The study also concluded that employee engagement and involvement, personalised employee relations and continuous training are key practices necessary for facilitating organisational change implementation.

This study examined the effect of organisational culture on employees' readiness towards change at two Eswatini state-owned enterprises. Guided by a positive research philosophy, the study adopted a quantitative, cross-sectional research design. Daya was collected from a stratified sample of 543 permanent employees using the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) and the Readiness Toward Change Scale (RTCS). Reliability was assessed by using Cronbach's alpha, while confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression were employed to examine the relationship and predictive effects among the variables. The results revealed a positive and statistically significant relationship between organisational culture and readiness towards change. Market culture emerged as the strongest predictor of readiness towards change, followed by hierarchical culture, Adhocracy culture, and clan culture. These findings suggest that performance orientation, structural clarity, adaptability, and relational cohesion jointly contribute to enhancing employee readiness for organisational change. From the business ecosystem and strategic management perspective, the findings highlight the importance of cultivating an adaptive organisational culture as a key enabler of sustainable performance, ethical governance, and stakeholder trust. At a broader socio-economic level, strengthening organisational culture and employee readiness for change within state-owned enterprises can enhance productivity, promote social equity, and support inclusive growth, reinforcing Eswatini's business and socio-economic ecosystem.

Makhanda Municipality, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, faces difficulties such as service delivery failures, infrastructure deficiencies, and government inefficiencies. This paper aims to assess the applicability and efficacy of Lewin's model in promoting organisational change and improving performance in this particular Municipality. This paper used VOSviewer's bibliometric analysis to synthesise 36 current literature and pinpoint important trends, seminal research, and knowledge gaps about change management. The findings show that Lewin's model, which includes unfreezing, change, and refreezing phases, provides a systematic framework that, when applied in Makhanda, can greatly improve stakeholder engagement and organisational adaptability. The paper's novelty stems from its adaptation of a traditional change model to a modern municipal environment, which provides valuable insights into local governance. To improve the transformation process, recommendations include tailoring training programs for local officials and establishing a feedback mechanism. This paper concludes that effective change management is critical for enhancing public service outcomes, and Makhanda Municipality will greatly benefit from the application of the Model.

The aim of the study is to investigate how employees' unwillingness to change is influenced by demographic factors (age, gender, and educational attainment). Employees at car dealerships in the eThekwini region of South Africa make up the statistical population of this study. The means of data collection was by administration of questionnaires distributed across 170 employees from selected dealership automobiles. Cronbach's Alpha was used to compute and confirm the questionnaire's reliability, while factor analysis and the KMO index were used to authenticate its validity. The results demonstrate employees' resistance to change in the cognitive rigidity dimension to be significantly influenced by the mean of the variables in the two groups of men and women. Employee resistance to change in the cognitive rigidity construct is unaffected by age, and employees with better educational backgrounds displayed less cognitive resistance than those with lesser educational backgrounds. The tenure of employment also indicated that those with more years of tenure showed less resistance compared to those with lesser years of the tenure at the organisation. The study suggests that these insights are valuable for organisations seeking to improve their change management practices by considering demographic factors as means to understand change is increasingly essential and promises more successful change efforts in the future.

This study investigated responsible leadership influence on readiness for change in a South African state-owned enterprise. A quantitative research approach was used to conduct a cross-sectional study with a stratified random sample of employees in a South African state-owned enterprise. Participants completed the Responsible Leadership Scale (RLS) and the Readiness for Change Scale (RTCS). Standardised multiple regression analysis was used to analyse the influence of responsible leadership on readiness for change. The results showed that responsible leadership relates positively and significantly to readiness for change. Furthermore, responsible leadership influences willingness to change. This study emphasises the important role of responsible leadership in readiness for change. In addition, understanding the influence of responsible leadership on readiness for change can provide insight into the inner motives that drive teachers in difficult situations. The study can serve as a basis to increase staff readiness for change.

The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of change management, and employee engagement as a possible organisational turnaround strategy. This is owing to Organisations exist to deliver their strategic goal and objectives, this would amongst others ensure both technical and tactical strategical success. When organisations strategy is in shape there is a high rate of employee retention and recruitment of the best talent in the market. However, the organisations always faces a conundrum of having to tap in their organisational turnaround strategy which in most cases is marred with resistance from the employees. This study seeks to establish the extent to which change management and employee engagement can be adopted as key organisational turnaround strategy. The study adopts an interpretive qualitative design, and thematic analysis to organize dataset into relevant themes. Study recommends employer consultation and employee participation, facilitation, negotiation and agreement, and manipulation and coercion as a blended approach to effective organizational turnaround strategy. The value of the study is how a simultaneous use of change management and employee engagement can be used by global organizations for effective turnaround strategies.

Research studies have proven that leadership styles and communication are positively and significantly related to effective change management. This implies that the influence of leadership on effective communication is integral to the success of any organizational performance. These leadership styles include transformational and transactional leadership. The study was based on two different theories; the leadership theory and the communication theory. The study was descriptive in nature considering a sample size of 300 employees in the selected dealership organisations operating in the eThekwini, South-Africa. Data collection was achieved by handing out questionnaires to 300 employees, out of which 170 were returned completed. The study was analysed by means of correlational and regression analysis ascertained through the structural equation model (SEM). The study found that leadership styles and communication were positively and significantly related and are major determinant to the success of an effective organisational change management. The study further concluded that leadership styles and communication were positively and significantly related to effective change. Conclusively, it was indicated that the transformational leadership style stands out as the most effective leadership style for successful change management. It was also agreed that integrated communications which involves the application of more than one communication strategy to pass important information especially regarding change management was vital. The study recommended the adoption of transformational leadership style in the various departments of the organization. Also, it considers the application of integrated communication which includes verbal, non-verbal, written, assertive and electronic means of communication.

Events that unfolded in the past decade- the ease of new entrants into the South African banking sector, uncertain economic outlook, the 2008 global financial crisis, competition within the South African banking sector, have changed the retail banking landscape in South Africa. Retail banks are under tremendous pressure to realign their banking operations to meet these global challenges. Conforming to the mounting pressure in the South African banking sector, Barclays PLC a major shareholder in Barclays Africa Group now (Absa bank) announced its departure from the bank. A move that made it lose its strategic partner with over 100 years of experience working in Africa. The departure was received with mixed reactions across the banking landscape. Research on customer engagement in South African banking sector is still in its infancy and no study has been undertaken to determine the impact of customer engagement on organisational change communication during episodes of organisational change. To address this research gap, this study seeks to determine the impact of customer engagement on organisational change communication at Absa bank in the greater Durban area. The study adopted a quantitative research paradigm, with a pre-coded structured closed ended questionnaire on a 5-point Likert scale administered to a target population of 650 000 Absa customers in the greater Durban area. Sekaran statistical table was used for sample selection. A sample of 384 customers was selected using convenience sampling a non-probability sampling technique. Some notable conclusions resulted from the extensive statistical analysis, which were also validated by national and international studies undertaken by various researchers, who also demonstrated concordance or discordance with the current findings and were appropriately referenced.

This paper evaluates the impacts of self-efficacy, employee attitude towards organizational change, Leadership 4.0, and perceived organizational support (POS) on employee acceptance of the organizational change (EAOC) within businesses in the 4IR era. The study’s sample was taken from ten (10) businesses in the Lagos and Oyo States of Nigeria. This paper applied a cross-sectional survey method, and questionnaires were randomly disseminated. However, out of the 250 questionnaires distributed, 246 were recovered, suitable for use, and analyzed with the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS version 28). This paper showed that self-efficacy, attitudes towards organizational change, Leadership 4.0, and perceived organizational support significantly, jointly, and independently influence the sustainability of employee acceptance of organizational change within Nigeria’s work organizations in the 4IR era. Work organizations are urged to provide training and exposure to higher responsibilities via delegation of authority. This would help employees within Nigeria’s business organizations gain better self-competence and serve as proof of organizational support, leading to accepting change without much struggle. They should also ensure that employees know the need for these changes in the 4IR era. Further, the management needs to train and support employees in dealing with the challenges inspired by the 4IR. Besides, the management should adopt a leadership style, such as Leadership 4.0, for the conditions and contests from the 4IR

Research has indicated that problems related to behavioral support for organizational change must be re-addressed to provide an improved implementation of changes. It is essential to explore factors for the complex implications of organizational change before implementing it in practice. This research aims to explore predictors of behavioral support for organizational change in Ethiopian commercial banks. In-depth interviews with purposive and convenient sampling techniques were conducted with employees (n=43) because qualitative research provides opportunities to explore employee experiences and get detailed information about how they perceive behavioral support for organizational change. This study used grounded theory and thematic analysis to explain behavioral support for organizational change and to establish a theoretical basis for further investigations. Our findings indicate that traditional predictors for behavioral support for organizational change might not be enough. This study suggested three new predictors: "perceived cost," "reward," and "prior change experience" to explore behavioral support for organizational change. The study tried to clarify organizational change drivers from employees' perspectives, which offered an alternative avenue that could provide the foundation for accepting organizational change.

Behavior change maintenance can guide the development and evaluation of interventions promoting sustained behaviors in organizational changes. This research aims to examine the factors that influence behavioral maintenance for organizational change in Ethiopian commercial banks. The study developed a comprehensive model to explain the mechanism of behavioral maintenance for organizational change by employees, using self-determination theory with two additional exogenous constructs, value congruence and excessive work demands. Applying mixed-analytical approaches, including SEM and fsQCA, advances the knowledge of how employees motivate to maintain their behavior regarding the organizational change. The target population consists of lower-level managers and 317 valid responses were retained for further analysis. In our findings, the SEM results reveal that perceived relatedness, perceived competency, perceived autonomy, and perceived enjoyment influence employees' behavioral maintenance for organizational change, the fsQCA results indicated that value congruence must always be combined in these variables. The findings suggested an alternative path that might serve as the basis for sustaining organizational change.

This paper aims to address the effects of organizational change as one of the key issues in management ethics today. The paper is based on the deductive and inductive approaches. The comparability analysis of the data was done with the application software for statistical analysis SPSS as a tool for data entry, organizing the entry of received data through which the similarities and differences between the different variables in relation to the purpose of the research are applied. This paper highlights that organizational ethics comprises the guidelines on how an organization responds to the external environment. The main implications of the paper: (i) Cultural changes are the factor that is usually not taken seriously during the changes that occur in the Bank, therefore the organizational structure created in the institution has determined the need for that culture to change in accordance with new changes so that the staff of the organization is in line with those changes; (ii) better change management skills are not only desirable, but they are also necessary for achieving vital improvements in the Bank; (iii) Ensuring that all staff members are informed of what changes will be made by management is a kind of "selling" of the changes through good and regular communication to the audience within the Bank

The purpose of this article is to examine effect of organizational change strategies on competitive advantage of Al-Bayda Commercial Banks. The descriptive analysis approach was used to accomplish the objectives of this study, and the necessary data for the study were collected through a questionnaire. The study was conducted on a sample of (91) managers in these banks. A group of descriptive and analytical analysis methods were employed to process the data. It has been found that there are high levels of two organizational change strategies: the awareness strategy and the mental strategy, while the level of coercive strategy use was moderate. The results indicated that there is a significant effect of organizational change strategies on competitive advantage, and that there is a significant effect of organizational change strategies in the dimensions of competitive advantage (cost, quality, flexibility and innovation).