The effect of perceived evolutionary process change practices on evolutionary process change performance moderated by types of training

The aim of this research is to assess the process change performance in the military organizations as a result of the application of the evolutionary process change (EPC) approach. The findings of this study contribute significantly to the literature on process change application in organizations, military in particular, by
providing empirical evidences on the key enablers of the EPC. A total of 176 respondents participated in this case study conducted at the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) Naval Base in Lumut, Perak. The main instrument used was a
questionnaire to collect data on the demography, practices of EPC, training programs, and organizational results. Among the few major findings of the study, which concur with results from previous similar studies, was that there is a positive correlation between "soft" EPC factors, "hard" EPC factors and types of training programs for employees on the EPC performance of organizations. A
notable finding of the study shows that some respondents were totally unfamiliar with EPC, did not think that RMN even practices EPC and the implementation was not effective. Between "soft" and "hard" EPC factors, "soft" factors explain more of the variance in the EPC performance. This supports findings of previous studies in this area, too. Another notable finding is that all eight core values of EPC were perceived to be of almost equal importance with management leadership, training, employee involvement, and quality documentation slightly ahead. By using a major Malaysian military organization as the context of the research, the findings are considered to have made a significant contribution and proved to be useful as an example of an approach that might be used to track the extent of EPC effects, especially in a military context, on the organizational results or performance. The findings could prescribe potential implications for top
management to review their EPC implementation, consistent with the training needs of the employees within the organization. Further, the finding enhances our understanding of the association between soft EPC, hard EPC, and types of training and organizational performance. Finally, it is suggested that future similar research looks into expanding this research in other military and non-military environment, and to add or use other performance measures of EPC. It is also recommended that a research be conducted in the implementation of the revolutionary process change since this degree of process change is also being implemented in organizations simultaneously with EPC. The novelty of this research lies in the fact that it examines the EPC performance in a military context which is traditionally "unfavorable" to the application of change approach using EPC due to the presence of factors such as command-and-order hierarchy and power distance.