Making Sense of Employee Responses to Organizational Change: Integrating the Theoretical Landscape Across Research Communities

ABSTRACT How employees respond to organizational change is critical to the success of change initiatives. Scholars from diverse research communities have developed a wide range of theories to explain why some employees support while others resist organizational change. However, making sense of this theoretical diversity remains a key challenge for researchers aiming to advance both organizational change theory and practice across research communities. To address this challenge, we reviewed 215 empirical articles published between 1998 and 2024 in leading business administration journals. Through this review, we identified eight overarching theoretical themes that structure existing explanations: (1) motivational–attitudinal, (2) relational, (3) sensemaking and discourse, (4) work environment, (5) emotion, (6) morality and justice, (7) individual characteristics, and (8) learning. These themes provide a pluralistic map of the field's theoretical landscape, making visible the distinct perspectives, assumptions, and explanatory logics that characterize different research communities. Building on this framework, we outline how scholars can use our framework to advance research on change responses in five key areas: (a) refine theorizing within themes, (b) integrate across themes, (c) leverage new styles of theorizing, (d) extend theorizing on temporality, and (e) advance context‐sensitive theorizing. Finally, we elaborate on how the eight themes can be used in practice by change managers. In sum, this paper offers a foundation for pluralistic integration and advancing theory on employee responses to change across research communities.