An investigation into employees' responses to organizational changes introduced in the banking sector of Greece: The case of Piraeus bank group.

Since 2009, when Greece entered into a new era-reality of a prolonged recession, its economy has been struggling against bankruptcy in an uncertain political, economic and social environment. Driven by the pressures of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Greece’s European partners, a series of radical structural reforms have been introduced in the country’s public and private sector. In this context, aiming to safeguard domestic financial stability, the Greek banking and financial system has undergone a momentous transformation, in which it experienced an important consolidation phase, and thus a series of profound organisational changes have been implemented in Greek banks. The aim of this paper is to examine EVLN (Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect) behavioural responses towards four types of organisational change (acquisitions, closure of branches, integration of information systems and operations, and personnel downsizing) in one of the four systemic banks of Greece: Piraeus Bank Group; and to investigate whether there are any individual differences in employees’ responses with regard to their biographic features. Our statistical analysis provides evidence that despite respondents’ dissatisfaction with personnel downsizing and the closure of branches, their responses are positive. This can be attributed to the existence of external factors which influence employees’ EVLN resonses. Moreover, employees’ gender, educational background, as well as the bank in which they were working before acquisitions, showed significant differences in terms of their EVLN responses. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it provides the first evidence examining employees’ EVLN behavioural responses towards four different types of organisational change in the Greek banking sector. Second, the EVLN typology is used in order to study actual behaviours and not individuals’ perceptions, intentions, dispositions or planned responses to unspecified events.