An examination of the stages of change construct for health promotion within organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to examine the organizational stages of change construct of the transtheoretical model of behavior change. Design/methodology/approach – Data on organizational and individual stages of change for tobacco reduction, physical activity promotion, and heart healthy eating promotion were collected from service provider, senior management, and board level members of provincial health authorities across three data collection periods. Findings – Results revealed significant correlations between individual and organizational stages of change for management level respondents, but inconsistent relationships for service providers and no significant correlations for board level respondents. There were no significant differences between respondent levels for organizational stage of change for any of the promotion behaviors. In general, changes in stage failed to predict whether there was a belief in an organization's capability of addressing any of the health promotion activities. There was also a large amount of variance between individual respondents for most health authorities in their reported organizational stages of change for physical activity and healthy eating. Practical implications – Based on the results of the present study it is concluded that there is little evidence that the organizational stages of change construct is valid. The evidence indicates that assessing individual readiness within an organization may be as effective as asking individuals to report on organizational stages of readiness. Originality/value – This paper reports on the validity of the organizational stages of change construct in a health promotion context and provides information for those who are considering using it.