ABSTRACT
Nowadays, most of Private Higher Educations (PHE) in Indonesia facing with the threat of bankruptcy due to lack of student number. Indonesia PHE Associations and Government Office for PHE equally recommended private university mergers to resolve the issue. The implementation of private university mergers did not run as expected because of the high resistance coming from leaders, lecturers and staffs of Universities itself. High Resistance to Change not only blocked the merger process, but also seriously affected Organizational Commitment of leaders, lecturers and staffs post-merger. So the solution needed to realize the private university merger in Indonesia is not only strategy and operational steps to minimize Resistance to Change but also strategy and operational steps necessary to improve Organizational Commitment of leaders, lecturers and staffs post-merger. For the ultimate goal to get solutions for both problems of the private university mergers in Indonesia, the conclusive research has been done on the course of the private university merger in Indonesia and the results are : (i) Trust, Perceived Benefit of Change and Organizational Justice simultaneously and partially affect to Resistance to Change,(ii) Trust, Perceived Benefit of Change, and Organizational Justice simultaneously and partially affect to Organizational Commitment, and (iii) Resistance to Change negatively affect to Organizational Commitment. The consequences of research findings, strategy and operational steps to minimize Resistance to Change and to improve Organizational Commitment focused on increasing Trust, Perceived Benefit of Change and Organizational Justice. For practical guidance, strategy and operational steps to minimize Resistance to Change has been designed to be practical model “The Resistance to Change Management Model on University Merger”. It is a new model on Change Management theory and it has been proven by the practitioners.
Keywords: University Merger, Trust, Perceived Benefit of Change, Organizational Justice, Resistance to Change and Organizational Commitment