Study guide
2.1 Kelman's Three Levels of Adoption
APMG Change Management Foundation Exam
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1 Chapter 1: The v3 Foundation Exam and the Organisational Context
1.1 Exam Structure, the Five Syllabus Areas and the Certification Path 1.2 Scene Setting: External and Internal Factors Shaping Change 1.3 Change Management, Benefits and Dis-benefits
2 Chapter 2: Understanding the Change Context
2.1 Kelman's Three Levels of Adoption 2.2 VUCA and the Cynefin Framework 2.3 Planned Change versus Emergent Change 2.4 Systems Thinking in Change 2.5 Organisational Culture and Its Three Levels
3 Chapter 3: Diagnosing and Structuring the Change Approach
3.1 Lewin's Force Field Analysis 3.2 Co-Design 3.3 The ADKAR Model 3.4 Evolving the n-Step Process and Kotter's Eight Accelerators
4 Chapter 4: Delivery Strategy, Agile Practices and the Change Strategy
4.1 Delivery Strategy: Big Bang, Phased, Voluntary and Iterative 4.2 Agile Practices and Agile Change Practices 4.3 The Continuous Change Management Cycle 4.4 The Change Strategy
5 Chapter 5: People and Change — Individual Difference and Response
5.1 Differences in People and Personality Preferences 5.2 Neuroscience and Change: SCARF, Mindset and Insight 5.3 The Change Curve 5.4 Bridges' Transition Model
6 Chapter 6: Motivation, Resilience and Learning
6.1 Rewards, Punishment and Pink's Three Motivators 6.2 Positive Psychology, Resilience and Appreciative Inquiry 6.3 The Beckhard-Harris Change Formula and Schein's Two Anxieties 6.4 Competence, Learning and the Learning Dip 6.5 Learning Preferences: Kolb, Honey and Mumford
7 Chapter 7: Key Roles in Change Leadership
7.1 Key Roles in the Change Process 7.2 The Role of the Change Sponsor 7.3 The Change Agent's Role and Personal Influence 7.4 The Role of Local Leadership in Change
8 Chapter 8: Psychological Safety, Leadership and Culture
8.1 Psychological Climate and Psychological Safety 8.2 Carolyn Taylor: How Leadership Shapes Culture 8.3 Leadership Styles and Organisational Climate
9 Chapter 9: Teams and Change
9.1 Team Structures and Change Agent Networks 9.2 Tuckman's Stages of Team Development 9.3 Lencioni: Assessing and Growing Team Effectiveness 9.4 Harvesting the Value of Team Diversity
10 Chapter 10: Stakeholder Identification, Analysis and Engagement
10.1 Stakeholder Definition and Identification 10.2 Stakeholder Analysis, Segmentation and Empathy Mapping 10.3 Stakeholder Mapping and Sources of Power 10.4 Barriers to Engagement 10.5 Planning Stakeholder Engagement
11 Chapter 11: Communication Theory, Messaging and Emotional Connection
11.1 Communication Theory and the Communication Process 11.2 Barriers to Communication and Cognitive Biases 11.3 Messaging: Setting Context and the Tell, Sell, Include Approach 11.4 Appealing to Hearts and Minds
12 Chapter 12: Communication Channels and Planning
12.1 Ways of Communicating and VARK Language Style Preferences 12.2 Communication Channels: One-Way, Two-Way, Lean and Rich 12.3 Communications Planning
13 Chapter 13: Assessing Change Impact and Severity
13.1 Change Management as Risk Management and the Two-Step Assessment 13.2 Step 1: Categorising Impacts and Identifying Impact Areas 13.3 Step 1 Continued: Gap Analysis, Impact Profiles and Monitoring 13.4 Step 2: Change Impact Severity
14 Chapter 14: Resistance to Change
14.1 Causes of Resistance and Oreg's Four Neural Factors 14.2 Common Reasons for Resistance and How to Deal With Them 14.3 Building a Strategy to Manage Resistance
15 Chapter 15: Change Analytics and Exam Readiness
15.1 Measurement Types and the Change Delivery Scorecard 15.2 Building a Change Analytics Strategy 15.3 Exam Technique and Final Revision
2.1 Kelman's Three Levels of Adoption
Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI
Kelman's three levels of adoption are compliance, identification and internalisation, in increasing order of depth
Compliance is doing what is asked because of an external reward or sanction, and it stops when the pressure stops
Identification is adopting the change because of a valued relationship with the person or group promoting it
Internalisation is adopting the change because it genuinely fits the individual's own values and beliefs
- The model helps change managers choose the level of intervention required and justify the change effort
- Last updated: September 2026
Not every change needs everyone to believe in it. Some changes only need people to do the thing. Others fail completely unless people genuinely accept the reasoning. Kelman's three levels of adoption gives change managers a way to decide which situation they are in — and therefore how much effort and what kind of intervention is justified.
The three levels
Level What it is What drives it What happens when the pressure stops
Compliance Doing what is asked External reward or the avoidance of punishment; authority Behaviour reverts almost immediately
Identification Adopting because of a relationship Wanting to be like, or be approved by, a respected person or group Behaviour persists while the relationship does
Internalisation Adopting because you agree The change fits the individual's own values and beliefs Behaviour persists independently
Compliance
At the compliance level, a person adopts the change because of what will happen to them if they do or do not. They have not changed their mind about anything. Classic markers are an instruction, a deadline, a sanction, or a supervisor watching.
Compliance is not automatically the wrong target. If the change is a legally mandated safety procedure with immediate consequences, compliance is precisely what you need and you should not spend three months building emotional buy-in for it. Responding to an order in a crisis is a compliance-level response, and in a genuine crisis that is the appropriate one.
The danger is mistaking compliance for success . Adoption dashboards routinely light up green during the enforcement period and collapse three months later when the change team disbands. If your measures only capture behaviour while someone is checking, you are measuring compliance and calling it adoption.
Identification
At the identification level, a person adopts the change because someone they respect has adopted it, or because they want to belong to the group that has. This is why change agent networks work: the message carries more weight from a trusted peer in the same team than from a corporate email.
Identification-level adoption is more durable than compliance but it is borrowed conviction . If the respected line leader who championed the change leaves, the adoption they carried can leave with them. Practically, this means a change that depends heavily on identification needs succession thinking — spread the advocacy across several credible people rather than resting it on one charismatic manager.
Internalisation
At the internalisation level, a person has adopted the change because it genuinely fits what they believe. A nurse who adopts a new hand-hygiene protocol because they have accepted the infection evidence has internalised it. They will follow it unobserved, apply it sensibly in situations the protocol did not anticipate, and correct colleagues who do not.
Internalisation is the only level that survives the change team going away. It is also the most expensive to reach: it requires people to work through the reasoning themselves, which means dialogue, involvement and time rather than announcement.
Using the model as a change manager
The practical value of Kelman is that it lets you assess the type of change interventions required and justify the effort of the change manager . Work in this order:
Decide the level the change actually needs. Does the benefit survive if people only comply? For a system cutover with hard enforcement, often yes. For a culture change, safety culture, or a new way of collaborating, absolutely not.
Match the intervention to the level. Compliance needs clear instruction, visible enforcement and simple process. Identification needs credible advocates, peer networks and role modelling. Internalisation needs co-design, dialogue, insight-provoking questions and space to work things through.
Use the gap to justify resource. This is where the model earns its place in a business case. If a sponsor wants culture change but is funding a compliance-level intervention, Kelman gives you the language to name the mismatch: "the benefit depends on internalisation, and broadcast communication only buys compliance."
Common exam traps
Candidates confuse identification and internalisation because both involve genuine adoption. The distinguishing question is where the conviction lives . In identification it lives in the relationship — "I do this because of who asked me". In internalisation it lives in the person — "I do this because I think it is right". Where a scenario mentions a respected colleague, a role model, a champion or wanting to belong, the answer is identification. Where it mentions personal values, genuine agreement, or continuing without any prompting, it is internalisation. Where it mentions instruction, authority, reward, penalty or crisis orders, it is compliance.