case study 1 resistance to change

7.1 Case Study 1: Resistance to Change

Victor is the head of a division in a state agency. He has been in his management position for 15 years and has worked his way up to his current position. Throughout his career, he has seen many people leave and join the department. He has stayed because he enjoys public service and working with familiar faces in the agency. He also knows that he brings his many years of experiences in a public agency to the table when solving problems. His personality fits the working environment of a state agency; he likes working with the familiarity of rules and procedures.

Victor is proud of his service, but he is really looking forward to his retirement, which, for him, is not coming soon enough. Within the last few years, lots of changes have occurred on a department level that is also changing much of the familiar procedures, rules, and norms that Victor has been accustomed to during his 25 years in the department. Some of these changes include hiring younger staff, reorganization of job responsibilities, performance plans to increase staff competencies and skills in new areas, and recent layoffs to help balance the budget.

As part of his attempt to make his mark on the division, and to bring in past experiences that he thinks can be of value, Victor proposed numerous ideas for the division at a staff meeting. His staff —which, in recent years, has become increasingly more diverse in demographics and cultural backgrounds— suggests improvements and changes to his ideas. They are not so sure that his changes are the most appropriate given the overall strategic directions of the department. Furthermore, they are not sure how they can implement strategies when the ideas call for outdated resources and technology. Some of the younger staff members are more vocal and mention recent trends and practices in strategic thinking that could be more beneficial to accomplishing the division goals.

Victor views these suggestions as attacks directed at him and as resistance on the part of the staff. He feels like every time he makes a suggestion, he is thrown a curveball from one of the younger staff members. Why is this happening to him now? He knows he has to manage this. He cannot let this type of dynamic go on for an additional five years—or could he?

What cultural assumptions fuel Victor’s perspective as a leader of a state agency?
Where does Victor’s motivation to lead come from?
How would you describe Victor’s self-concept and the influence of it on his leadership?

Victor has several cultural assumptions that can be broken down into different cultural levels: individual, team, organizational, and national cultures. His assumptions and beliefs may include any of the following: working hard will get you to the top, everyone must obey rules and procedures, and you must have experience in order to know what you are doing in a job. This could be why he feels attacked when his younger employees make suggestions. It is also important to note that Victor may have been raised in a homogenous culture that did not allow him to interact with others who did not share his same cultural values and belief. Victor can benefit from learning about his self-concept and how his values contribute to his management. By doing so, Victor helps his team to understand him more.

CI Model in Action

Acquire: Victor has a lot of knowledge about working in public sector organizations. His tenure in a state agency makes him very familiar with this type of culture. But he lacks knowledge about what is unfamiliar to him, particularly around generational issues. He knows what areas of his work frustrate him; now, he needs to acquire information that help him understand why it frustrates him. To improve his cultural intelligence, Victor would need to develop a plan that helps him to become more familiar with the different cultures in his work team.
Build: To build his knowledge in cultures, Victor can develop strategies that help him connect his current cultural knowledge to the new knowledge he wants to gain. For example, he identifies that the characteristics of a younger generation are new to him. He can put together a plan where he monitors his communication with the staff to gauge whether he is really understanding what is going on. It is important here that when he builds new knowledge, he is aware of the skills he has and what he lacks when working with a younger generation.
Contemplate: Victor’s self-efficacy is an issue in this cultural situation. He has a few years left before retirement and considers giving up. He needs to make a shift, changing his attitude from one of frustration to a positive perspective. He can do this by visualizing the positive end results and reminding him that he can and should keep trying. He needs to put in place a plan where he can monitor his internal motivation toward the issue.
Do: It seems in this situation that change will be difficult for Victor because he is set in his ways. Victor can be mentored and coached to think about change and its impact on his situation by asking himself: What is changing, What will be different because of the change, and What will he lose? Using these three questions he will learn to identify the change and behaviors that need to change, the potential results of the change, and what beliefs and values he will need to discard in the process. By identifying specific areas of change, Victor can transition better.

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Home > Books > Organizational Conflict

Resistance to Change and Conflict of Interest: A Case Study

Submitted: July 20th, 2017 Reviewed: October 10th, 2017 Published: December 20th, 2017

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.71578

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Change for organizations is a necessity. Today’s businesses are aware of the need to keep up with the environmental changes and change demands. If the change process is not handled properly in the business, it will bring major problems with it. Every change will absolutely and definitely face resistance. Similarly, conflicts are considered to be inherent in organizations. The important thing is to prevent conflicts from taking over organizational interests. If conflicts arise in situations where personal interests constitute a source, it is an issue that needs to be discussed seriously. This study is intended to reveal elements that create a potentially resilient potential, in particular protecting personal interests. A case study method was utilized in the study. This method is preferred because it is appropriate to examine in detail the history, current situation and environmental functioning of a particular person or group and to obtain appropriate information in order to provide statistical methods. In particular, the case study, which reveals a reflection of the conflict of interest that is valued as a consequence of the functions of exchange resistance and as a consequence thereof, reflects the relationship between resistance and conflict of interest.

resistance to change
conflict of interest
organizational interests

Author Information

Cem karabal *.

Beykent University, Istanbul, Turkey

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

1. Introduction

An important part of organizational life is change. Without change, no business can survive in today’s competitive environment. Modern managers are faced with permanent progressive technological change. The most important tasks are to initiate organizational change and to ensure that a new position is achieved by keeping it under control among existing business structures. If they do not discuss the new methods, equipment and management policies, they can face with very serious moral and manufacturing problems [ 1 ].

The globalization of the markets in the 1980s and 1990s witnessed an unprecedented period of change, thanks to increased external competition and rapid technological movements. Strategic initiatives, mergers, acquisitions and operational initiatives have gained momentum in this process; applications such as just-in-time production, total quality management, process innovation and MRP have contributed to the change process. New requests coming to organizations in the control of these processes, the efforts to bring the performances of the organizations to the upper levels and new designs have provided the development of change management [ 2 ].

Organizational change efforts are often met with strength by people. Although managers are aware of this resistance, they do not make too much effort to understand why and how they will be handled. One of the most important problems encountered in making changes in organizations is to manage resistance to change and handle it correctly. Resistance to change emerges in different and unexpected ways [ 3 ]. Resistance to change is like a pain. It does not say exactly where the error is, but it allows you to understand that it is a problem [ 4 ]. However, the resistance to change must be perceived as reasonable. This is natural, and a change that is essentially not encountered with resistance should not be considered as natural [ 5 ].

Similarly, conflicts are considered to be inherent in organizations. The important thing is to prevent conflicts from taking over organizational interests. If conflicts arise in situations where personal interests constitute a source, it is an issue that needs to be discussed seriously.

This study includes a relationship between resistance to change and conflict of interest. The main goal of the research is to see how these two parameters will interact in the change process. I believe that conflict of interest is a very important issue but we could not see it in the literature as a scale or in relation with other factors. From this point, the aim of this study is to draw attention to the issue.

2. Resistance to change

Why do people show resistance to change? According to Caruth et al. [ 1 ], the reason for resisting the changes made to employees’ work conditions is due to a variety of reasons, such as their individual personality. While some respond positively, others may get angry. Starting from this, resistance to change submitted by the administration, the resistance shown by the nature of mankind (generally people do not like change) and resistance about fears and threats (fear of unknown, reduced job security, suffering economic loss, reduced job status, change in work-group relationships) have divided the reasons in two main groups [ 1 ].

Change is considered an annoying phenomenon because of the necessity of departing from known with the deterioration of the status quo and anticipation to give up; resistance to change can be assimilated to friction in physics. As it is necessary to apply more force without friction to move an object, it is necessary to apply force to change with regard to people [ 6 ]. Managers and employees detect the change in different ways. While senior executives see change as an opportunity to overcome problems and improve their careers in a positive sense, middle-level managers do not welcome well the change very much. Change is destructive and unexpected for them, and this can disrupt the balances [ 7 ]. Resistance resulting against change can be assessable as a destructive force working in the interests of competing firms [ 8 ]. Kotter and Schlesinger stated that managers should be aware of four common situations in which people are motivated to show resistance to change. These are [ 9 ]: narrow interest, misunderstanding and lack of trust, different evaluations and low tolerance for change.

Caruth et al. [ 1 ] suggested that people with varying degrees of resistance would show it in three different ways. These are carried out directly as attacks, secret attacks and passive behaviors [ 1 ]. Resistance to change can be realized individually or organizationally. The signs of individual resistance are usually complaints, mistakes, anger, indifference, withdrawal, absenteeism to work due to health reasons and stubbornness. As for that, organizational resistance is work accidents, increase in compensation claims of employees, increasing absenteeism, sabotage, increase in expenditures due to health and decreasing productivity, and these are only some common signs [ 10 ].

Koçel lists the events that cause people to show resistance to change in reasons regarding to the business, due to personal reasons and for social reasons [ 6 ].

2.1. Function of resistance to change

While resistance to change is performed individually or in groups, it can also appear in open or hidden forms. What is important here is the fact that there are individuals at the beginning of resistance. Even the emerging resistance in groups is realized as formal or informal structures strengthened by the gathering of individuals.

When the causes of change resistance, which are revealed by various researchers and partly seen as a repetition of each other, are considered together, the factors that constitute resistance to change are mainly expressed under six headings. They are personality traits of individuals, which are emerging as uncertainties about whether they will bring change or take it, insecurity against oneself or those who perform change, an interest appraisal resulting from the changes that will take place between the current situation and the future situation, commitment to past experiences and group-effect result.

2.1.1. Personality

Individual differences, known as personality, are defined as how individuals think and behave in different situations [ 11 ]. Personality traits usually tend to be based on the emergence of personal hostilities, being disturbed on being guided, seeing as being excluded and on the edge of being thrown away with change, characteristic stupor, anger, personal conflicts, ignorance, lack of interest and the emergence of personal hostilities against those who make the change.

2.1.2. Uncertainty

One of the most important elements in the individual dynamics of changing resistance is uncertainty. People are afraid of unknowns and uncertainties [ 12 ]. The fact that those who perform the change are not sufficiently clear, that the change is not fully explained and the uncertainties that occur with them can be listed as fear from the unknown, loss of control and concerns about the future and business.

2.1.3. Insecurity

In situations where the safety of individuals is threatened, sabotages occur [ 5 ]. Trust-minded thoughts such as insecurity, not being self-confident, being afraid of failure and misunderstanding against those who manage change or those who are part of it come under the heading of insecurity.

2.1.4. Loyalty to the past

Many studies pointed out that the mistakes in the institutional change process stem from the fact that past knowledge has not been abandoned [ 13 ]. Markets are places where experience is gained, but lessons are changed frequently. We must learn from the past all the time, but we do not need to worship it [ 14 ]. It is required that they should not be tied tight to the past for organizations to survive. Before the organizations try out new ideas, they need to discover that their old ones are inadequate and get rid of them [ 15 ]. To give up knowledge of the past requires that you come from above the change barriers and that you re-evaluate the cognitive organizational competencies, circumferences, threats, opportunities, strategies and old ways of achieving success [ 16 ]. A culture of resistance to change developed with frustrations from the past during the change process, low tolerance for change, the difficulty of giving up on habits, the difficulty of learning new things, the disruption of well-known comforts, close-mindedness, old experiences, past performances and past mistakes can be counted as the causes of resistance to change, which can be ranked under the framework of commitment to the past.

2.1.5. Group effect

The concept of group dynamics refers to the changes and reactions that occur on any part of the group, the influence and reaction that the group members and the group make on the structure [ 17 ]. The group effect comes from the interactions between individuals and is shaped by the light of factors above mentioned. However, the relationship between group members influences strengthening these factors or changing their shape [ 18 ].

Groups are units formed in informal and formal structures within the organization. Disagreements between the aims of change and group norms and similar groups within the organization should take a negative attitude toward change, the possibility of deterioration of existing relations, the majority of group members support resistance, the probability of the group losing its disintegration or status, in short, the idea that change can change social interactions, can be regarded as the resistance dynamics that the groups to which the individuals belonging are exposed.

2.1.6. Valuation of interest

Every change means losing for someone [ 5 ]. In the new situation that the valuation of interest individuals will emerge with change, they are seen to pursue their personal interests and evaluate their possible consequences. Generally, it can be listed as the causes of interest-based resistance of individuals who think like the expectation of unemployment, the possible increases in the current work load, the loss of status and the possibility that the material situation will change in the negative direction, which comes with technological change.

3. Valuation of interest and conflict of interest

Concept of interest is defined as the indirectly obtained profit, gain, benefits or the benefits that only one person provides for himself. The fact that it is a matter of interest requires that something related to the subject be requested; the fact that we have called it interest has the power to abolish even the strongest associations. The presence of such power results leads to the presence of a conflict.

Conflicts are one of the elements that can reduce or increase the efficiency, effectiveness, change and development levels of organizations and on the basis of which lies individual differences [ 19 ].

In a rapidly developing and changing world, because we call the invariance of change, non-homogenous social groups are being formed and it is inevitable that these groups are differentiated from each other. This situation creates a natural ground for conflicts [ 20 ].

Even if individuals or groups assume an agreement on the purpose of organization, the differences in unit-based intentions lead these conflicts to interests or priorities.

Individuals or groups on certain topics may have different interests. Any decision to be taken or a decision taken by a group may affect the interests of the other party. Along with such differences, the effort to expand the strengths of the organization’s employees or groups can also be a major source of conflict [ 6 ].

The inevitability of the conflict is due to the three tendencies of the human being [ 21 ]:

People’s attitudes, beliefs, levels of knowledge and life experiences are different between them.

These differences cause people to become self-centered and have difficulty in understanding the perspectives of other people.

People usually tend to protect and bring their own personal interests into the forefront.

With regard to the concept of conflict, it can be said that the negativity state proposed in classical approaches is inherent in organizational structures together with modern thought. Even with proper management, conflicts are expected to have a very positive effect on disruptive outcomes [ 22 ]. While constructive conflicts encourage change and innovation, the conflicts that are being destructive bring out the interests of the parties, the negative situations that are brought about by the purposes of the organization [ 23 ]. In organizations where there are no conflicts, it is observed that the members of the organization are closed to change and innovation because of indifference and monotony [ 24 ].

Concerning the concept of conflict, it can be said that the negativity state which is proposed in the classical approaches is inherent in organizational structures together with modern thought. The encounter with resistance of a change process is considered as a sign of the beginning of change. Just as it cannot normally be mentioned from a change without resistance, it would not be right to talk about an organization that does not have a clash. However, the fact that the clerk has personal interests and elements that can prevent the company’s objectives would have a negative impact on the change process and no contribution to corporate interests. Here, the moral and ethical dimension of work is prominent.

According to an international survey conducted in 300 large companies in 1987, it emerged that at the beginning, of the moral problems encountered in enterprises, employees think it is a conflict of interest [ 25 ].

Businesses have important principles to follow about their own behavior. One of them constitutes the basis of this principle that those who find themselves able to give themselves the image of a conflict of interest in relation to themselves or close family members, to declare it and to exclude themselves if there is really a conflict. A similar situation is declared by authors during academic studies.

Another element of conflict can be expressed as approaches against innovation and change. J. March and H. Simon, who analytically examined the causes of conflict in organizations, expressed one of the causes of the sources of conflict in organizations as conflicts arising from differences in perception. The source of this conflict is the source of information and opinions required by the innovations. In consequence of these, disagreements and conflicts arise because organizations are constantly open to innovations and exchanges, and the information, however, experience and flexibility required for performing changes are not perceived by some former administrators [ 17 ].

One of the stages of the conflict process is intentions. Intentions are among people’s perceptions, emotions and open behaviors. Decisions of intent are decisions to behave in a certain way. In order to be able to respond to the behavior of the person, his intent must be determined. Many conflicts are growing by increasing the severity of the parties because one of them has attributed bad faith to the behavior of the other. There is often a difference between intentions and behaviors, so behavior does not accurately reflect the intent of the individual. Different structures of behavior depending on intentions are listed as competitive, collaborative, avoidant, harmonious and compromising. The way of behavior, which takes the form of competitive intentions, is expressed as the effort of one person to satisfy his interests without considering others [ 26 ]. The new qualities predicted by changing circumstances and the necessity of people playing different roles can cause conflicts. In particular, change-specific situations such as restructuring studies and transfer of undertaking are capable of generating significant conflicts.

It is a strategy that targets the personal interests that have no cooperation and have a destructive effect based on a win-lose approach and is maintained in a competitive environment. The application of the strategy of domination in conflict may cause aggressive behavior and sabotage by increasing tension between the parties. Instead of questioning the cause of the conflict, one side to applying domination to the other side to turn the situation into its own is the opponent’s loss approach. People make an interest appraisal in the process of change. If the change that will take place is against their own interests, they can adopt a course of action, a resistance decision, to create protection against it. They enter a conflict with a competitive intent and struggle for their own interests. The conflict that comes with the resistance decision will allow the conflict of interest to be staged in a visible way.

When we look at the literature, we could not find a study related to conflict of interest and resistance to change together. Resistance to change had used a lot of researches but literature hasn’t got a scale of the conflict of interest. Therefore, the case study method is used in this study.

The research has also been carried out in Istanbul, a company operating in the construction sector. Observes had taken record by assistant of the general manager and it includes a 1-year period. The case study method was utilized in the study. This method is preferred because it is appropriate to examine in detail the history, current situation and environmental functioning of a particular person or group and to obtain appropriate information in order to provide statistical methods. The event was dealt with by an observation technique and the most important feature of this technique is that the individuals who are observing are in their natural environment. Many behaviors can be identified and assessed in their actual state as long as the individual is in a natural environment; in other studies, it is known that the individuals studied do not behave as they are but rather behave or reply in a frame that they want to be, that the community wants to be or as they can be accepted by their surroundings. This issue stands out as one of the common problems of non-observational study techniques. Observations were made in a participatory manner and all the information was recorded in a systematic manner during the process by taking part in the event throughout the process. The actual names of the person subject to the case study and of the company are indicated by symbols on the specific requests of the persons.

The main questions to be answered in the sample case prior to study are mentioned below:

Q1: Do self-interests prevent the interests of the organization?

Q2: Do self-interests return to conflict between individuals or groups?

Q3: When individuals who make valuation of interests show resistance to change, does resistance to change be open or implicit?

Q4: Is it possible to break the resistance of people who have the potential of resistance through communication?

5. Case study

5.1. general information about the case study.

XYZ Engineering Inc. is one of the well-known, recognized and trusted companies operating in the construction sector in Istanbul/Turkey. It has 30 years of history. In this process, hundreds of successful projects have been carried out and have created added value by employing hundreds of people. On the basis of the sector/industry, the market demand is continuous, and an opinion and the work of the company show a positive trend. In parallel to these, the human resource has also increased.

Constructively, it is a family-owned business. Company partners are family members but soon, with the public offering, there will be a conversion to a structure that is now traded in the stock market. Company employees now constitute the professionals who are out of the family predominantly. The annual turnover of the company is 80 million dollars and it has 160 staff.

Operating functions are vertical organizational structures that are integrated with each other. It is involved in the case study; it includes the general manager of the company, the operation director, the purchasing manager (PM) and the finance manager (FM).

The abbreviations and explanations used in the case study are as follows:

XYZ Engineering Inc. Case Study Company

FM: Finance/Accounting Manager

OM: Operations Director

PM: Purchasing Manager

GM: General Manager

5.2. History of case study

The company, which has been handling the stages of institutionalization more professionally since 2004, in order to be able to execute processes that are more integrated and manage all flows with a single software, decided to switch to a new ERP software in 2016.

In the present case, no integrated software was being used. While the finance department used its own software, the procurement department also carried out its activities with an autonomous computer program. As for that, the operation department has run processes from the proprietary software, with forms that are required by business-building methods and procedures.

Thanks to the software, project costs, procurement status, stocks, accounting records, communication between field staff, reporting and many more possibilities would be put into practice on a single platform, with all the business involved, including the relationships.

GM has pursued the study and demonstration of the related software himself and he/she was convinced that he/she would get all the flows he wanted, thanks to this software. Purchasing contracts for the software are over and an opening kick-off is applied. He/she did not want to think about the possibility of software failure; however, in parts where the employees cannot be involved in the process, the investment made would be a significant loss, and GM would not be able to give it to himself.

There had never been a similar study previously done in the company. GM knew that the process demanded change management and that change had given him the task of leadership Thus, he/she believed that it would make it easier to identify resistance and remove the obstacles.

GM gathered all the responsible persons before the software developers arrived to the company and held an informative meeting on the subject. By persuading meeting attendees to require a new writing transition and aimed to create a guidance coalition to support everyone to take over the project and get the best result for the company as soon as possible.

The shortcomings of the current situation during the meeting, the new situation, the convenience, the negative side of the software used. Everyone asked the participants to support the process and the purpose of the meeting was complete. It was then time to invite the ERP company to start the process.

The software was installed and the training process started. Integrations were created and new processes were established with separate participation of the departments. Everything went well in sight. All the employees had taken the directives and it appeared that they were doing their job. Nobody showed any sign of dissatisfaction. After 3 months passed, some reports from software developers were pointing to negative situations. Information from the finance department was experiencing delays.

The requested information was not given in time, the entries that needed to be done were not completed in time and the chronic records were constantly entered in the created records. Even simple information was prepared and delivered to the software for weeks. GM assembled a meeting to tackle the situation and asked FM to make a statement on the topic. The description is classic. Unit workers had begun to voice that the old software is more useful in informal meetings, and they defended the new writing. Even though he was aware of the FM situation that could not manage the process properly. The workers acted slowly, the work went on systematically and the FM did not wish to increase resistance by intervention.

GM, in consultation with FM, has reached the following result: He/she did not want to engage in combat with the FM team. GM gave some directives to him. He/she wanted to find out why his subordinates showed resistance. Under this resistance, he wanted to determine whether there was a situation that could directly affect his personal interests, such as fear of failure, not to give up on habits and to spend more labor in the adaptation process, and he wanted him to report the situation.

Similar problems began to emerge in the purchasing department. Since he/she used different software in this department before, he/she started to set new and old benchmarks, and this led to constant conflict with the software group. They were doing it easily in the old software but they could not do it in the software, and the discourse was intense and made an important intervention compulsory. In short, the purchasing department resisted.

GM also held a similar meeting with PM. Acting as if the issues are the same, PM was being stimulated like FM, and various directives were transferred to him. But there was a difference. GM noticed that the PM had taken the lead of this resistance and had channeled his own team in this direction. By making the implication that PM will directly increase their workload, that he/she spent time working on the negative side of the new software and was doing it clearly. Even under normal conditions, some activities carried out by FM would walk through the PM in the new process and this was not really in the interest of the PM. Moreover, this shift in the business division and the workload shifting from the FM to the PM have caused serious conflicts between the two units, and these two units, which had to work in co-ordination, had almost begun to enter the process on their own.

With regard to the operation side, there was another resistance profile. OM and its team did not use the standard software in the normal situation. They were running a process in the form of manual forms. Many times, they terminated the processes without filling these forms and then filling them backwards and leaving them open in the system. The new software did not give chance this comfort. All transactions had to be recorded via software when they were instant and when needed. OM and the team were not very keen on this issue as integration of new software restricted their activities in full liberty and it would require time to run this software. In addition, the necessity of opening purchase requisitions through the software emerged but the fact that they did not do it in a healthy way also created an atmosphere of conflict between the PM and OM. They also made choices and began to resist. But the resistance on the OM side is cryptic. It had not expressed clearly the utility of the software that is being made, as if it is being defended from the background and the software sabotaged.

5.3. Analysis of case study

GM has analyzed the whole situation and was aware of his attitude. There were organizational problems that could be clearly diagnosed medially. The most important of these is resistance to change. The others were negative conflicts among the groups. The worst of all told all units how important this software is for the organization. However, unit managers and/or subordinates put their personal interests in front of their interests.

GM has worked on identifying resistance sources and what they need to do to combat them. The drawing that emerges in the coming point and schematizes the conflict situation is shown in Figure 1 .

Figure 1.

Conflict situation of XYZ Engineering Inc.

FM and PM are in conflict because of the shift in workload. OM and PM are in conflict due to the same reason. This situation is a conflict of interest originating from intentions and it is following a competitive course among the managers. There is no strong conflict among OM and FM. In addition to these, they are criticizing the new software by highlighting the past software in order not to disturb FM and PM habits. OM wants to maintain the comfort of the old software. Also, in FM employees, by not learning the new software, there is also a sense of insecurity to themselves that arises from failure.

By acting as an example, the answers of the study questions are as follows.

A1: People usually tend to protect and bring their own personal interests into the forefront [ 21 ]. Self-interests get ahead of the interests of the organization. The interest appraisal has been conducted by PM, FM and OM and they have not considered the GM’s share of the software’s interest in the organization’s interest.

A2: Self-interests have become conflicts between individuals or groups. The result of the evaluation of interest between FM and PM and OM and PM has come to an end.

A3: Recardo characterized overt and covert forms of resistance to change [ 27 ]. If the individuals making the valuation of interest show resistance to change, resistance to change can manifest itself in open or implicit forms. In the case of the example, when PM acts in open resistance, OM shows implicit resistance because the PM is actually reacting to a workload not on the decline. This situation can be made explicit because it is seen as an injustice to her/him. However, OM will have to work harder by losing his/her comfortable position. He/she does not want to react by expressing it in terms of the moral dimension of work.

A4: Smollan emphasized the importance of communication [ 28 ]. Persons have potential resistance through communication that can be broken but since the sample event is at the beginning of the change process, it will not be very accurate to comment on this issue. Continuity of communication can solve this situation. The other source of insecurity and distrust of the past can be removed from this point.

6. Conclusion

Change for organizations is a necessity. Today’s businesses are aware of the need to keep up with the environmental changes and change demands. If the change process is not handled properly in the business, it will bring major problems with it. Every change will absolutely and definitely face resistance: sometimes at the beginning, sometimes in the middle and sometimes in the last period, but the resistance must be handled and managed properly throughout the entire process. Determination of the functions that constitute the resistance of change the approach to the issue of the problem to be done in this direction, will facilitate the solution of the issue. People show resistance for different reasons in case of change. This study is intended to reveal elements that create a potentially resilient potential, in particular protecting personal interests. During the course of the case study, different situations were encountered, and based on conflict of interest, they found their place in this study.

As it is seen and confirmed in the case study, people carry their own personal interests unfortunately in front of their organizational interests. This situation can be thought of as a reflection of professional life as well as lack of organizational commitment or organizational citizenship feelings. Businesses may take some measures to prevent employees from engaging in conflicts of interest. First of all, institutional citizenship may have a potential to overcome this situation. In addition, by establishing a more self-sacrificing culture within the organization, motivation for the people’s support for organizational interests rather than their own interests can be provided. People can be encouraged to make their own internal evaluations in this respect by questioning the moral and ethical aspects of the situation; in this respect, individuals can reach more objective perspectives when evaluating their interests.

When we look at the individuals in the business, it seems that such conflicts and false positioning are more common where the ability to make objective assessments is not very strong. Along with false positioning, more ego and ultimately more interest demands are being encountered. Such mentality sets out a competitive intention in order to protect their interests naturally and is creating resistance to this process of change.

In particular, the case study, which reveals a reflection of the conflict of interest that is valued as a consequence of the functions of exchange resistance and as a consequence thereof, reflects the relationship between resistance and conflict of interest. In the further study point, by performing field studies in which both variables can be measured and analyzed, sample findings can be supported and/or new findings can be developed. Researchers should look over and observe other events in different companies and sectors (textile, food or chemistry, etc.). Thus, the amount of case studies will increase. Moreover, the scale of “conflict of interest” and its use for qualitative studies should develop.

1. Caruth D, Middlebrook B, Rachel F. Overcoming resistance to change. Advanced Management Journal. 1985; 50 :23
2. Recardo RF. Overcoming resistance to change. National Productivity Review. 1995; 14 :5
3. Atkinson P. Managing resistane to change. Management Services. 2005; 49 :15
4. Lawrence PR. How to deal with resistance to change. Harvard Business Review. 2009; 47 :56
5. Harvey TR, Broyles EA. Resistance to Change, A Guide to Harnessing its Positive Power. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Educatio; 2010
6. Kocel T. Işletme Yoneticiligi. 13th ed. Beta: Istanbul; 2011
7. Strebel P. Why do employees resist change? Harvard Business Review. 1996; 74 :86
8. Smollan R. Engaging with resistance to change. University of Auckland Business Review. 2011; 13 :12
9. Kotter J, Schlesinger L. Choosing strategies for change. Havard Business Review. 2008; 57 :3
10. Barutçugil I. Stratejik Insan Kaynaklari Yonetimi. Istanbul: Kariyer; 2004
11. Nov O, Ye C. Users’ personality and perceived ease of use of digital libraries: The case for resistance to change. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 2008; 59 :847
12. Jones DJ, Recardo RJ. Leading and Implementing Business Change Management. London: Routledge; 2013
13. Mariotti J. Change requires learning and unlearning. Industry Week. 1999; 248 :59
14. Birinyi L. Unlearning old lessons. Forbes. 1999; 8 :410
15. Nystrom PC, Starbuck WH. To avoid organizational crises, unlearn. Organizational Dynamics. 1984; 12 :53
16. Mezias JM, Grinyer P, Guth WD. Changing collective cognition: A process model for strategic change. Long Range Planning. 2001; 34 :76
17. Eren E. OrgUtsel Davranis. Istanbul: Beta; 2012
18. Guney S. Sosyal Psikoloji. 3rd ed. Nobel: Istanbul; 2015
19. Sahin A, Emini F, Unsal O. Catisma Yonetimi Yontemleri ve Hastane Orgutlerinde Bir Uygulama. Selçuk Universitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitusu Dergisi. 2006; 15 :560
20. Karip E. Catişma Yonetimi. Pegem: Istanbul; 2000
21. Campbell J, Gleanson R, Malcolm K. Interpersonal conflict, agreeableness, and personality development. Journal of Personality. 2005; 71 :1060
22. Akkirman AD. Etkin Catisma Yonetimi Ve Mudahale Stratejileri. Dokuz Eylul Universitesi Iktisadi ve Idari Bilimler Fakultesi Dergisi. 2013; 11 :3
23. Sims RR. Managing Organizational Behavior. Quorum Books; 2002
24. Unguren E. Orgutsel catisma yonetimi uzerine konaklama Işletmelerinde bir Araştirma. Journal of International Social Research. 2008; 1 :887
25. Sahin A, Demir MH. Yonetici Ikilemi. Iş Ahlaki: Mugla Universitesi SBE Dergisi; 2000
26. Sabuncuoglu Z, Tuz MV. Orgutsel Davranis. Aktuel: Bursa; 2013
27. Recardo RF. Overcoming resistance to change. National Productivity Review. 1995; 14 :6
28. Smollan R. Engaging with resistance to change. University of Auckland Business Review. 2011; 13 :12

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Journal of Organizational Change Management

ISSN : 0953-4814

Article publication date: 1 April 2002

Examines stakeholder attitudes about change and resistance to change in a management initiative within the US State Department. Resistance to change may be an obstacle to successful implementation of reinvention initiatives based on how individuals and organizations perceive their goals are affected by the change. This study suggests that improved identification and understanding of the underlying factors of resistance may improve implementation outcomes.

Change management
Central government
Public administration
Implementation
Organizational development

Trader‐Leigh, K.E. (2002), "Case study: identifying resistance in managing change", Journal of Organizational Change Management , Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 138-155. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810210423044

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Resistance to change: A concept analysis

Affiliations.

1 Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science, University of San Diego, San Diego, California.
2 Clinical Effectiveness, Sharp Healthcare, San Diego, California.
3 Beyster Institute for Nursing Research, University of San Diego, San Diego, California.
PMID: 32578229
DOI: 10.1111/nuf.12479

The purpose of this concept analysis is to explore the concept of resistance and provide an operational definition for nurse leaders. While resistance has been deemed a major barrier to the implementation of successful practice change in popular literature, specific evidence as to how it is a barrier within health care organizations is lacking. The Walker and Avant model of concept analysis was used to analyze the concept of resistance. Literature searches utilized the Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PsychARTICLES, and Google scholar. Resistance is defined as an individual's behavior in response to perceived or actual threat in an attempt to maintain baseline status. It may be preceded by and amplified through mistrust, fear, and communication barriers, ultimately influencing the implementation, quality, and sustainability of the change. Historically resistance has been viewed with negative conations due to its potential impact on organizational success. However, resistance is a normal response to a threat to baseline status. Nurse leaders prepared with knowledge of resistance, including the antecedents and attributes, can minimize the potential negative consequences of resistance and capitalize on a powerful impact of change adaptation.

Keywords: change; nurse leaders; resistance.

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Case Study: Resistance to Change

As part of his attempt to make his mark on the division, and to bring in past experiences that he thinks can be of value, Victor proposed numerous ideas for the division at a staff meeting. His staff— which, in recent years, has become increasingly more diverse in demographics and cultural backgrounds—suggests improvements and changes to his ideas. They are not so sure that his changes are the most appropriate given the overall strategic directions of the department. Furthermore, they are not sure how they can implement strategies when the ideas call for outdated resources and technology. Some of the younger staff members are more vocal and mention recent trends and practices in strategic thinking that could be more beneficial to accomplishing the division goals.

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How to Deal with Resistance to Change

Paul R. Lawrence

The real problem is not technical change but the human changes that often accompany technical innovations.

One of the most baffling and recalcitrant of the problems which business executives face is employee resistance to change. Such resistance may take a number of forms—persistent reduction in output, increase in the number of “quits” and requests for transfer, chronic quarrels, sullen hostility, wildcat or slowdown strikes, and, of course, the expression of a lot of pseudological reasons why the change will not work. Even the more petty forms of this resistance can be troublesome.

All too often when executives encounter resistance to change, they “explain” it by quoting the clich&‌eacute; that “people resist change” and never look further. Yet changes must continually occur in industry. This applies with particular force to the all-important “little” changes that constantly take place—changes in work methods, in routine office procedures, in the location of a machine or a desk, in personnel assignments and job titles.

Retrospective Commentary

In the 15 years since this article was first published, we have seen a great deal of change in industry, but the human aspects of the topic do not seem very different. The human problems associated with change remain much the same even though our understanding of them and our methods for dealing with them have advanced.

The first of the two major themes of the article is that resistance to change does not arise because of technical factors per se but because of social and human considerations. This statement still seems to be true. There is, however, an implication in the article that the social and human costs of change, if recognized, can largely be avoided by thoughtful management effort. Today I am less sanguine about this.

It is true that these costs can be greatly reduced by conscious attention. Managements that have tried have made much progress during the past 15 years. Here are some examples of what has been done:

Fewer people are now pushed out of the back doors of industry—embittered and “burned out” before their time.
Fewer major strikes are the result of head-on clashes over new technology and its effects on jobs.
Progress is being made in putting the needs of people into the design of new technological systems.
Relevant inputs of ideas and opinions of people from all ranks are being solicited and used before (not after) plans for change are frozen.
At the same time that well-established work groups are disrupted by technical imperatives, special efforts are made to help newly formed work groups evolve meaningful team relations quickly.
Time and care have been taken to counsel individuals whose careers have to some degree been disrupted by change.

All of these ways of reducing the human costs of change have worked for the companies that have seriously applied them. Still, I am more aware than in 1954 of the limits of such approaches. They do not always enable management to prevent situations from developing in which some individuals win while others lose. The values lost as skills become obsolete cannot always be replaced. The company’s earnings may go up but the percentage payouts from even an enlarged “pie” have to be recalculated, and then the relative rewards shift. In these situations enlightened problem-solving will not completely displace old-fashioned bargaining, and better communication will only clarify the hard-core realities.

The second theme of the article deals with ways of improving the relations between groups in an organization—particularly when a staff group is initiating change in the work of an operating or line group. The gap that exists in outlook and orientation between specialized groups in industry has increased in the past 15 years, even as the number of such groups has continued to escalate. These larger gaps have in turn created ever more difficult problems of securing effective communication and problem-solving between groups. Coordinating the groups is probably the number one problem of our modern corporations. So this second theme is hardly out-of-date.

Today, however, there is both more knowledge available about the problem than there was in 1954 and more-sophisticated skill and attention being given to it. And there is increasing understanding of and respect for the necessity for differences between groups. There is less striving for consistency for its own sake. More managerial effort is being applied, in person and through impersonal systems, to bridge the gaps in understanding. While the conflicts between specialized groups are probably as intense now as ever, they are more frequently seen as task-related—that is, natural outgrowths of different jobs, skills, and approaches—rather than as redundant and related only to personality differences.

The major criticism that has been brought to my attention about the article is that it has damaged the useful concept of participation. Perhaps this is true. But the view of participation as a technique for securing compliance with a predetermined change was a widespread and seductive one in 1954—and it is not dead yet. Subsequent research has not altered the general conclusion that participation, to be of value, must be based on a search for ideas that are seen as truly relevant to the change under consideration. The shallow notion of participation, therefore, still needs to be debunked.

As a final thought, I now realize that the article implied that workers resist change while managers foster and implement change. Many of the changes of the intervening period, such as the computer revolution, have exposed the inadequacy of this assumption. It is difficult to find any managers today who do not at times feel greatly distressed because of changes, with their own resistance level running fairly high. We are all, at times, resisters as well as instigators of change. We are all involved on both sides of the process of adjusting to change.

In light of this, let me reemphasize the point that resistance to change is by itself neither good nor bad. Resistance may be soundly based or not. It is always, however, an important signal calling for further inquiry by management.

No one of these changes makes the headlines, but in total they account for much of our increase in productivity. They are not the spectacular once-in-a-lifetime technological revolutions that involve mass layoffs or the obsolescence of traditional skills, but they are vital to business progress.

Does it follow, therefore, that business management is forever saddled with the onerous job of “forcing” change down the throats of resistant people? My answer is no. It is the thesis of this article that people do not resist technical change as such and that most of the resistance which does occur is unnecessary. I shall discuss these points, among others:

A solution which has become increasingly popular for dealing with resistance to change is to get the people involved to “participate” in making the change. But as a practical matter “participation” as a device is not a good way for management to think about the problem. In fact, it may lead to trouble.
The key to the problem is to understand the true nature of resistance. Actually, what employees resist is usually not technical change but social change—the change in their human relationships that generally accompanies technical change.
Resistance is usually created because of certain blind spots and attitudes which staff specialists have as a result of their preoccupation with the technical aspects of new ideas.
Management can take concrete steps to deal constructively with these staff attitudes. The steps include emphasizing new standards of performance for staff specialists and encouraging them to think in different ways, as well as making use of the fact that signs of resistance can serve as a practical warning signal in directing and timing technological changes.
Top executives can also make their own efforts more effective at meetings of staff and operating groups where change is being discussed. They can do this by shifting their attention from the facts of schedules, technical details, work assignments, and so forth, to what the discussion of these items indicates in regard to developing resistance and receptiveness to change.

Let us begin by taking a look at some research into the nature of resistance to change. There are two studies in particular that I should like to discuss. They highlight contrasting ways of interpreting resistance to change and of coping with it in day-to-day administration.

Is Participation Enough?

The first study was conducted by Lester Coch and John R.P. French Jr. in a clothing factory. 1 It deserves special comment because, it seems to me, it is the most systematic study of the phenomenon of resistance to change that has been made in a factory setting. To describe it briefly:

The two researchers worked with four different groups of factory operators who were being paid on a modified piece-rate basis. For each of these four groups a minor change in the work procedure was installed by a different method, and the results were carefully recorded to see what, if any, problems of resistance occurred. The four experimental groups were roughly matched with respect to efficiency ratings and degree of cohesiveness; in each group the proposed change modified the established work procedure to about the same degree.

The work change was introduced to the first group by what the researchers called a “no-participation” method. This small group of operators was called into a room where some staff people told the members that there was a need for a minor methods change in their work procedures. The staff people then explained the change to the operators in detail, and gave them the reasons for the change. The operators were then sent back to the job with instructions to work in accordance with the new method.

The second group of operators was introduced to the work change by a “participation-through-representation” method—a variation of the approach used with the third and fourth groups which turned out to be of little significance.

Resistance to what?

Now let us take a look at a second series of research findings about resistance to change. While making some research observations in a factory manufacturing electronic products, a colleague and I had an opportunity to observe a number of incidents that for us threw new light on this matter of resistance to change. 2 One incident was particularly illuminating:

We were observing the work of one of the industrial engineers and a production operator who had been assigned to work with the engineer on assembling and testing an experimental product that the engineer was developing. The engineer and the operator were in almost constant daily contact in their work. It was a common occurrence for the engineer to suggest an idea for some modification in a part of the new product; he would then discuss his idea with the operator and ask her to try out the change to see how it worked. It was also a common occurrence for the operator to get an idea as she assembled parts and to pass this idea on to the engineer, who would then consider it and, on occasion, ask the operator to try out the idea and see if it proved useful. A typical exchange between these two people might run somewhat as follows:

Engineer: “I got to thinking last night about that difficulty we’ve been having on assembling the x part in the last few days. It occurred to me that we might get around that trouble if we washed the part in a cleaning solution just prior to assembling it.” Operator: “Well, that sounds to me like it’s worth trying.” Engineer: “I’ll get you some of the right kind of cleaning solution, and why don’t you try doing that with about 50 parts and keep track of what happens.” Operator: “Sure, I’ll keep track of it and let you know how it works.”

With this episode in mind, let us take a look at a second episode involving the same production operator. One day we noticed another engineer approaching the production operator. We knew that this particular engineer had had no previous contact with the production operator. He had been asked to take a look at one specific problem on the new product because of his special technical qualifications. He had decided to make a change in one of the parts of the product to eliminate the problem, and he had prepared some of these parts using his new method. Here is what happened:

He walked up to the production operator with the new parts in his hand and indicated to her by a gesture that he wanted her to try assembling some units using his new part. The operator picked up one of the parts and proceeded to assemble it. We noticed that she did not handle the part with her usual care. After she had assembled the product, she tested it and it failed to pass inspection. She turned to the new engineer and, with a triumphant air, said, “It doesn’t work.” The new engineer indicated that she should try another part. She did so, and again it did not work. She then proceeded to assemble units using all of the new parts that were available. She handled each of them in an unusually rough manner. None of them worked. Again she turned to the engineer and said that the new parts did not work. The engineer left, and later the operator, with evident satisfaction, commented to the original industrial engineer that the new engineer’s idea was just no good.

Social change: What can we learn from these episodes? To begin, it will be useful for our purposes to think of change as having both a technical and a social aspect. The technical aspect of the change is the making of a measurable modification in the physical routines of the job. The social aspect of the change refers to the way those affected by it think it will alter their established relationships in the organization.

We can clarify this distinction by referring to the two foregoing episodes. In both of them, the technical aspects of the changes introduced were virtually identical: The operator was asked to use a slightly changed part in assembling the finished product. By contrast, the social aspects of the changes were quite different.

In the first episode, the interaction between the industrial engineer and the operator tended to sustain the give-and-take kind of relationship that these two people were accustomed to. The operator was used to being treated as a person with some valuable skills and knowledge and some sense of responsibility about her work; when the engineer approached her with his idea, she felt she was being dealt with in the usual way. But, in the second episode, the new engineer was introducing not only a technical change but also a change in the operator’s customary way of relating herself to others in the organization. By his brusque manner and by his lack of any explanation, he led the operator to fear that her usual work relationships were being changed. And she just did not like the new way she was being treated.

The results of these two episodes were quite different also. In the first episode there were no symptoms of resistance to change, a very good chance that the experimental change would determine fairly whether a cleaning solution would improve product quality, and a willingness on the part of the operator to accept future changes when the industrial engineer suggested them. In the second episode, however, there were signs of resistance to change (the operator’s careless handling of parts and her satisfaction in their failure to work), failure to prove whether the modified part was an improvement or not, and indications that the operator would resist any further changes by the engineer. We might summarize the two contrasting patterns of human behavior in the two episodes in graphic form; see the table below.

Two Contrasting Patterns of Human Behavior

It is apparent from these two patterns that the variable which determines the result is the social aspect of the change. In other words, the operator did not resist the technical change as such but rather the accompanying change in her human relationships.

Confirmation: This conclusion is based on more than one case. Many other cases in our research project substantiate it. Furthermore, we can find confirmation in the research experience of Coch and French, even though they came out with a different interpretation.

Coch and French tell us in their report that the procedure used with Group #1, that is, the no-participation group, was the usual one in the factory for introducing work changes. And yet they also tell us something about the customary treatment of the operators in their work life. For example, the company’s labor relations policies are progressive, the company and the supervisors place a high value on fair and open dealings with the employees, and the employees are encouraged to take up their problems and grievances with management. Also, the operators are accustomed to measuring the success and failure of themselves as operators against the company’s standard output figures.

Now compare these customary work relationships with the way the Group #1 operators were treated when they were introduced to this particular work change. There is quite a difference. When the management called them into the room for indoctrination, they were treated as if they had no useful knowledge of their own jobs. In effect, they were told that they were not the skilled and efficient operators they had thought they were, that they were doing the job inefficiently, and that some “outsider” (the staff expert) would now tell them how to do it right. How could they construe this experience except as a threatening change in their usual working relationship? It is the story of the second episode in our research case all over again. The results were also the same, with signs of resistance, persistently low output, and so on.

Now consider experimental Groups #3 and #4, that is, the total-participation groups. Coch and French referred to management’s approach in their case as a “new” method of introducing change, but from the point of view of the operators it must not have seemed new at all. It was simply a continuation of the way they were ordinarily dealt with in the course of their regular work. And what happened? The results—reception to change, technical improvement, better performance—were much like those reported in the first episode between the operator and the industrial engineer.

So the research data of Coch and French tend to confirm the conclusion that the nature and size of the technical aspect of the change does not determine the presence or absence of resistance nearly so much as does the social aspect of the change.

Roots of trouble.

The significance of these research findings, from management’s point of view, is that executives and staff experts need not expertness in using the devices of participation but a real understanding, in depth and detail, of the specific social arrangements that will be sustained or threatened by the change or by the way in which it is introduced.

These observations check with everyday management experience in industry. When we stop to think about it, we know that many changes occur in our factories without a bit of resistance. We know that people who are working closely with one another continually swap ideas about shortcuts and minor changes in procedure that are adopted so easily and naturally that we seldom notice them or even think of them as change. The point is that because these people work so closely with one another, they intuitively understand and take account of the existing social arrangements for work and so feel no threat to themselves in such everyday changes.

By contrast, management actions leading to what we commonly label “change” are usually initiated outside the small work group by staff people. These are the changes that we notice and the ones that most frequently bring on symptoms of resistance. By the very nature of their work, most of our staff specialists in industry do not have the intimate contact with operating groups that allows them to acquire an intuitive understanding of the complex social arrangements which their ideas may affect. Neither do our staff specialists always have the day-to-day dealings with operating people that lead them to develop a natural respect for the knowledge and skill of these people. As a result, all too often the specialists behave in a way that threatens and disrupts the established social relationships. And the tragedy is that so many of these upsets are inadvertent and unnecessary.

Yet industry must have its specialists—not only many kinds of engineering specialists (product, process, maintenance, quality, and safety engineers) but also cost accountants, production schedulers, purchasing agents, and personnel people. Must top management therefore reconcile itself to continual resistance to change, or can it take constructive action to meet the problem?

I believe that our research in various factory situations indicates why resistance to change occurs and what management can do about it. Let us take the “why” factors first.

Self-preoccupation: All too frequently we see staff specialists who bring to their work certain blind spots that get them into trouble when they initiate change with operating people. One such blind spot is “self-preoccupation.” The staff specialists get so engrossed in the technology of the change they are interested in promoting that they become wholly oblivious to different kinds of things that may be bothering people. Here are two examples:

In one situation the staff people introduced, with the best of intentions, a technological change which inadvertently deprived a number of skilled operators of much of the satisfaction that they were finding in their work. Among other things, the change meant that, whereas formerly the operators’ outputs had been placed beside their work positions where they could be viewed and appreciated by everyone, they were now being carried away immediately from their work positions. The workers did not like this. The sad part of it was that there was no compelling cost or technical reason why the output could not be placed beside the work position as it had been formerly. But the staff people who had introduced the change were so literal-minded about their ideas that when they heard complaints on the changes from the operators, they could not comprehend what the trouble was. Instead, they began repeating all the logical arguments why the change made sense from a cost standpoint. The final result here was a chronic restriction of output and persistent hostility on the part of the operators.
An industrial engineer undertook to introduce some methods changes in one department with the notion firmly in mind that this assignment presented her with an opportunity to “prove” to higher management the value of her function. She became so preoccupied with her personal desire to make a name for her particular techniques that she failed to pay any attention to some fairly obvious and practical considerations which the operating people were calling to her attention but which did not show up in her time-study techniques. As could be expected, resistance quickly developed to all her ideas, and the only “name” that she finally won for her techniques was a black one.

Obviously, in both of these situations the staff specialists involved did not take into account the social aspects of the change they were introducing. For different reasons they got so preoccupied with the technical aspects of the change that they literally could not see or understand what all the fuss was about.

We may sometimes wish that the validity of the technical aspect of the change were the sole determinant of its acceptability. But the fact remains that the social aspect is what determines the presence or absence of resistance. Just as ignoring this fact is the sure way to trouble, so taking advantage of it can lead to positive results. We must not forget that these same social arrangements which at times seem so bothersome are essential for the performance of work. Without a network of established social relationships a factor would be populated with a collection of people who had no idea of how to work with one another in an organized fashion. By working with this network instead of against it, management’s staff representatives can give new technological ideas a better chance of acceptance.

Know-how of operators overlooked: Another blind spot of many staff specialists is to the strengths as well as to the weaknesses of firsthand production experience. They do not recognize that the production foreman and the production operator are in their own way specialists themselves—specialists in actual experience with production problems. This point should be obvious, but it is amazing how many staff specialists fail to appreciate the fact that even though they themselves may have a superior knowledge of the technology of the production process involved, the foreman or the operators may have a more practical understanding of how to get daily production out of a group of workers and machines.

The experience of the operating people frequently equips them to be of real help to staff specialists on at least two counts: (1) The operating people are often able to spot practical production difficulties in the ideas of the specialists—and iron out those difficulties before it is too late; (2) the operating people are often able to take advantage of their intimate acquaintance with the existing social arrangements for getting work done. If given a chance, they can use this kind of knowledge to help detect those parts of the change that will have undesirable social consequences. The staff experts can then go to work on ways to avoid the trouble area without materially affecting the technical worth of the change.

Further, some staff specialists have yet to learn the truth that, even after the plans for a change have been carefully made, it takes time to put the change successfully into production use. Time is necessary even though there may be no resistance to the change itself. The operators must develop the skill needed to use new methods and new equipment efficiently; there are always bugs to be taken out of a new method or piece of equipment even with the best of engineering. When staff people begin to lose patience with the amount of time that these steps take, the workers will begin to feel that they are being pushed; this amounts to a change in their customary work relationships, and resistance will start building up where there was none before.

The situation is aggravated if the staff specialist mistakenly accuses the operators of resisting the idea of the change, for there are few things that irritate people more than to be blamed for resisting change when actually they are doing their best to learn a difficult new procedure.

Management action.

Many of the problems of resistance to change arise around certain kinds of attitudes that staff people are liable to develop about their jobs and their own ideas for introducing change. Fortunately, management can influence these attitudes and thus deal with the problems at their source.

Broadening staff interests: It is fairly common for staff members to work so hard on an idea for change that they come to identify themselves with it. This is fine for the organization when the staff person is working on the idea alone or with close colleagues; the idea becomes “his baby,” and the company benefits from this complete devotion to work.

But when, for example, a staff member goes to some group of operating people to introduce a change, his very identification with his ideas tends to make him unreceptive to any suggestions for modification. He just does not feel like letting anyone else tamper with his pet ideas. It is easy to see, of course, how this attitude is interpreted by the operating people as a lack of respect for their suggestions.

This problem of staff peoples’ extreme identification with their work is one which, to some extent, can only be cured by time. But here are four suggestions for speeding up the process:

Managers can often, with wise timing, encourage the staff’s interest in a different project that is just starting.
Managers can also, by “coaching” as well as by example, prod the staff people to develop a healthier respect for the contributions they can receive from operating people; success in this area would, of course, virtually solve the problem.
It also helps if staff people can be guided to recognize that the satisfaction they derive from being productive and creative is the same satisfaction they deny the operating people by resisting them. Experience shows that staff people can sometimes be stimulated by the thought of finding satisfaction in sharing with others in the organization the pleasures of being creative.
Sometimes, too, staff people can be led to see that winning acceptance of their ideas through better understanding and handling of human beings is just as challenging and rewarding as giving birth to an idea.

Using understandable terms: One of the problems that must be overcome arises from the fact that most staff people are likely to have the attitude that the reasons why they are recommending any given change may be so complicated and specialized that it is impossible to explain them to operating people. It may be true that the operating people would find it next to impossible to understand some of the staff specialists’ analytical techniques, but this does not keep them from coming to the conclusion that the staff specialists are trying to razzle-dazzle them with tricky figures and formulas—insulting their intelligence—if they do not strive to their utmost to translate their ideas into terms understandable to the operators. The following case illustrates the importance of this point:

A staff specialist was temporarily successful in “selling” a change based on a complicated mathematical formula to a foreman who really did not understand it. The whole thing backfired, however, when the foreman tried to sell it to his operating people. They asked him a couple of sharp questions that he could not answer. His embarrassment about this led him to resent and resist the change so much that eventually the whole proposition fell through. This was unfortunate in terms not only of human relations but also of technological progress in the plant.

There are some very good reasons, both technical and social, why staff people should be interested in working with the operating people until their recommendations make “sense.” (This does not mean that the operating people need to understand the recommendations in quite the same way or in the same detail that the staff people do, but that they should be able to visualize the recommendations in terms of their job experiences.) Failure of the staff person to provide an adequate explanation is likely to mean that a job the operators had formerly performed with understanding and satisfaction will now be performed without understanding and with less satisfaction.

This loss of satisfaction not only concerns the individual involved but also is significant from the standpoint of the company that is trying to get maximum productivity from the operating people. People who do not have a feeling of comprehension of what they are doing are denied the opportunity to exercise that uniquely human ability—the ability to use informed and intelligent judgment on what they do. If the staff person leaves the operating people with a sense of confusion, they will also be left unhappy and less productive.

Top line and staff executives responsible for the operation should make it a point, therefore, to know how the staff person goes about installing a change. They can do this by asking discerning questions about staff reports, listening closely to reports of employee reaction, and, if they have the opportunity, actually watching the staff specialist at work. At times they may have to take such drastic action as insisting that the time of installation of a proposed change be postponed until the operators are ready for it. But, for the most part, straightforward discussions with the staff specialist evaluating that person’s approach should help the staffer to learn over a period of time what is expected in relationships with operating personnel.

New look at resistance: Another attitude that gets staff people into trouble is the expectation that all the people involved will resist the change. Its curious but true that the staff person who goes into a job with the conviction that people are going to resist any new idea with blind stubbornness is likely to find them responding just the way the staff specialist thinks they will. The process is clear: Whenever the people who are supposed to buy new ideas are treated as if they were bullheaded, the way they are used to being treated changes—and they will be bullheaded in resisting that change!

I think that staff people—and management in general—will do better to look at it this way: When resistance does appear, it should not be thought of as something to be overcome. Instead, it can best be thought of as a useful red flag—a signal that something is going wrong. To use a rough analogy, signs of resistance in a social organization are useful in the same way that pain is useful to the body as a signal that some bodily functions are getting out of adjustment.

The resistance, like the pain, does not tell what is wrong but only that something is wrong. And it makes no more sense to try to overcome such resistance than it does to take a pain killer without diagnosing the bodily ailment. Therefore, when resistance appears, it is time to listen carefully to find out what the trouble is. What is needed is not a long harangue on the logics of the new recommendations but a careful exploration of the difficulty.

It may happen that the problem is some technical imperfection in the change that can be readily corrected. More than likely, it will turn out that the change is threatening and upsetting some of the established social arrangements for doing work. Whether the trouble is easy or difficult to correct, management will at least know what it is dealing with.

New job definition: Finally, some staff specialists get themselves in trouble because they assume they have the answer in the thought that people will accept a change when they have participated in making it. For example:

In one plant we visited, an engineer confided to us (obviously because we, as researchers on human relations, were interested in psychological gimmicks!) that she was going to put across a proposed production layout change of hers by inserting in it a rather obvious error, which others could then suggest should be corrected. We attended the meeting where this stunt was performed, and superficially it worked. Somebody caught the error, proposed that it be corrected, and our engineer immediately “bought” the suggestion as a very worthwhile one and made the change. The group then seemed to “buy” her entire layout proposal.

It looked like an effective technique—oh, so easy—until later, when we became better acquainted with the people in the plant. Then we found out that many of the engineer’s colleagues considered her a phony and did not trust her. The resistance they put up to her ideas was very subtle, yet even more real and difficult for management to deal with.

Participation will never work so long as it is treated as a device to get other people to do what you want them to. Real participation is based on respect. And respect is not acquired by just trying; it is acquired when the staff people face the reality that they need the contributions of the operating people.

If staff people define their jobs as not just generating ideas but also getting those ideas into practical operation, they will recognize their real dependence on the contributions of the operating people. They will ask the operators for ideas and suggestions, not in a backhanded way to get compliance, but in a straightforward way to get some good ideas and avoid some unnecessary mistakes. By this process staff people will be treating the operating people in such a way that their behavior will not be perceived as a threat to customary work relationships. It will be possible to discuss, and accept or reject, the ideas on their own merit.

The staff specialist who looks at the process of introducing change and at resistance to change in the manner outlined in the preceding pages may not be hailed as a genius but can be counted on in installing a steady flow of technical changes that will cut costs and improve quality without upsetting the organization.

Role of the administrator.

Now what about the way top executives go about their own jobs as they involve the introduction of change and problems of resistance?

One of the most important things an executive can do, of course, is to deal with staff people in much the same way that the staff members should deal with the operators. An executive must realize that staff people resist social change, too. (This means, among other things, that particular rules should not be prescribed to staff on the basis of this article!)

But most important, I think, is the way the administrators conceive of their job in coordinating the work of the different staff and line groups involved in a change. Does an administrator think of these duties primarily as checking up, delegating, and following through, applying pressure when performance fails to measure up? Or does the executive think of them primarily as facilitating communication and understanding between people with different points of view—for example, between a staff engineering group and a production group who do not see eye to eye on a change they are both involved in? An analysis of management’s actual experience—or, at least, that part of it which has been covered by our research—points to the latter as the more effective concept of administration.

I do not mean that executives should spend their time with the different people concerned discussing the human problems of change as such. They should discuss schedules, technical details, work assignments, and so forth. But they should also be watching closely for the messages that are passing back and forth as people discuss these topics. Executives will find that people—themselves as well as others—are always implicitly asking and making answers to questions like: “How will she accept criticism?” “How much can I afford to tell him?” “Does she really get my point?” “Is he playing games?” The answers to such questions determine the degree of candor and the amount of understanding between the people involved.

When administrators concern themselves with these problems and act to facilitate understanding, there will be less logrolling and more sense of common purpose, fewer words and better understanding, less anxiety and more acceptance of criticism, less griping and more attention to specific problems—in short, better performance in putting new ideas for technological change into effect.

PL Paul R. Lawrence was the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Organizational Behavior Emeritus at Harvard Business School.

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5 Tips for Managing Resistance to Change

Managing resistance effectively is critical to success with organizational change. Learn from thousands of change management practitioners by following these five tips, which emerged from Prosci’s Best Practices in Change Management research over the last twenty-five years:

Do change management right the first time
Expect resistance to change
Address resistance formally
Identify the root causes of resistance
Engage the “right” resistance managers

resistance-to-change-checklist_TL-article-early-CTA

1. Do Change Management Right the First Time

Although resistance is a normal human response to change, we can avoid or mitigate a significant amount of resistance by applying effective change management from the start of a project or initiative. Change management is not just a tool for managing resistance reactively. It is most effective as a tool for activating and engaging employees in a change. Capturing and leveraging the passion and positive emotion surrounding a change often prevents resistance from occurring in the first place.

Participants in Prosci’s Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking research indicated that much of the employee resistance they encountered could have avoided by implementing effective change management practices and principles. The moral here is: If you do change management right the first time, you can prevent much of the resistance from occurring.

Actions for addressing and mitigating resistance include:

Utilizing a structured change management approach from the initiation of the project
Engaging senior leaders as active and visible sponsors of the change
Recruiting support from people managers as advocates for the change
Communicating the need for change, its impacts on individuals, and the benefits to employees (i.e., answering "What's in it for me?")

Each of these tactics are part of a structured change management approach and directly address some of the main sources of resistance. They can actually prevent resistance from happening when they happen early in the project lifecycle because they help front-line employees understand the "why" behind the change and see the commitment from leaders throughout the organization. This also prevents resistance later in the project when it can adversely impact benefits realization, project schedules and budget.

2. Expect Resistance to Change

Do not be surprised by resistance! Even if the project solution is a wonderful improvement to a problem that plagues employees, there will be resistance to change. Comfort with the status quo is very powerful. Moving into an unknown future state creates anxiety, fear and stress, even if the current state is painful. Project teams and change management teams should work to address resistance and mitigate it, and always expect it.

Research on human brain function shows that resistance is not only a psychological reaction to change but also physiological. To act in a new way requires more power from the brain. When presented with a new way of doing something, the physiological reaction is to revert back to what the brain already knows. Human beings can adapt their behavior, but it is a difficult and painful process—even for the brain itself.

When preparing for resistance, spend time before the project launches to look at likely sources of resistance. All too often, a project team will reflect back on resistance and say, "We knew that group was going to resist the change," but nothing was done to address it upfront in the project. When the project is getting started, be proactive and specific about where resistance is likely to come from and the likely objections that drive this resistance. Then, act on this knowledge ahead of time before the resistance impacts the project.

Sources of resistance include:

Employees who are highly invested in the current way of doing work
People who created the current way of doing work that will be changed
Employees who expect more work as a result of the change
Those who advocated a particular alternative, (e.g., they wanted Option B, but Option A was selected)
People who have been very successful and rewarded in the current way of doing work

These groups are likely sources of resistance and should be addressed proactively in the project lifecycle with targeted tactics for mitigating these objections.

3. Formally Manage Resistance to Change

Managing resistance to change should not be solely a reactive tactic for change management practitioners. Resistance prevention enables you to address and mitigate resistance early and should be incorporated into your change management approach for projects and initiatives.

Resistance management is addressed with specific actions and activities in all three phases of the Prosci 3-Phase Process :

Phase 1 – Prepare Approach

We begin planning for resistance prevention while creating the Change Management Strategy deliverable in this initial phase. Actions center on early identification and anticipated points of resistance, and special tactics for addressing them.

We also identify specific risks by conducting Risk Assessments during Phase 1 – Prepare Approach.

Phase 2 – Manage Change

Resistance prevention actions and activities are also included in Phase 2 – Manage Change to support individuals through their ADKAR transitions.

During Phase 2 – Manage Change, we also develop resistance response activities for persistent, pervasive resistance when it occurs.

During this phase, you may also decide to develop a separate Resistance Management Plan to develop additional tactics and complement your core Change Management Plans .

Phase 3 -Sustain Outcomes

During Phase 3 – Sustain Outcomes, we review performance to understand the initiative progress, ADKAR outcomes, and status of change management activities. Resistance management during Phase 3 – Sustain Outcomes consists of assessing performance of resistance management activities and documenting lessons learned for the future.

Formally addressing resistance ensures that it is understood and dealt with throughout the lifecycle of the project. This moves managing resistance to change from simply a reactive mechanism to a proactive and ultimately more effective tool for mobilizing support and addressing objections.

4. Identify the Root Causes of Resistance to Change

Managing resistance is ineffective when it simply focuses on the symptoms. The symptoms of resistance are observable and often overt, such as complaining, not attending key meetings, not providing requested information or resources, or simply not adopting a change to a process or behavior. Although they are more evident, focusing on these symptoms will not yield results. To be effective, you must look deeper into what is causing the resistance. Effective resistance management requires identifying the root causes of resistance to understanding why someone is resistant.

Prosci's Best Practices in Change Management research provides a nice starting point for understanding the root causes of resistance. Results from the 2019 study revealed important themes in the top reasons for resistance, which reaffirms the results from previous studies. When asked to identify the primary reasons employees resisted change, study participants identified several root causes:

Lack of awareness of why the change was being made
Impact on current job role
Fear rooted in uncertainty due to past failed changes
Lack of visible support from and trust in management or leadership
Lack of inclusion in the change

Knowing these primary root causes, change teams can prepare a compelling case for the need for change, which senior leaders then communicate to the organization. This simple activity targets the top cause for resistance (i.e., lack of awareness) and can prevent much of it on a project or initiative. You can use additional benchmarking findings and your own experience with change in your organization to customize your list of likely root causes with activities to address and mitigate each.

The Prosci ADKAR Model and the ADKAR Assessment also enable you to hone in on the root cause of resistance by identifying an individual's barrier point and addressing that root cause. The ADKAR Model is a powerful diagnostic framework that can be quickly and easily applied by change management teams and people managers in formal assessments or casual conversations.

Finally, it is important to remember that resistance to change is ultimately an individual phenomenon. Although research and analysis can identify general root causes for resistance, we must address resistance at the individual level. The best way to identify the root cause of resistance is through a personal conversation between a resistant employee and their people manager.

5. Engage the "Right" Resistance Managers

The change management team is not effective at resistance management. Project team members, human resources teams, and organization development specialists are not effective resistance managers either. The "right" resistance managers in an organization are senior leaders and people managers, and they have different roles to play.

Senior Leaders

At a high level, senior leaders help mitigate resistance by making a compelling case for the need for change and demonstrating their commitment to a change. Employees look to senior leaders when they are deciding if a change is important—and they judge what they see and hear from this group. If senior leaders are not committed to a change or waver in their support, employees will also consider the change to be unimportant and resist it.

People Managers

People managers are the other key group responsible for managing resistance because they are closest to the employees who must ultimately adopt and use a change in their daily work. If a people manager is resistant to a change, or even neutral, their direct reports will probably follow suit. Fortunately, the reverse is also true. An openly supportive people manager who advocates for a particular change is likely to see the same behaviors in their employees' reactions.

Prosci's benchmarking data reveals five key roles of people managers during change , and two connect directly to managing resistance: 1) Demonstrating support for the change and 2) Identifying and mitigating resistance. Of course, you must first address resistance from people managers themselves before asking them to manage resistance in their teams.

The change team or practitioner can do much of the legwork in understanding and addressing resistance, but the role or face of resistance management within the organization belongs to senior leaders and people managers. The change practitioner's role is to enable the "right" resistance managers by providing data about where resistance is coming from, identifying likely root causes, offering potential tactics for addressing resistance, and providing tools to identify and manage resistance. But the "right" resistance managers must take action to address objections and help employees move successfully through the change process.

Resistance-to-Change Checklist

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Employee Resistance To Organizational Change: A Case Study Of Telenor

The aim of this paper is to explore the problems of Organization change of TELENOR. Organizations frequently need to introduce changes in anticipation of future problems. Though a change process may be vital there often will be resistance to change processes from the individuals and organizations. Even though resistance to change is common, change initiators generally do not consider managing it effectively in order to make their efforts a success. Poorly managed resistance can wreck an organization. Accordingly, this study aimed to explore the nature of resistance when implementing a strategic level change in construction organizations of TELENOR. Case study approach was used to investigate the research question. A construction organization that recently implemented change at a strategic level was selected to study the nature of resistance. Data collection techniques were semi-structured in-depth interviews and participant-observation. The primary data were analyzed using content analysis and cognitive mapping techniques. The case study findings revealed significant reasons for the resistance to change in construction organizations and how these were handled in the case study organization. The results and findings reported from this study will enable construction organizations to understand the nature of resistance and manage it effectively for successful strategic change implementation.[1]

Managing resistance to change is an important part of the success of all change efforts in each company. Dealing with resistance in large part will depend on your ability to recognize the real sources or causes of resistance to change. Organizational change is an act of transformation or modification of something in your organizational system. The main purpose of this activity is to make improvements to your business performances. You can’t find a person who would like to implement change if that change process brings results with which the organization will become worse or there will not be any improvements.

Why we need Organizational Changes

An organization, business, or company is interacting with its environment. Each environmental change will affect the work and performances of the organization, and because of that, it will need to adapt itself regarding changes in the environment. So, the organizational change is the activity of differentiation or modification of the organization with the main purpose to bring improvements of overall business processes and to bring an adaptation in relation to ongoing changes in the environment. [3]

Why is there a resistance to change?

When we talk about Organizational Change we need to mention that this process isn’t simply a journey from one stage to other. You will need to pass many barriers if you want to succeed in your intentions to improve your business. One of the biggest barriers is resistance to change as an integral part of each change process. Managers will need to be aware that there will be always persons in their organizations that will resist the proposed changes. Because of that, efficiency and effectiveness of the change process will be in direct relation with resistance to change and successful managing resistance to change. The practice of managing resistance to change recognize four types of persons regarding their responses to changes. So, we can have:

Persons who will initiate the change process.
Persons who will accept the proposed change.
Persons who will be indifferent to the proposed change.
Persons who will not accept the proposed change.
Persons that will not belong in any of the above-mentioned categories are more likely to be resistant to proposed changes [2]

Causes of Resistance to change

It is more likely that managers will resist changes that will decrease their power and transfers it to their subordinates. In such a way, the threat of power is one of the causes of resistance to change;

The threat of power on an organizational level. With the change process, some groups, departments or sectors of the organization become more powerful. Because of that, some persons will be opposed to such a proposal or processes where they will lose their organizational power;

Losing the control by employs. The change process sometimes can reduce the level of control that managers can conduct. In such a way managers can resist the proposed changes if the change process will require reduction of their control power;

Increasing the control of the employees. Organizational changes can increase the managerial control of the employs and this process can produce employees to become resistant to such proposal proposals of change;

Economic factors. Organizational changes sometimes can be seen from the employee’s side simply as something that will decrease or increase their salary or other economic privileges that some workplace brings to them at the moment before implementation of the change process. It is normal to expect that those people who feel that they will lose the portion of their salary will resist the change.

Image, prestige, and reputation. Each workplace brings adequate image, prestige, and reputation that are important to all employees. Organizational changes can make a drastic shift in these employee’s benefits. If this is the case with the proposed change, then it will produce dissatisfaction. So, image, prestige, and reputation is one of the causes of resistance to change;

The threat of comfort. Organizational changes in many cases result in personal discomfort and make an employee’s life more difficult. They make a transfer from the comfort of the status quo to the discomfort of the new situation. Employees have the skills to do an old job without some special attention to accomplishing the task. Each new task requires forgetting the old methods of doing the job and learning new things that lead to a waste of energy and causes dissatisfaction; [4]. Job’s security. Organizational change can eliminate some workplaces, can produce technological excess, layoffs and so on. Job’s security simply is one of the causes of resistance to change;

Reallocation of resources. With organizational changes, some groups, departments or sectors of the organization can receive more resources while others will lose. So, this will bring resistance from the individuals, groups or departments who will lose some of their currently available resources.

Already gained interests of some organized groups in the company. Organizational change can make new groups more significant for the success of the organization. That’s a big threat to old coalitions that will cause resistance to change in those groups that will become more insignificant with the proposals;

Implications for personal plans. Organizational change can stop other plans, projects or other personal or family activities. In such a way this become one of the causes of resistance to change for those persons who will be reached by this change;

Too much dependence on others. In an organization, there are employees who too much depend on other individuals. This dependence is based on the current support that they receive from powerful individuals. If the change process brings the threat of that dependence, it will cause resistance to change of those persons that will be threatened by this change;

Misunderstanding the process. Organizational individuals usually resist change when they do not understand the real purpose of the proposed changes. When employees don’t understand the process, they usually assume something bad. This will cause resistance to change;

Mistrust to initiators of change. When employees don’t have trust in the initiators of the process, the process will not be accepted and this will cause resistance to change;

Different evaluation and perception. Different evaluation and perception can affect the organizational changes if there are persons who consider the proposed changes as a bad idea. Because of that, they are resistant to proposed changes.

Fear of the unknown. Organizational change, in many cases, leads to uncertainty and some dose of fear. It is normal for people to feel the fear of uncertainty. When employees feel uncertainty in a process of transformation, they think that changes are something dangerous. This uncertainty affects organizational members to resist the proposed change;

Organizational members’ habits. Employees work in large part is based on habits, and work tasks are performed in a certain way based on those habits. Organizational changes require shifts of those habits and because of that dissatisfaction from these proposals.

Previous Experience. All employees already have some experience with a previous organizational change process. So, they know that this process is not an easy process. That experience simply will tell them that most of the change processes in the past was a failure. So, this can cause resistance to change;

The threat to interpersonal relations. Employees are often friends with each other and they have a strong social and interpersonal relationship inside and outside the organization. If an organizational change process can be seen as a threat to these powerful social networks in the organization, the affected employees will resist to that change.

The weakness of the proposed changes. Sometimes proposed change might have a weakness that can be recognized by the employees. So, those employees will resist the implementation of the process until these weaknesses will not be removed or solved.

Limited resources. A normal problem in every organization is to have limited resources. When resources are limited, and with the proposed organizational changes those resources are threatened, the resistance to change is more likely to occur;

Bureaucratic inertia. Every organization has their own mechanisms as rules, policies, and procedures. Sometimes, when individuals want to change their behavior these mechanisms in many cases can resist the proposed changes;

Selective information processing. Individuals usually have selective information processing or hear only something that they want to hear. They simply ignore information that is opposite of the current situation, and with this, they don’t want to accept important aspects of the proposed changes. Because of that, appear resistance to change;

Uninformed employees. Often times employees are not provided with adequate information about organizational changes that must be implemented. And normally, this can cause resistance to change;

Peer pressure. Often, we utilize some kind of informal punishment for colleagues who support change which others don’t support. This situation can have a large impact on increasing the level of resistance to change; [5].

Skepticism about the need for change. If the problem is not a personal thing for employees, they will not see the real need why they must change themselves. Those that can’t see the need for change will have a low readiness level of the change process;

Increasing workload. In the process of organizational change, except normal working activities, employees usually will implement activities of a new change process. These increases of workloads affect appearing of resistance to change.

Short time to perform the change process. Because organizational systems are open systems and they are interactive with their environment, the need of change often comes from outside. In such a way the performing time is dictated from the outside of an organization. These situations lead to a short time for implementation of the organizational change process and cause resistance to change. [6].

A solution of Resistance to Organizational Change

The process of change is ubiquitous and employee resistance is a critically important contributor to the failure of many well-intend and well-conceived efforts to initiate change within the organization. Although leaders can’t always make people feel comfortable with change, they can minimize discomfort. Diagnosing the sources of resistance is the first step toward good solutions. And feedback from resistors can even be helpful in improving the process of gaining acceptance for change. Employees recognize and have to live through the inefficiency in transition which is what really frustrates them. When it seems to be happening all the time, you get the cry wolf scenario where it becomes very hard to convince them that *this* one is really worth the effort on their parts. We need to acknowledge this logical human mechanism. Of course, understanding doesn’t mean a person shouldn’t do it but when we help him or her out and support them facing difficulty sometimes things will be better. I recommend using especially those people to assist in steering groups to improve the process guided by the new strategy. Eventually, to get a positive attitude from the employees toward changes:

They must be informed about the reasons for the change. They should be able to understand the benefits of the change. They must know the road-map, meaning, about planned milestones. How the changes would impact my (comfort) job. Which are the risks involved? When the next change of direction will be implemented.

Eventually, a very important part of this paper is a prove of CMPs has an impression on the outcomes of organizational change programs but not on perceptual measures of organizational performance. After controlling for organizational size, change program intensity and industry sector, the use of CMPs has a positive relationship with the accomplishment of change program objectives and deadlines, and no impact on perceived organizational outcomes (changes in sales, financial results of the firm, operational productivity, and employee performance). One possible explanation for the lack of relation between CMP use and perceived organizational results is that CMPs are intentionally executed to impact the change program and not necessarily the organizational results. If the change program is the adequate response to organizational needs, and its implementation is successful, the program should impact organizational results. But if a successfully implemented change program is not the adequate response to organizational needs, the program might not produce better organizational results. In the same manner, the impact of a change program on organizational results might occur only in the long run (i.e. development of new products).

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Guest Essay

Stop Resisting Change

By Brad Stulberg

Mr. Stulberg writes about excellence and mental health, and is author of the new book “Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing — Including You,” from which this essay is adapted.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that you can’t step into the same river twice, for you aren’t the same person at each visit, and the water is ever flowing. It is a powerful way to represent the reality of impermanence: Everything is always changing.

Yet so many people have fraught relationships with change. We deny it, resist it or attempt to control it — the result of which is almost always some combination of stress, anxiety, burnout and exhaustion. It doesn’t have to be that way.

No doubt, change can, and often does, hurt; but with the right mind-set, it can also be a force for growth. It’s not as if we have any choice in the matter. Like it or not, life is change. We’d be wise to shift our default position from futile resistance to being in conversation with change instead.

A concept called allostasis can help. Developed in the late 1980s by a neuroscientist, Peter Sterling, and a biologist, Joseph Eyer, allostasis is based on the idea that rather than being rigid, our healthy baseline is a moving target. I see it as parallel to the concept conceived by Richard Rohr of order, disorder and re order . Allostasis runs counter to a more widespread but older and outdated model for change, homeostasis. Essentially, homeostasis says healthy systems return to the same starting point following a change: X to Y to X. By contrast, in allostasis, healthy systems also crave stability after a change, but the baseline of that stability can be somewhere new: X to Y to Z.

Allostasis is defined as “stability through change,” elegantly capturing the concept’s double meaning: The way to stay stable through the process of change is by changing, at least to some extent. If you want to hold your footing, you’ve got to keep moving.

From neuroscience to pain science and psychology , allostasis has become the predominant model for understanding change in the scientific community. The brain is at its best when it is constantly rewiring itself and making new connections — what we experience as a thriving and stable consciousness is actually a process of ongoing change. Overcoming pain, be it physical or psychological, is not about resistance (which often worsens the experience) or trying to get back to where you were before a distressing event or situation. It’s about balancing acceptance with problem-solving and moving forward to a new normal. A healthy response to change and disorder, whether it’s within ourselves or our environments, is one based on the allostatis process. And yet this concept is still little known to laypeople. This is unfortunate.

Adopting an allostatic outlook acknowledges that the goal of mature adulthood is not to avoid, fight or try to control change, but rather to skillfully engage with it. It recognizes that after disorder, there is often no going back to the way things were — no one form of order, but many forms of reorder . Via this shift, you come to view change and disorder not as something that happens to you but as something that you are working with, an ongoing dance between you and your environment. You stop fearing change, which is to say you stop fearing life.

To be clear, this shift is not easy. I know from experience. I like to have a plan and stick to it. If you were to draw a line, with stability on one end and change on the other, you could plot me about a millimeter away from the stability extreme, and that would be generous. Yet, in recent tumultuous years, after the publication of a book, having a second child, leaving a secure job, moving across the country, having major surgery on my leg, stopping a sport that had been an outsize source of my identity and becoming painfully estranged from certain family members, I realized that no such line exists. If I had any shot at attaining stability, I would need to get comfortable with change. By adopting an allostatic mind-set, I felt increasingly stable, even amid volatility.

Overwhelming science demonstrates that the more distress — what researchers call allostatic load — people experience during periods of change, the greater their chances of disease and demise. Fortunately, the same science agrees that we can also become stronger and grow from change and that much about how we navigate change is behavioral; that is, it can be developed and practiced.

The time to start practicing is now. Over the past few years, the river of change has been flowing mercilessly, and it shows no signs of letting up.

Societally, we’ve undergone a pandemic and its economic fallout, the combination of which has shifted how we live and work. Hardly a decade after the widespread adoption of social media, a new technology that may be far more powerful, artificial intelligence, is looming on the horizon. In our personal lives, we continue to do what we have always done: relocate, start jobs, quit jobs, change jobs, get promoted, retire, get married, get divorced, experience illness, have children, become empty nesters, bury loved ones and on and on.

It’s like our friend Heraclitus advised: The only thing constant is change. It’s not just that hard things happen without adequate notice and in a short period of time; it’s that a lot of things happen without adequate notice in a short period of time. Our ability to work with these changes is directly related to our life satisfaction.

Given all this, simply normalizing and creating a steadfast expectancy around change goes a long way. So does realizing that the allostasis mind-set doesn’t ask us to sacrifice all agency. Rather, it asks us to partake in change by focusing on what we can control and trying to let go of what we can’t. When I catch myself resisting or shutting down in response to change, in my head I say some version of the following: This is what is happening right now. I’m doing the best that I can. What, if any, skillful actions can I take? Do this repeatedly and eventually you start to get better at it.

Navigating this gulf requires equal parts ruggedness and flexibility. To be rugged is to be tough, determined and durable, to know your core values, what you stand for. To be flexible is to consciously respond to altered circumstances or conditions, to adapt and bend easily without breaking, to evolve, grow and even change your mind. Put these qualities together and the result is a gritty endurance, one that helps you maintain your strong core even in fragile moments. It allows you to step into allostasis’s cycle of order, disorder and re order — which is, of course, one and the same with stepping into Heraclitus’s river — and to chart it skillfully and whenever possible, to your own benefit.

To thrive in our lifetimes — and not just survive — we need to transform our relationship with change, leaving behind rigidity and resistance in favor of a new nimbleness, a means of viewing more of what life throws at us as something to participate in, rather than fight. We are always shaping and being shaped by change, often at the very same time.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram .

Brad Stulberg writes about excellence and mental health, and is author of the new book “ Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing — Including You ,” from which this essay is adapted.

CORRECTION article

Corrigendum: how academic research and news media cover climate change: a case study from chile.

1 Education, Research, and Innovation (ERI) Sector, NEOM, Saudi Arabia
2 Departamento de Ciencias del Lenguaje, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile

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How academic research and news media cover climate change: a case study from Chile Read original article

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A corrigendum refers to a change to their article that the author wishes to publish after publication. The publication of this article is subject to Frontiers Editorial approval. • please read through all the templates before choosing • pick the most relevant text template(s) from the following page and delete all others.• edit the text as necessary, ensuring that the original incorrect text is included for the record, please see the below. • please do not use any extra formatting when editing the templates, and only modify the red text unless absolutely necessary • submit to Frontiers following the instructions on this page.When the original text contained incorrect information, to preserve the scientific record, please include that text when editing the below templates. For example:There was a mistake in the Funding statement, an incorrect number was used. The correct number is "2015C03Bd051.". The publisher apologizes for this mistake.The original version of this article has been updated. In the published article, there was an error in [Figure 3] as published. [The figure is not the one that corresponds, but a duplicate of Figure 1.]. The corrected [Figure 3] and its caption **[ Figure 3. Annual trend of (A) academic and (B) news media articles published from 2012 to 2022.] appear below.The authors apologize for this error and state that this does not change the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated.Reminder: Figures, tables, and images will be published under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence and permission must be obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including re-published/adapted/modified/partial figures and images from the internet). It is the responsibility of the authors to acquire the licenses, to follow any citation instructions requested by third-party rights holders, and cover any supplementary charges.End of template, if you would like to request a correction for a reason not seen here, please contact the journal's Editorial Office

Keywords: Frontiers Media SA climate change, academic research, news media, LDA Topic Modeling, text-mining, web-scrapping, Chile

Received: 21 Aug 2023; Accepted: 07 Sep 2023.

Copyright: © 2023 Cortes and Quiroga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mx. Pablo A. Cortes, Education, Research, and Innovation (ERI) Sector, NEOM, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

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7.1 Case Study 1: Resistance to Change

What cultural assumptions fuel Victor’s perspective as a leader of a state agency?
Where does Victor’s motivation to lead come from?
How would you describe Victor’s self-concept and the influence of it on his leadership?

CI Model in Action

Acquire: Victor has a lot of knowledge about working in public sector organizations. His tenure in a state agency makes him very familiar with this type of culture. But he lacks knowledge about what is unfamiliar to him, particularly around generational issues. He knows what areas of his work frustrate him; now, he needs to acquire information that help him understand why it frustrates him. To improve his cultural intelligence, Victor would need to develop a plan that helps him to become more familiar with the different cultures in his work team.
Build: To build his knowledge in cultures, Victor can develop strategies that help him connect his current cultural knowledge to the new knowledge he wants to gain. For example, he identifies that the characteristics of a younger generation are new to him. He can put together a plan where he monitors his communication with the staff to gauge whether he is really understanding what is going on. It is important here that when he builds new knowledge, he is aware of the skills he has and what he lacks when working with a younger generation.
Contemplate: Victor’s self-efficacy is an issue in this cultural situation. He has a few years left before retirement and considers giving up. He needs to make a shift, changing his attitude from one of frustration to a positive perspective. He can do this by visualizing the positive end results and reminding him that he can and should keep trying. He needs to put in place a plan where he can monitor his internal motivation toward the issue.
Do: It seems in this situation that change will be difficult for Victor because he is set in his ways. Victor can be mentored and coached to think about change and its impact on his situation by asking himself: What is changing, What will be different because of the change, and What will he lose? Using these three questions he will learn to identify the change and behaviors that need to change, the potential results of the change, and what beliefs and values he will need to discard in the process. By identifying specific areas of change, Victor can transition better.

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Case Study 1: Resistance to Change 7.1 Case Study 1: Resistance to Change Victor is the head of a division in a state agency. He has been in his management position for 15 years and has worked his way up to his current position. Throughout his career, he has seen many people leave and join the department.
Resistance to Change and Conflict of Interest: A Case Study
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Resistance to change happens to be a phenomenon in which both the change agents and change recipients are equally responsible for all forms of resistance. Resistance and its various forms are an outcome of the change agents' observations and their interpretations of the conversations, behavior, and reactions of the change recipients. This chapter uses auto-ethnographic reflexive narratives ...
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Resistance to change may be an obstacle to successful implementation of reinvention initiatives based on how individuals and organizations perceive their goals are affected by the change. ... Trader‐Leigh, K.E. (2002), "Case study: identifying resistance in managing change", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 138 ...
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Resistance to change: A concept analysis Nurs Forum. 2020 Nov;55 (4):631-636. doi: 10.1111/nuf.12479. Epub 2020 Jun 23. Briony M DuBose 1 2 , Ann M Mayo 1 3 Affiliations 1 32578229 10.1111/nuf.12479 The purpose of this concept analysis is to explore the concept of resistance and provide an operational definition for nurse leaders.
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Case Study: Resistance to Change. 2 October, 2015 - 15:12. Available under Creative Commons-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Victor is the head of a division in a state agency. He has been in his management position for 15 years and has worked his way up to his current position. Throughout his career, he has seen many people ...
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2008, p. 136). Resistance to change is an important factor that can affect success in organisational change efforts. Maurer's (1996) research (quoted in Waddell & Sohal, 1998) showed that one-half to two-thirds of all major corporations fail in attempts to change where resistance to change is a major contributor to failures.
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Celebrating small wins boosts morale, motivation, and helps keep employees engaged and committed to the change initiative. 6. Instill a culture of change. Change is not a one-time event; it's a continuous process. To overcome resistance to change, it's essential to instill a culture of change within your organization.
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Solved Case Study 1: Resistance to Change
Case Study 1: Resistance to Change Victor is the head of a division in a state agency. He has been in his management position for 15 years and has worked his way up to his current position. Throughout his career, he has seen many people leave and join the department. He has stayed because he enjovs public service and
Case Study 1: Resistance to Change
7.1 Case Study 1: Resistance to Change Victor is the head of a division in a state agency. He has been in his management position for 15 years and has worked his way up to his current position. Throughout his career, he has seen many people leave and join the department.

7.1 Case Study 1: Resistance to Change

CI Model in Action

Resistance to Change and Conflict of Interest: A Case Study

Organizational Conflict

Author Information

1. Introduction

2. Resistance to change

2.1. Function of resistance to change

2.1.1. Personality

2.1.2. Uncertainty

2.1.3. Insecurity

2.1.4. Loyalty to the past

2.1.5. Group effect

2.1.6. Valuation of interest

3. Valuation of interest and conflict of interest

5. Case study

5.2. History of case study

5.3. Analysis of case study

Figure 1.

6. Conclusion

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5 Tips for Managing Resistance to Change

1. Do Change Management Right the First Time

2. Expect Resistance to Change

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Phase 1 – Prepare Approach

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Phase 3 -Sustain Outcomes

4. Identify the Root Causes of Resistance to Change

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Resistance-to-Change Checklist

Employee Resistance To Organizational Change: A Case Study Of Telenor

Why we need Organizational Changes

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Stop Resisting Change

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