Contemporary Management Issues

University of Queensland ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Course Code: MGTS 1601 Employee Resistance to Change Student Name: Yuanli Zhang (Phil) Student Number: 43401163 Course Tutor: Marissa Edwards Yuanli Zhang 43401163 Table of Content Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 Description of Problem ----------------------------------------------------------- 2 Propose Intervention ---------------------------------------------------------------4 Conclusion -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 1|Page Organisation Behaviour; MGTS 1601; Individual Essay; Employee resistance to change Yuanli Zhang 43401163 Contemporary business dynamics are pressuring

This essay will look at various methods that have been used in the historical and modern context to give employees ‘voice’ which include Voluntarism, Trade Unions (TU’s) and

“Robert Tobias (2010) argues that to be effective, human resource managers need to embrace the possibility of positive and productive relations with labor unions.” (Riccucci pg. 10-11)

Management has changed significantly over the past 50 years. The role of leaders in an organization is an ever changing thing. At one point, a manager was also the owner of the company, and thus used a carrot and a stick to get his employees to work, just like a parent personally invested in the raising of their child. Not anymore. Nowadays, leaders are there to “serve” their employees. The focus is on motivating the individual, achieving organizational goals by integrating each and every individual into the system. We no longer rely on a one size fits all approach, and management theory is no longer focused on having a winning philosophy, or motivating large groups.

Kessler, E. H. (Ed.) (2013). Encyclopedia of management theory (Vols. 1-2). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781452276090

The setting of this case study was the Texas Plant. The Texas Plant produced excellent quality goods, but it was not competitive because of its slower speed of product changeovers, higher costs, and environment of “bureaucratic status quo” (Pryor et al., 2011, p. 111). In addition, the plant’s union leaders, management, and employees lacked positive, working relationships. Corporate leaders hired a new, aggressive vice president, David, to transform the plant by empowering employees and establishing continuous improvement processes (Pryor et al., 2011). David, in turn, bypassed the plant’s Human Resources (HR) and hiring director, Harvey, and hired Paula

From this perspective, trade union is perceived not necessary and the role of it is creating conflict, and it is seen an unwelcome intrusion into the organization from outside competing with management for the loyalty of employees (Rose, 2004). Trade unions exist either as the result of wickedness or perverseness of individual employees, or because of a failure of management to anticipate and incorporate worker needs and concerns (Bray, Deery, Walsh and Waring, 2005).

Despite these accomplishments, the power over subordinate group still exist. Grabb argues that oppression on the class basis may seem absent in capitalist societies today, because workers are "legally free to choose whether or not to accept to work" for a capitalist (Grabb, 1997: 16). But, are workers really free to decide? In other terms, what are their options? For a worker who, by definition, does not own means of production, there is no other choice to earn a living than to sell his/her labour to the capitalist.

Kessler, E. H. (Ed.) (2013). Encyclopedia of management theory (Vols. 1-2). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781452276090

Bolognese, A. (2002). Employee Resistance to Organizational Change. Retrieved December 2, 2006 from Internet, http://www.newfoundations.com/OrgTheory/

Sociotechnical Systems Theory, Quantitative Management, Organizational Behavior, and Systems Theory are The Four Contemporary Approaches to Management.

To successfully achieve her goal of a more profitable company Helen must rely on the support of the workforce. As resistance to change is common human behavior the

Besides, power imbalance between employer and employee in the workplace seems to be unavoidable. As noted by Wilkinson et al. (2014), employees are citizens who have the right to be informed and consulted; therefore, the aim of employee voice is to communicate with management and express employees’ concerns about their work situation. Nevertheless, in recent years, decreasing union density has gradually shifted the form of voice in most organisations and countries from collective and unionized channels to direct and individualized mechanisms (Wilkinson et al., 2014).

Organizational politics: Divergent viewpoints about how resources, rewards, and punishments should be distributed bring about political resistance to organization change.

Peter Spurgeon and Robert Cragg (2007) contend the current attention paid to the importance of leadership has diminished the value and contribution of management. The discussion concerning leadership and management, at the most extreme, is inclined to portray leadership as 'good' and management as 'bad'. These constraints are rooted in the proposition that people do not want to be managed, with its connotations of bureaucracy and control, but are happy to follow a leader toward a vision. At the core of this perception is the belief that leaders are concerned with the future and with the people in the system, while managers are focused upon greater efficiency and immediate results.