Resistance to Change
Organizational change is the movement of an organization away from its present state and toward some desired future state to increase its effectiveness. (George et al, pg 567) Organizations need to change in the modern day market place. New technologies, globalization, foreign trade, investments and constantly shifting marketplaces demand the need for flexibility, adaptation, and change. The downside to this is in an organizations employees. People by nature resist change. In a workplace environment, where familiarity is present with an employees set of tasks and processes, change becomes more difficult to introduce and accept. There are basically three groups associated with a resistance to change. They are on an
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People who work in highly mechanistic structures are more resistant to change due to the expectation of performing tasks and duties in specific ways and so do not develop the initiative to adjust their behavior to changing conditions. This in turn causes the group to resist any changes in the norm. Organizational culture is another resistance to change. Because an organizations norms and values causes people to react and operate in predictable ways, any disruption to these patterns of norms may cause people to be resistant to the changes. At a group level, there are group norms which are strong informal norms that specify appropriate and inappropriate behaviors and govern interactions between group members. Change will inevitably alter these sets of informal norms. Group cohesiveness although beneficial to an organization, can sometimes impede the necessity for change within an organization. The reason is the group will unite to protect its status quo and protect its own interests at the expense of other groups. Finally groupthink, which is the discounting of negative information within a group in order to agree, and escalation of commitment, which the continued pursuit of an action even though the group realizes its decision was wrong, will greatly cause resistance to change. This is due to the difficulty in changing the groups
Resistance to change is an expected reaction of human nature. We are not accustomed to change, as it is possible to lead to failure; however, there are also ways to manage the resistance within the company.
43-45). Top-down change process provides prescription that has only been developed by top managers and given to lower cadre employees down the ranks to consume without their input. According to Bovey & Hede (2001, p. 540) resistance occurs at the individual level, where employees are motivated by psychological factors to change that include resentment, frustration, low motivation and morale, fear, and feelings of failure. At the same time, earlier publication by Yilmaz & Kilicoglu (2013, pp. 17-18) identified four factors that motivate employees to resist changes in the organisation: employees focusing on self- interests as opposed to those of the organisation, having inadequate understanding of
Many people may resist change because they fear they will lose their jobs, status or position. It may be because they do not fully understand the purpose of change, or they may have a different perspective on the change than their management. “Individuals, groups, and organizations must be motivated to change. But if people perceive no performance gap or if they consider the gap unimportant, they will not have this motivation. Moreover, they will resist changes that others try to introduce,” Bateman and Zeithaml explained. Many times change for people at work
Changes are very critical to enhance organizational effectiveness. An organization needs to implement changes to stay productive, competitive as well as avoiding calamity in the case of aviation sector. Changes are the process of instilling new attitudes, values, norms and behaviors within an organization to support the way of doing work. However, the implementation of changes is a task that requires adequate planning and design since changes are not always welcome and could lead to individual's resistance to change. (Agboola,& Salawu,2011). The identification
Throughout the countless pages of history, there exists many occurrences of change. Some of these changes are positive while others are negative. Nevertheless, as each change occurs, it must undergo struggles to become accepted. One example of the struggles of change that is seen in today’s society is the ongoing fight for religious freedom. Another change that is currently facing obstacles is the fight to change policies that raise the question of equality. Lastly, another struggle for change is the conflict that is occurring in order to make same-sex marriage legal. Through the examples of all these changes, there exists the common factor of changing values. As values change, new changes are undertaken. Therefore, changing values entail
In these instances, change is seen as evil and not "healthy". Change is not looked on as a positive opportunity and thus is rejected by the individuals in a company, which may result in incohesiveness within the organization and eventual collapse. Personal instances of resistance like those stated above often hold companies back because of their conservative views as they often result from lack of individual confidence in oneself to be creative. Stemming from personal instances of resistances is the occurrence of group resistance to change. Sources of group resistance to change include: Conformity to Norms (Inertia), Vested Interests, Sacrosanct, Rejection of Outsiders, Overdetermination, and threatened power. Vested Interests is probably the most interesting source of resistance because how can interest in being the best be a resistance? Vested Interests can be a resistance because it often promotes conformity to norms, as workers are less likely to contribute their ideas to the advancement of innovation and as a result the company suffers as past new ideas become old, and new ideas are needed to survive in the ubercompetitive business world today. Rejection of Outsiders can be looked on as positive or negative, but more negatively, thus placing it as a resistance to change. Rejection of Outsiders might cause more cohesion within a group to rely on each
Technical resistance is caused when employees are concerned about the capital that was invested in the technology and equipment that is currently being used. There is also cultural resistance that is difficult for employees to change values, norms, and procedures that are supported by the current culture within the organization. The final type of resistance is political resistance. This happens when decisions made in the past are now being questioned which can cause certain stakeholders to feel threatened (Van Dijk, & Van Dick, 2009).
Resistance to change is one of the biggest barriers that organizations face in their efforts to implement organizational change. This greatly hampers the uptake of new technologies, new ways of doing work and even progress of organizations. Reviewing on this, the British Journal of
Employees who feel pushed out of their comfort zone may also resist change, due to the unfamiliarity of new implications or managers. The fear of uncertainties due to the lack of communication can also lead to resistance to change on an individual level. If employees are not informed of the needs of the change then the fear of the unknown can cause resistance.
To identify the key elements of the resistanceto change described in this situation, one may make use of the six Change Approaches of Kotter and Schlesinger.[1]The model prevents, minimizes or descreases resistance to change in organizations. According to Kotter and Schlesinger (1979), there are four reasons that why people resist change, three of which are applicable to this case:
Change starts with the perception of its need, so a wrong initial perception can be the first
People often resist change based on fear of the unknown, fear of loss, fear of failure, disruption of interpersonal
In an organization where there is a culture that has been developed through years, a culture of uncommitted individuals and selfish authorities, the harmony that is needed in accomplishing the organizational goals between the management and the rank-and-file employees cannot be attained. At this point, any person who wants to implement changes in the system for the better of the company can experience great stress and difficulty due to the resistance and developed attitudes of the members of the organization.
Since human beings are adaptive and familiar with change, how is it that they often resist change in their work environment? This question had troubled managers since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and the fast peace of change required by the electronic age has made
Week 3, the lecture on Managing Change describes organizational changes that occur when a company makes a shift from its current state to some preferred future state. Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations in such a way as to decrease employee resistance and cost to the organization while concurrently expanding the effectiveness of the change effort. Today's business environment requires companies to undergo changes almost constantly if they are to remain competitive. Students of organizational change identify areas of change in order to analyze them. A manager trying to implement a change, no matter how small, should expect to encounter some resistance from within the organization.