Organizational Change: The Causes Of Resistance To Change

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Change is actually one of the things in life that can never be avoided, no matter how hard we try; it is the one constant in life. When it comes to organizations however, change can often be difficult, if not impossible, depending on a number of factors including employee receptiveness. There have been many studies completed on the cause of resistance to change. In Coch and French’s research study (1948) they asked two important questions surrounding resistance, “(1) Why do people resist change so strongly? and (2) What can be done to overcome this resistance?” Most change program experts will certainly name resistance to change as one of the largest obstructions to successfully executing change programs. Coch and French believed that resistance …show more content…

When change initiative does not coincide with or support the existing cultural understandings and meaning systems, culture-based resistance will be the resulting consequence”. We have seen throughout research that it is culture, not individuals that make up the resistance to change component. It is not as simple as a disgruntled employee who is just reluctant to learn something new or to develop or improve an existing system. Resistance to change is a cultural phenomenon that will continue to impede the implementation of programs for organizations who don’t get it right. Ruthvo and Bullis provide five lessons organizations can learn to improve the outcome of their change programs. Others, such as Bernard Burnes (2015), further demonstrate that resistance does not rise from individuals, but ”from situations where organizations create a conflict between their espoused values of rationality and fairness and actual practices which employees see as unfair and irrational”. In all, it is clear that indicating employees as the primary source of resistance to change is not exclusively accurate. We must continue to refine our research as we seek to better understand resistance and to discover what the barriers for overcoming it

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