Resistance to organizational change

Kwesi Agboletey1

Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology (IPP) Conference – Linköping, Sweden -

 

Organizations ostensibly embark on system wide change as a non-negotiable requirement for sustainability in the long run and a means of enhancing their short term prospects. However it is the case that change often invokes the restructuring of the intricately balanced network of cultivated relationship that sustain group relations in organizations. The paper seeks to examine the theoretical underpinnings of resistance to system wide change. The focus is on group resistance to change. The paper indicates that resistance is to be expected during most change processes, in spite of the assumed goal of organization change of improved effectiveness. Groups in organizations (whether formal or informal; in congruence with subsystems or incongruous with organizational subsystems) evolve as self sustaining and cohesive units that seek to protect member interest from the externalities that may emerge from the other subsystems of an organization. Changes in organizations impose coercive forces that pose a threat to the continued existence of certain groups and adversely affecting the well being of individual members. This sets in motion a fight for group/individual sustenance at the expense of organizational growth and effectiveness. The nature of this resistance assumes varied tactical responses all meant to subvert the change process. Organization leaders must seek effective means to resolve resistance from its members if change is to be successful.

Introduction Statement

The paper presents modularity from an organisational theory perspective that enables precision from a holistic perspective without particularising specificity within bounded limitations. The perspective of the paper enables a system wide analytic applicable capability, but with a definitional focus enabling meaningful research implementation within the functional realism of an operative organisation.

 

The presentation is decisively tripartite, with overlapping emphasis of themes, as well as topical differentiation of ideas discussed. Part 1 is the introduction with an emphasis on past theories of relevance to the definition of the phenomenon of interest, resistance and its emergent configurations within organisation change of a basic kind. Part two, specifies resistance to change within the organisation, offering a tentative definition and likely sources of emergence. Part three proposes that the resolution of resistance requires a series of carefully orchestrated stages that will enable a balancing of differing opinions and system states to reflect existing reality, thus ensuring optimum effective long term goal achievement.

 

Resistance to organization change

Haveman, 1990 opines that when an organisation undertakes non trivial change, it must learn new patterns of communication to facilitate the flow of different information, It must integrate new members who must learn new work routines in order to fill new job functions and manage the altered flow of work. It must forge new relations with suppliers and clients (Hannan and Freeman, 1984; Singh, House and Tucker, 1986). Every major phase of organisational reorientation which involves drastic realignment of core sub systems and their structural configurations as well as organisation environment relations sets into motion hitherto unpredictable emergent forces resultant of the reorientation. Harrison (1987, p.46) states that the complexity of organisational relations and the indeterminacy of future behaviour make it very difficult to anticipate people's reaction to change and the consequences of particular interactions. During the reorientation period that follows change an organisation diverts considerable portion of its resources from operating to restructuring. The effort involved in developing a structure and system of activities de novo or in restructuring an existing organisation lowers the efficiency of operations, which leads to poor performance in the short term and lower survival chances in the long term. Harrison (1987) further assert that an additional drawback to technological programmes is that the enthusiasm created by the newness and uniqueness of the program may be lost when the change is introduced widely and becomes well established.

 

Organisation change disrupts routines and creates the same conditions that make young organisations more likely to fail, otherwise referred to as the liability of newness phenomenon (Stinchcombe, 1965; Carrol and Delacroix, 1982; Freeman, Carrol and Hannan, 1983). Many reasons could account for the high failure rate of new organisations, however, one overriding cause is the lack of managements understanding of the organisation's context. Another, equally viable explanation is managements' inability to manage an organisation through its critical stages of development. A changed organisation that survives long enough can rebuild internal processes and external relationships. The net effects of organisational change depend on time. Change may be ultimately adaptive, but only after enough time passes for the organisation to repair the problems associated with disruption. The evidence overwhelmingly support the fact that organisations pass from periods of volatility and change to periods of relative stability (Steindl, 1980; Miller and Friesen, 1984; Dose, 1984; Tushman and Bouanelli, 1985). The implementation phase by itself constitutes a defined process with its own active, interactive systemic components. Implementation has by its nature a criterion of effectiveness/ineffectiveness which may affect positively or adversely the organisation's ultimate desired effectiveness.  The stand point of the present paper is that between this two touted states of turbulent and matured relatively predictable states of change there often emerge certain critical periods of overt and potentially disruptive resistance to the change. It is this resistance to change that is often imprecisely predicted and inconclusively resolved; or altogether totally unmediated during the pre change implementation diagnostic stage of the change process that is the focus of the present paper.

 

On the other hand, changing routines requires that the organisation develops or acquire additional human and physical capital, institutionalise new processes and objectives, and shift the distribution of power within the organisation; these are all potential sources of resistance to change (Nelson and Winter, 1982; ). Resistance to change is a pervasive organisational phenomenon. Schein (1980) indicates that whether the change desired be an increase in production or an adaptation to some new technology or a new work methodology, it is generally the case that those workers and managers who are directly affected will resist the change or sabotage it, if it forced upon them. For the change process to be successful there is the need to reinforce member involvement and facilitate group cohesiveness. Group cohesion means a feeling is shared by group members that each individual has a place in it (Hansen, Warner and Smith, 1980). A sense of oneness of purpose is developed, and it is this purpose which binds the members together. The members have a feeling of being part of something special. This, as well as the individual importance felt by members holds the group together as a unit. Consequently, a cohesive group is a stable and productive group that can be effectively task or goal oriented (Gazda, 1984). This paper also assumes that the presence of such a cohesive group is a source of resistance where the group interest is brought into direct conflict with aspects of the change process that undermines the group's sustainability. Any emergent situation, consequent of the ongoing change process that undermines the group's sustainability and threatens the individuals safety within the organisation negatively affects the group’s former understanding of the organisation and its purposes, creating within the group a strong unmediated belief that the change is detrimental to the well being of its members.

 

As indicated above, basic change often results in schisms between group interest and general organisational purposes. Bringing to the fore some of the disintegrative consequences of change on  groups within the organisation and their reactive, potentially destructive response, to the organisation's optimum functioning. It is generally the case that where groups or their members see the change as a threat to their well being, attempts will be made to subvert the change process. For as Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek and Rosenthal, (1964) point out, the readiness and willingness to change are virtually never the same among the different members and parts of the organisation. thus every change evokes stresses, differences and conflicts, no matter how beneficial the envisaged goal of the change process. Amburgey, Kelly and Barnett (1993) commenting on the field of organisation theory states that a number of theories focussing on the process of change suggest that in most cases organisations resist change. Resistance to change, Granovetter, 1985 asserts, on the one hand, occurs because organisations are embedded in the institutional and technical structures of their environment. Other theories, for example, Coch and French (1948) focus on factors internal to the organisation, such as how change is often opposed by organisational members; even where change is advocated by some organisational members, established roles and formal organisational rules are difficult to alter quickly (Tsouderous, 1955; Stinchcombe, 1965; McNeil and Thompson, 1971; Hannan and Freeman, 1977).  Hannan and Freeman's (1984) structural inertia theory offers a model of the process of organisational change that includes both internal and external constraints on organisation change. They argue that organisations exist because they are able to perform with reliability and if questioned to account rationally for their actions. Reliability and accountability are high when organisational goals are institutionalised and patterns of organisational activity are routinised, but institutionalisation and routinisation also generate strong pressures against organisational change. Thus the very characteristics that give an organisation stability also generate resistance to change. The second part of their argument dealt with the effect of organisational change on survival. They argued that because both internal routines and external linkages are disrupted because of change, organisational change is (potentially) hazardous.

 

Amburgey, Kelly and Barnet (1993) in congruence with Hannan and Freeman (1984) define organisations as structured systems of routines embedded in a network of interactions with the external environment. Routines refer to the repetitive patterns of activity by organisational members, both individuals and groups. Beyond defining what an organisation can do, routines define what an organisation "knows".  A model of organisations as a structured set of reactions is consistent with the literature on the differential effects of organisational characteristics, different routines produce different organisational outcomes, however, a routine based model of organisations and organisational change focuses attention on the disruption and loss of competency that results from changes in routines. If it is assumed that stable and reproducible routines are the foundation of reliable performance, then organisational change increases the risk of failure, independent of any change in the risk brought about by the new configuration of organisational attributes (Hannan and Freeman, 1984). They further contend that a routine based model of organisations is also consistent with the literature on organisational interaction with the external environment. Nelson and Winter (1952) pointed out that routines may involve extensive direct interactions with the environment. A change in the routines will involve disruptive modifications of ties and linkages between the organisation and its environment. A change in the routines that do not directly interact with the environment may also have a disruptive effect through spill over effects. Similarly organisational change can affect the normative relationship between the organisation and its environment. Hannan and Freeman (1984) pointed out that change often threatens the legitimacy of the organisation. It is to be noted however that these theoretical models are more reflective of organisations inhibiting stable and supportive environments that are slowly evolving rather than environments that are turbulent and intrude their disruptive effects on the organisation by disrupting internal processes. Further note need be taken that routines that have ceased to serve the organisation's ultimate purpose of profitable operation, serve no functional outcome of promoting the organisation long term growth, If such routines serve as a source of reference, as the basis of effective organisation functioning, then the change process is improperly effected by not disassembling and encouraging the institutionalisation of new patterns of routinised behaviour.

 

As is evident from the slant of the theoretical orientations that focus on resistance to organisation change, the problem of resistance can be individual centred, group centred or be system centred (Brown et. al. 1974). Resistance to change as Hansen, Hines and Meier (1990) emphasise must be considered both an individual and a group phenomenon.

 

Schein (1980) referring  to the production unit of the typical manufacturing organisation suggest that resistance to change in the conversion or production parts of any organisation are themselves systems, they generate ways of working, stable interpersonal relationships, and common norms, values and techniques of coping and surviving in their environment. In other words, the subsystem of an organisation operates according to the same coping principles as  does the whole organisation. If the subsystem is to change, it must sense a change in management policy, be able to import this information into itself, manage its own change, stabilise it, export better results in terms of the desires of management and obtain feedback on how it is doing. The manager desiring the change can from this point of view accomplish more by viewing his or her role as that of helping the system to cope rather than giving orders or issuing directives. There is abundant supportive evidence that one of the best ways to implement a change is to involve the affected system directly in the decision making process. The more such a system participates in decision making about how to manage the change, the more stable the system is likely to be (Benne and Chin, 1969; Lewin, 1952; French and Coch, 1948). This paper suggests that there is a need for adjusting organisational processes in response to destabilising pressures consequent of the organisation's changed circumstances; the adjustment becomes necessary because there is an accretion at one level of the balanced interaction between an organisation's constituent parts and its interactive internal and external dependencies, creating an imbalance in the equilibrium of matching relations at varied and several levels of an organisation's operative relationships. An imbalance that detracts the organisation from its growth potential, leading to a crisis that could lead to organisational demise if an effort at adjustment at one or several levels is not effectively negotiated and tactically implemented. It is to be noted that since organisations exist as an interlinkage of subsystems, a change in one component is likely to activate some reactive response in other components. This interlinkage, obviously, implies that resistance to change in any organisational subsystem to ongoing change is symptomatic of existing imbalance within and between that subsystem and other subsystems, in contraposition to system wide indications of required end states. This systemic non cohesiveness may have repercussions well beyond the originating subsystem, with potentially detractive organisation wide consequences.

 

Whatever effective ways of resolving these differences constructively and with reasonable rapidity must be found, if the changes are to occur smoothly and with a minimum of delay.  Berlin (1979) recommends that consultants should listen to "front line' workers. This approach will assist in identifying any resistance and will eventually help in addressing it. Selecting the proper intervention, it is necessary, must be preceded by understanding the problem context. Berlin (1979) particularises some common methods of resistance to change in the service sector. These include creating inertia, made up of anxiety about the change, which results in no action, delays and vagueness about the change plan, which result in people giving up on the plan of action, the assignment of committees to study the changes often selected without leadership or with people not in favour of the change, which results in inaction; well developed plans placed in the hands of inept administrators or those committed to the status quo, which results in a dead end for the plan; or administrators ensure that splinter groups exist which results in no unified approach to the action.

 

A model of resistance to organisation change

Every change effort involves an element of sacrificial exchange. Some debilitating, well exercised, accepted and hitherto functional process must be released in the face of daunting evidence of its ineffectiveness. In its stead a new, ostensibly more productive process is introduced. The exchange process of instituting new mechanisms and ridding the system of old approaches is a stress zone characterized by conflicting demands and rewards.

 

As figure 1 below indicates, organisation members could be considered as being in an implicit, informal contractual agreement with their organisations, whereby the individual employee expects the organisation, in favourable circumstances, to enable him to meet his aspirations of meaningful, satisfactory work and the rewards therein accruing. Within organisations, individual capabilities are fitted to the specific needs of the organisation's manpower and skill requirements for the explicit purpose of realising the organisation's goals in the short term and the long run. To enable this attainment of the organisation's purpose, employees are generally structured into clearly specified groups where they work in conjunction with other organisation members. This constitutes the formal group, which often has clearly specified expectations, location within the organisation-in terms of its relationship with other groups-a leader who is responsible for group actions in meeting the purposive goals of the organisation. Outside this formal group, there emerge the informal groups, which are a response to other individual needs that the formal group is incapable of meeting. Informal groups could exist solely for its members needs and have no direct impact on the organisation's activities, whereas other informal groups by their activities could have significant impact on the realisation of the goals of the organisation.

 

_Figure 1.Adjusting organisation systems in response to system imbalance.

 

Resistance to organisation change, is defined here, as any form of directed reactive response with the aim of subverting an instituted change process in the organisation. The source of the resistance could be from an individual employee in any position or role in the organisation, a formal group or an informal group. Of relevance to the field of study is that the purported refusal to cooperate with the change process is of such nature that it is subverting the change process and ultimately deterring the organisation from realising the improved performance the change is supposed realise within the organisation.

 

An organisation's employees generally work within the constraining configurations of the organisation to enable the attainment of the organisation's goals. In the process of doing this, invariably they change or alterate the organisations structure and its processes to their advantage evolving over time distinct group norms. Organisational participants at whatever level in the organisation's structure can hardly be considered as inanimate, robotic, responsive mechanisms to the dictates and directives of the organisation's operative requirements. Organisations evolve a form of culture, which culture may be formal or informal as a result of the interaction of their members. This culture finds expression at various levels within the organisation. While such organisation structures and cultures shape members responsive behaviour; organisational members also shape the evolving organisation structure and culture by subtly imposing their expectations by means of a compromise between their needs and expectations at any particular time with the constraints imposed by the organisation and its leaders. Defining, thus the organisations internal norms and culture.

 

Basic change that leads to resistance from organisation participants is change that is so profound in its depth and impact, that it leads to a complete reorientation in the organisation's defining configuration. Leading to structural changes, processual changes, technological changes and changes in the organisation's response to its task environment. Such basic changes are necessary responses that are unavoidable, if the organisation is to continue to exist in the long run. In view of the necessity of such changes for organisational sustainability; no matter how well organisation members are prepared for it, it is inevitable that in the process of change implementation, in lieu of the fact that attitudinal responses to proposed changes hardly predict actual behavioural responses, significant resistance to organisational change is a likelihood that cannot be overlooked.

 

Resistance to organisational change it would appear is a primal response on the part of organisational participants wherein the resistance emanates. It is a response to a threat that occasions fear in the members, because the nature of the change effort in its implementation has assumed such proportions as to erode the accepted, expected patterns evolved over time that enables regularity and an established response pattern to the demands of the specific requirements of the work environment. Without ensuring in return that the change process provides certainty of direction and individual employees security in the massive reorganisation process that the change activates. Where a functional formal or informal group survives the first wave of massive reorientation that basic change occasions organisation wide. Such groups become likely sources of resistance, when their members react to the change as a massive, indefinable, non-beneficial threat that destabilises the group and its members without providing any guarantee in exchange of the sustainability of the group and its members interest.

 

The model proposes that groups that survive intact, or whose leaders and influential members remain in their formal positions are more likely to be sources of subversive resistance than new organisational members or relocated members who are more likely to overtime evolve their own formal and informal group norms. Where surviving groups from the earlier organisational state, remain influential, and in positions where their actions could have significant directive impact on the organisation's work processes, they become a real threat to the success of the change effort.

 

The questions, thus, that need to be posed, to ascertain the nature and impact of the resistance to the change effort are:

 

i) What is the expressed nature of the resistance?

ii) Can the overt activities with a purposive effort to subvert the

change effort in progress be isolated to particular sections/units/department

within the organisation?

iii) Can the resistance be traced to particular individuals, roles or

informal groups?

iv) Is resistance emanating from occupant's of strategic position who

must necessarily be negotiated with ?

v) Is it from the workers union ?

vi) Can adjustments be made to accommodate the expressed dislike with aspects

of the change process ?

vii) Has attempts been made by the organisation to meet with and deliberate

with the source/s of the resistance ?

viii) What is the solution to the resistance ?

 

While resistance in some forms may be so marked as to require instant response and action from organisation leaders. Some forms of resistance could be latent, emerging and taking definite shape slowly over time.

 

Figure 1. Adjusting organisation systems in response to system imbalance

 

The organisation as a system of adaptive adjustments.

 

Homans (1950) suggest that any social system exists within a three part environment, a physical environment (the terrain, climate, layout etc.), a cultural environment (the norms, values and goals of society), and a technological environment (the state of knowledge and instrumentation available to the system for the performance of its task). Homans postulated that activities, interactions and sentiments are mutually dependent on one another. Thus a change in any of the three variables will produce some change in the other two. Trist et. al. (1963) and Rice (1963) had discovered in their in their coal mining studies and their redesign of Indian Textile Mills that one had to threat organisations as complex sociotechnical systems in which the environmental, technological and social factors interacted in a complex way with interpersonal and task related forces within the organisation.

 

Schein (1980) maintains that the fundamental question then, is: How can organisational policies or social practices be developed which will permit some reasonable matching of human needs and organisational demands ? Or if these are fundamentally incompatible, psychologists must seek what other social institutions exist now or should in the future exist to ameliorate the incompatibility and consequent problems created by individual-organisation conflicts.

 

It is the case that individuals enter the organisation with their individual intentions of using the organisation to meet their personal purposes or set goals. These individual goals that the organisation is the intended place for realisation are to some extent a response to society's dictates of appropriateness. On the other hand the organisation, in this case the industrial organisation is a defined system that intends to employ individuals as a means to meeting its profitable end goal of manufacturing. The organisation-individual interface is a compromise zone where the individual needs and organisations demands are balanced to ensure mutual goal attainment. The individual and organisation expectations are in a dynamic flux (constant succession of changes). Requiring that the process of adjustment to balance individual and organisation systems approximate this dynamism or a schism of incompatibility is engendered. The problem of inconsistency thus created between system needs results in the situation that in the implementation of basic change expresses itself as a resistance to the change. The nature of the resistance, its center or source of emergence and the immediate factors that catalyse it are varied dependent on the unique social setting of the organisation within which resistance emerges.

 

Organisation change has the ultimate purpose of enhancing organisational effectiveness and profitable sustainability in the long term. However the change process may institute policies and practices that from the individual perspective is inimical to the full realisation of their basic need for job security, maintenance of self esteem, and the satisfaction of growth and development needs. The issue of resistance to change emerges beyond fundamental integration of organisational subcomponents to ensure effective overall performance as proposed by Lawrence and Lorsch (1969) and remains a cardinal theoretical definitional orientation of organisation structuring. Its my suggestion that beyond the structural integration of subcomponents of an organisation there emerges unpredicted or undetected resentments from individual and groups within the organisation during the implementation of organisation change. This resistance is of sufficient force to have detractive effect on optimum organisation effectiveness and must be resolved. The resolution process, suggestively, is an adjustment process that must find precise definitive expressivity as each organisational setting warrants, an adjustment but not an integrative process that by identifying the source or origin of the emergent disruptive resistance by a process of  direct involvement adjust operative mechanisms by bringing the requirements the organisation expects of its constituent parts to meet the desired expectations of this constituents by a process of balanced adjustments at varied levels. thus ensuring that the incongruency between organisation goals and its actual implementation that actuates at some level of implementation as resistance is adjusted to reflect existing system state requirements. The organisation's reconfiguration of its goals, the restructuring of its workforce, the technology adopted and the reconfigured working process as the change implementation dictates must be adjusted in response to the expressed resistance at varied levels if the long term expectations of the instituted change is to be achieved.

 

It is suggested that complex systems in dynamic interactivity assume fluidity that suppresses inconsistencies of a minor nature (or noise), however such complex systems indicate system state along major definitional boundaries where the dynamism that perpetuates the system congeal indicatively. These indicative states enable an assessment by comparative analysis to ascertain the state of the organisation. The expressions of system state are not necessarily positive but as in the case of resistance to change, reveals a marked state of imbalance within the core components of the organisation that leads to frictional and potential detraction in organisational effectiveness if left unresolved.

 

 

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1 Graduate student at the Department of Education and Psychology, Linkšpings university.

Residence address: KavallerivŠgen 4 B, 186 50 Vallentuna.