Resistance to Organizational Change - Assignment Example

Article critique – resistance to organizational change In the article “Rethinking Resistance and Recognizing Ambivalence: A Multidimensional View of Attitudes Toward An Organizational Change”, Piderit (2000) discusses the concept of resistance to organizational change and focuses upon the need to consider multidimensional approach to the response of employees to such changes. The paper addresses the research question “How can we balance the organizational need to foster ambivalent attitudes toward change and the individual need to minimize the potentially debilitating effects of ambivalence?” (Piderit, 2000, p.783) The author begins with the conceptual analysis of the resistance to change and describes the process of eventual alteration in employee responses. He presents a summary of different literature on this issue with an approach to critique. It finally talks in favor of a bottom up process of evaluating the responses instead of presenting a simple generalization of the concept. For the purpose of reaching his point the author presents certain concepts and categorizations relevant to the issue. The author introduces the concept of ‘resistance to change’ as, “critical theorists and labor policy scholars argue that the interests of managers should not be privileged over the interests of workers” (Piderit, 2000, p.783). This simplification of the concept overlooks the complex analyses of the responses from the workers. This also overrules the positive intentions behind some negative responses. Complementing this view Pasmore points out that a resistance is actually a product of interaction or communication between the two agents involved in the change process. He also echoes Piderit’s view that a change need not be a ‘bad’ thing. The agent implementing the change should therefore go back to the background and the objectives of the change process rather than simply trying to overcome the resistance (Pasmore, p.214). In this context the role of leadership is worth mentioning. Resistance has to be worked through or managed by the leaders in the ideal manner (Markham, 1999, p.16). Power and Eastman (1997) brings up the role of transformational leadership in bringing about organizational change and determining the course along which the change might occur. Transformation leadership can help in implementing change through articulation of the vision adopted by the leader, the followers or subordinates accepting this vision and an analogy stuck between the interests of the followers and the vision projected before them. The role of leadership in organization change is carried out through “carrying out a process of delegitimating alternative views and legitimating the desired views … a process of instilling new values and organizational culture …. or a process of envisioning, energizing, and empowering organizational members” (Pawar and Eastman, 1997, p.82) Secondly, the author introduces three dimensions or grouping of the responses from employees – emotional, cognitive and intentional. In this backdrop, “resistance to change” might be defined as “the set of responses to change that are negative along all three dimensions” (Piderit, 2000, p.783). On the other hand, “support for a change” is defined as those responses, which are positive across the three dimensions. Here he points out a third category, which is termed as the ambivalent responses. In such cases the responses are neither entirely positive nor entirely negative across all dimensions. The author has explained the importance of such unsure responses for the purpose of modern research. The concept has shifted therefore from the simple version of implementing change within the organizational set up towards exit, voice and loyalty framework introduced by Hirschman (1970). Analyzing this further, one may say that a worker might exit from the set up or avoid the topic if the change is not suitable, raise his voice against the change to be introduced or stick to the decision for change like a loyal employee. The author logically critiques the viewpoint of assuming resistance to be a negative response. Sometimes the intentions behind resistance might be genuine. It differs along with viewpoints. From the manager’s perspective resistance is negative and he is inclined to treat the workers as hindrances. In this process some objections, which might have potential logic behind them might be disregarded. He has also reviewed literatures highlighting the reasons behind the opposition of the employees. Their resistance to change might result from ethical issues or selfish reasons. In most cases middle management might need to keep quite about ethical issues owing to pressure of job security or hope for promotion. Sometimes mere responses to change are also termed by the management as ‘resistance’. Thus “responses to change” is often overlapping with “resistance to change”. In this context Boeker (1997) introduces the concept of adaptive and inertial change in the organizational set up. His work shows that often the top management and the executives might not follow the organizational change in strategy. This occurs mostly when they have served long tenure and in such cases a change in the management level might help the organization do away with the insulation developed by the management towards such changes. Boeker in this context highlights the organizational change in strategy, which is automatically necessitated following the performance indicator, which shows, the viability of a particular strategy. Piderit (2000) has however not highlighted the possibility of the management resisting to change required in the strategies. While explaining the three dimensions of attitudes while responding (emotional, cognitive and intentional) the concept of social psychology is brought into focus. This is also known as the “tripartite view of attitudes” (Piderit, 2000, p.786). The cognitive dimension incorporates the opinions of a person towards the object to which he responds. This attitude is derived from past experiences and future purpose. It may be defined formally as, “beliefs ex-press positive or negative evaluation of greater or lesser extremity, and occasionally are exactly neutral in their evaluative content” (Piderit, 2000, p.786). Pasmore and Woodman (2005) have confirmed the reflection of the dimensions of attitudes towards change. Their finding suggests that workers reflect an intentional and also behavioral retaliation towards a change. The authors use this categorization to understand how workers respond to excessive change. (Pasmore and Woodman, 2005, p.44) The emotional dimension is all about the feelings and mood swings experienced by the person towards the organizational change. The third dimension of attitude is often a subset of the other dimensions but intentional response is also identified separately in some cases. The author systematically approaches the research question by first giving a conceptual definition of the attitudes and behaviors and then coming to the explanation regarding the way these approaches help in incorporating a wide range of reactions and especially ambivalent response which is the key point in the research question. Ambivalence occurs when the response is different in two different cases. Through an assimilation of different researches the author has shown that two opposing emotions or feelings may occur simultaneously. Apart from uncertainty across the three dimensions the same might occur within one dimension also. While ambivalence might help in looking at the positive sides of responses, yet if it is not properly interpreted it might generate strongly negative responses or resistance. Piderit “Ambivalence has been supposed to stimulate unlearning (the discarding of obsolete and misleading knowledge), which is a necessary pre-cursor to change. Therefore, by development of ambivalence we are better able to generate new possibilities for understanding and action” (Piderit, 2000, p.790). Taylor (1999) supports this point of ambivalent reaction to change, saying “change most often tends to be experienced as ambivalence—as a mix of continuity and discontinuity, growth and loss” (Taylor, 1999, p.5). The incorporation of multidimensional approach has offered the scope for in-depth analysis to the critics and scholars. The method used by the author is that of primary survey and he collected interviews of employees from all the main levels of power relations – for instance, an ordinary employee, middle manager and consultant. The empirical foundation cannot be strongly built based on so few interviews as the author has done. These results cannot be generalized. However the strong part of this article is the versatile secondary research done and the reviews of interesting literature carried out on several aspects associated with the research question. The author brings up a psychological analysis in order to discuss the response to change in an organization. Here he talks about the likely behavioral patterns exhibited by the employees in response to the attitudinal pattern. This is reflected through the communication between the managers and subordinates. An employee undergoing emotional ambivalence might try to avoid the issue. This is the exit policy, which might be implemented during communication. Piderit proposes a casual conversation between the managers and their subordinates such that the employees might express the negative response without hesitation. Researchers like Ford and Ford (1995) and Barker and Angelopulo (2005) have highlighted the role played by communication in implementation of a change. The role of using proper language while realizing organizational change is also significant (Henriksen, Norreklit, and Jorgensen, 2004, p.30). Piderit has discussed the concept of intentional aspect in response to change demonstrated by the employees. Here Ford talks of an intentional change introduced in an organization through striking a proper balance between the “forces for and against the change”. (Ford and Ford, 1995, p.541) This might be ensured by projecting the concept of “change as a communication-based and communication-driven phenomenon” (Ford and Ford, 1995, p.541) The researchers also highlight the role of the top management in the implementation – “producing a change depends on the level of top management commitment, the type of intervention used, peoples readiness for change, the level of resistance, or the organizations culture”. (Ford and Ford, 1995, p.541) A meta-analysis presented suggests that when the top management is committed to the efforts towards the change the satisfaction of the employees with the change was more (Kiniki, n.d., p.409). From the above discussion it may be concluded that though Piderit introduces some new and helpful concepts, which have been used and sometimes supported by other researchers, yet some important aspects like the role of leadership and the resistance from top management to changes might have made the work more complete. In my opinion Piderit, on one hand has shown a new way of looking at resistance to changes but he has built the model based on the stenotype concept of management as the initiators of change and the subordinate workers as the automatic followers. So he talks of resistance from these workers. However he does not talk of the indicators of change required. Despite presenting an innovative perspective of multidimensional approach of studying the responses, the author in my opinion has not been able to empirically analyze adequate range of responses at different levels of the organization. References 1. Hirschman. A.O. (1970). Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2. Henriksen, L.B., Norreklit, L. and K. M. Jorgensen (2004). Dimensions of change: conceptualizing reality in organizational research, Copenhagen Business School Press DK 3. Kiniki, (n.d.). Organizational Behavior 3E, Tata McGraw-Hill 4. Markham, D.J. (1999) Spiritlinking leadership: working through resistance to organizational change, Paulist Press 5. Pasmore, W.A. (2009). Research in Organizational Change and Development, London: Emerald Group Publishing 6. Pasmore, W.A. and R.W. Woodman (2005). Research in Organizational Change and Development, Emerald Group Publishing 7. Barker, R. and G.C. Angelopulo (2005) Integrated Organisational Communication, Juta and Company Ltd 8. Taylor, P. (1999). Loss and grief: issues for organizational change and development, HERDSA Annual International Conference, Melbourne, 12-15, available at: http://www.herdsa.org.au/branches/vic/Cornerstones/pdf/TaylorP.PDF (accessed on April 26, 2010) 9. Pawar, B.S. and K.K. Eastman (Jnauary 1997). The Nature and Implications of Contextual Influences on Transformational Leadership: A Conceptual Examination, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 80-109 10. Boeker, W. (February 1997) Strategic Change: The Influence of Managerial Characteristics and Organizational Growth, The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 152-170 11. Ford, J.D. and L. Ford (July 1995) The Role of Conversations in Producing Intentional Change in Organizations, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 541-570 12. Piderit, S.K. (October 2000). Rethinking Resistance and Recognizing Ambivalence: A Multidimensional View of Attitudes toward an Organizational Change, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 783-794 Read More