What Are the Main Sources of Resistance to Organisational Change - Case Study Example

What are the main sources of resistance to organisational change and how can managers overcome such resistance? I. Introduction In order to survive in modern commercial market, organizations have to develop their network of activities and their strategic plans. The above activity usually takes place through specific plans of change as they are designed and introduced within a particular organizational environment. In this context, it has been found that “managing organizational change remains one of the most important challenges facing HR professionals today; the roles and responsibilities of HR professionals are swiftly evolving from a more traditional administrative or ‘operational’ focus to one in which HR is seen as a strategic partner with management and a ‘change agent’” (Anson, 2000, 21). The role of the managers towards the successful implementation of change strategies within the organization is therefore regarded as crucial. However, in order to respond appropriately to the demands of change management, HR managers need to have the necessary competencies/ skills that will allow them to identify the most appropriate schemes of organizational change taking in advance all the measures for the successful implementation of the relevant strategies. Towards the same direction, Katzenbach (1996, 149) supported that “change efforts are often conceived as waves of initiatives that sweep through an organization from the top down, or the bottom up, or both, and flow across functions; seen through the eyes of the change leader in the middle, however, change looks more like pebbles dropped in a pond, creating expanding waves of energy that spread out to impact people at all levels”. In accordance with the above the introduction and the application of any plan of change within an organizational environment is depended on the managers’ competency to respond to the requirements and the needs of the relevant procedure. In any case, the role of managers in the introduction and the development of an organizational change should be considered as critical. However, in many cases and mainly due to the intervention of unexpected factors the above role of managers can be limited leading the whole procedure to a significant delay. On the other hand, it has been found that the main sources of delays caused in the application of a plan of change within the organisational environment are the employees who often consider change as a threat against their interests. In this case, the manager of change should focus on the successful handling of the problems caused by the employees regarding the application of specific plans of change. The identification of any other source of resistance in change within the organizational environment also belongs to the manager’s ‘obligations’. II. Organisational change – definition and characteristics The application of change within the organizational environment is not an easy task. In fact a relevant research presented by Bunker et al. (2005, 12) showed that “75 percent of all change initiatives fail”. The main reasons for this failure are, in accordance with the above researchers, the lack of understanding by the managers’ side. More specifically, it has been found through the study of the above researchers that “much of that failure stems from not understanding how to manage the structural side of change and the human dynamic of transition; as a result, instead of a loyal, productive, and enthusiastic workforce, we face employees who are insecure, fearful, and skeptical, and we undermine our progress toward new goals” (Bunker et al., 2005, 12). The lack of manager’s understanding regarding the employees’ role in the organisational change, although an important issue, should not be considered however as the most decisive factor in the development of the relevant procedure. In fact, there can be other elements of the organisational context, like the distribution of roles and the appropriateness of the changes proposed that can influence the application of change at a significant level. In order to identify the sources of resistance in organisational change, we should primarily proceed to the examination of the particular aspects of change as they can be observed in a particular organisational environment. In this context, it has been found that “change is a constant in modern working life; no matter how managers and employees struggle to control their lives, change is forced on them, reinforcing the feeling of being a pawn in someone elses game; since change is inevitable, managers must work to give their staff a sense of control over changing situations” (Rosenberg, 1993, 21). In the above description of organizational change, managers are presented as having a major role in the successful completion of the relevant procedure. However, in many cases their participation in the application of plans of change within a particular organization can be limited by the organizational principles or the general structure of the firm. From another point of view organizational change has been considered “as an outcome jointly determined by motivation to change, opportunity to change, and capability to change” (Greve, 1998, 59). Apart from the above definitions, change can present many aspects in accordance with the targets set by the specific organization as well as the competencies of the manager involved in the relevant procedure. In the same context, change can be more or less effective depending on the preparation made before its implementation and the response of employees. In the area of theory, organizational change is related with a series of models available to the managers in cases of organizational change. In this context, Fennell et al. (1993) tried to examine the level of organizational change achieved by a series of medical institutions in USA during the decade of 80s. When evaluating the results of the above research they used the following theories: “a) the strategic choice model (which is the one based in the changes happened to particular variables like the board composition and structure, independent of the influence of managerial change, the ownership change and the major hospital reorganization), b) the population dynamics (which is influenced by the population level changes) and c) the change in technical and institutional environments (which are mainly refer to the regulatory change, the change in the medical profession and the change in the normative environment surrounding the medical sector” (Fennell et al., 1993, 90). The application of the above strategies has helped Fennell et al. to formulate certain significant assumptions regarding the importance of appropriate strategic planning in the design and application of the plans of change within a particular organization. III. Sources of resistance to organisational change One of the most severe problems related with the application of change in a particular organization is workplace resistance which has been defined by Morill et al. (2003, 391) as “any deliberate action or inaction that is intended to damage, destroy, or disrupt some aspect of the workplace environment, including the organizationss property, product, or reputation”. From another point of view, it has been supported by Karp et al. (2000, 454) that the resistance “needs to be recognized, honoured and worked with; it is very important that designers and deliverers of diversity training be aware of the positive aspects of participant resistance”. In fact, workplace resistance can create significant constraints on the development of the business performance mainly through the decrease on the employees’ productivity as a result of their opposition to the proposed plans of change. On the other hand, it should be noticed that resistance in the workplace can cause severe delays on the firm’s performance mainly through a series of actions planned and executed in order to achieve the specific task (reduction of the organizational performance). These actions have been characterized as ‘sabotage’ and can be divided in the following two categories: ‘sabotage by direct action’ and ‘sabotage by circumvention’. In this context, it should be noticed that both these types of ‘reaction’ within the workplace can cause significant delays on the firm’s growth. For this reason, it has been noticed by Morill et al. (2003, 391) that the former “describes behaviours that directly "damage or destroy organizational property or products," whereas the latter refers to actions that facilitate other events or situations that eventually harm an organization”. When plans of change are being implemented in a particular organization, the reaction of employees is usually negative – at least at a primary level. This behaviour can be explained by the fact that “workplace relations are both an expression of wider economic, political and social forces and a major influence on the life chances of most adults; these patterns of management-worker relationships vary between societies from highly conflictual to strongly cooperative and tend to change over time” (Frenkel, 2002, 150). In other words, because work influences the life of all employees participating in a specific workplace, it is normal to observe intensive reactions – usually strong resistance – every time that change is attempted to be applied on particular organizational sectors no matter its subject or its extension. Generally, it has been noticed by Poole (1998, 45) that “when change is needed in an organization it is likely the culture or identity of the organization will be targeted for change; be it refraining, cognitive reorientation, or paradigm shift, organization transformation has been clothed in many guises; whatever it is called there is an implication that the existing cognitive structures are in jeopardy; the transformed organization, whether it be minor (first-order change) or major (second-order change), will not be the same as its predecessor”. Because of the above issues it is very likely that in most cases employees will resist in plans for change as proposed by the management. Even if these measures seem to be at a first sight in favour of the employees, it has been proved in many cases that these measures are usually ‘vehicles’ for the introduction and application of radical transformations in the organizational context. For this reason the opposition of employees towards the introduction and the application of strategies for change can be – at least at a first level – justified. IV. The role of managers to the limitation of resistance in organizational change When dealing with resistance in organisational change, managers have to follow specific strategies in order to control resistance and ensure the application of the plans for change as decided by the relevant management department. In this context, it has been found by Eoyang et al. (2001, 5) that “many organization change initiatives start at the top and deal strongly with any resistance from system agents that blocks progress; common ways of responding to resistance include downsizing, restructuring, and re-engineering”. These measures are just indicative of the potential solutions available to managers in order to support them when dealing with resistance during the application of a strategic plan for change. The role of the managers in the successful application of organisational change has been studied also by Poole (1998, 45) who came to the conclusion that “effective managers become culturally aware, understand their organization culture and convey consistent messages to the membership; they know and understand the organization culture and are able to influence the culture; however, when radical shifts are proposed by top management it implies a mental shift for the organization membership”. Regarding the above, the role of managers in the development of the procedure of organisational change can be differentiated in accordance with the measures proposed by the top management. However, it is often necessary that the managers participating in the application of change in an organisational environment take initiatives in accordance with the needs and the conditions of each particular occasion. Towards this direction, Katzenbach (1996, 148) supported that “real change leaders are seldom found in executive suites; though top-level involvement is essential to organizational change, the real change leaders (RCLs) who affect how the majority of people perform come from the ranks of middle and frontline managers”. The above comments of Katzenbach should be criticized as of their applicability. Within every organisational environment the role of employees (including managers) is precisely described in the relevant plan of action as formulated and applied by the firm’s strategic leaders. In this context, any initiative for differentiation by the proposed (by the firm) context of activities should be appropriately justified and verified by the relevant organisational department. In this context, unless there is a specific agreement that offers a particular ‘independency’ of actions, managers of change, as all other employees, have to follow the guidelines of the organizational strategy when having to introduce and apply a specific change in the organizational environment. The role of manager in the limitation of resistance within a particular organization has been studied by Karp et al. (2000, 454) who supported that “the resistance needs to be recognized, honoured and worked with; it is very important that designers and deliverers of diversity training be aware of the positive aspects of participant resistance”. In other words, resistance should be handled very carefully by the firm’s manager trying to identify the issues that would help towards the improvement of the employees’ cooperation in the implementation of the strategies of change. In this context, it is necessary for the managers to understand the emotions of employees regarding the attempted change and proceed to the necessary explanations ensuring the protection of employees’ interests. Regarding this issue Huy (2002, 31) noticed that “fundamental change in personnel, strategy, organizational identity, or established work roles and interests often triggers intense emotions; emotions in turn affect how different groups interpret a proposed change and how they behave; how organizations attend to a rich range of employees emotions could facilitate or hinder the progress of ambitious change”. The ability of manager to understand the emotions of the employees can be therefore crucial for the success of any organizational change. Apart from his ability to respond appropriately to the psychological pressures faced by the employees in a particular workplace, manager of a specific organization should be able to design and apply the appropriate training scheme in order to minimize the phenomena of workplace resistance to the proposed plans for change. However, in most cases such a task can be proved particularly challenging. In this context, it is stated by Miller (1994, 14) that “developing a model or approach for training in diversity is as much as a challenge as the management of diversity within the company or organization; the reason is that all companies and organizations exhibit specialized differences in mission, corporate culture, overall goals and constituencies to whom they must respond”. Towards the same directions, Sias (2005, 385) noticed that “practitioners in troubled organizations (e.g., those with high levels of turnover, low levels of performance and morale) might examine the quality of the supervisor-subordinate relationships in their organizations to determine how that might be detracting from the dispersion of quality information throughout the organization”. In this case, the role of the manager is not limited to the design and the application of particular scheme regarding the acceptance of a specific plan of change within the workplace. Manager is called to face the challenges set within all organizational sectors regarding the changes proposed. In order to achieve this task manager should obtain specific qualifications and qualities that will enable him to respond appropriately in all problems appeared in the context of the change plan applied within the specific organization. The above assumption is also supported by the view of Coombs et al. (2004, 491) who supported that “managers need to understand how aggressive behaviour may signal organizational problems such as stress, resistance to policies, and feelings of powerlessness and be perceived as functional coping mechanisms for some workers”. It should be noticed here that the behaviour of manager regarding the resistance appeared in a particular workplace (as the result of the change attempted in the specific organization) will be formulated mainly in accordance with his personal attitudes. In this case the differentiation made by Engel (1997) regarding the traditional and non-traditional managers should be considered as valuable. More specifically, Engel (1997, 23) supported that “traditional managers perceive work teams as a threat because work teams are displacing traditional management methods and mind-sets, which bodes ill for managers from the old school”. In any case, therefore, it is proved that the cooperation among employees within the workplace is of significant importance for the success of a specific plan of change. Although the application of appropriate diversity strategies is considered as an effective tool towards the limitation of resistance in workplace, it is necessary that these strategies will meet specific requirements. For this reason, it has been suggested by Comer et al. (1996, 47) that “for some organizations the primary impetus to pay attention to diversity issues may be to cultivate a favorable public image and/or to generate revenues (e.g., by using non-traditional employees to woo new non-traditional markets”. As Cooper (1997, 79) stated “based on partnerships among human resources developers, managers, and peers, the workplace can provide opportunities for team-based learning and growth in basic competencies such as listening; that is, the work environment itself can become a development tool”. In other words, the development of a particular organization is closely related with the level of cooperation among its employees. It is this cooperation that can lead to the success of a particular plan of change in accordance with the requirements set by the manager, the competencies of employees and the pressure made by competitors. The role of the latter is considered as significant because any plan of change aims to develop the performance of the company and in real terms to improve its position towards its competitors. At a next level, it has to be noticed that managers can propose the appropriate measures when having to deal with cases of workplace resistance to a proposed plan of change. However, there are specific strategies that can help managers to implement the relevant plan within a particular organization avoiding the oppositions by the employees’ side. Towards this direction, it has been suggested by Karp et al. (2000) that the managers facing the workplace resistance as a result of a proposed strategy of change can follow these steps: “1. Provide a Contract; as the very first step of any diversity training program, negotiate a contract with the group; the contract sets the guidelines for appropriate behaviour for the length of the training session. 2. deal only in behaviours and awareness, Never In Attitudes and 3. work with the resistance” (Karp et al., 2000, 454). The application of the above policy cannot ensure the effectiveness of the plan attempted to be implemented. However, this policy can help managers to evaluate appropriately the behaviour of employees towards a particular plan of change and design the relevant strategy for its implementation trying to avoid the opposition of employees which can cause significant delays on the achievement of the targets set by the specific plan. An issue that needs to be taken into consideration is the fact that when deciding to apply particular plans of change, managers should be based on the ethics and principles of the market and the law, trying to ensure the protection of the employees’ rights. Apart from this, managers should make sure that the firm will be able to respond to the needs of the new situation (after – change period). In this context, a series of strategies has been proposed by Bloodgood et al. (2000) which – if used – can help towards the successful implementation of the policies of change within a specific organization. These strategies are the following ones: “a) the first strategy is named ‘conducting business as usual’ during which the manager should not change their behaviour when conducting business but should continue to conduct their business as they did until the time point of change, b) according to the second choice given, the managers could ‘reconfigure the firm’s existing resources by deploying these resources in new ways’, c) as a third choice, managers could ‘acquire new resources and reconfigure the new resources with the firm’s existing resources’ and finally d) this strategy gives the manager the choice to ‘acquire new resources without reconfiguring them with the firm’s existing resources” (Bloodgood and Morrow, 2000, 15) . The use of the above strategies by the manager cannot guarantee the success of the plans of change under implementation. However, it can ensure that the organization will not suffer a significant loss in case of this strategy’s failure. On the other hand, the firm’s manager can possibly use alternative measures in order to support a proposed change plan. Expert systems belong to this types of measures that can be used by the firm’s manager in order to ensure the effectiveness of the recruitment and training procedures taking place within a particular organization. Regarding this issue Greenlaw et al. (1994, 26) supported that ‘ES may be applicable to all aspects of HRM but their degree of applicability is dependent upon the nature of the environmental, user, and other feasibility variables, like the stability, the structure and the ambiguity, which are continuous and interactive’ regarding their influence to the formulation of a HRM system”. The application of other systems and strategies could be also considered as a supportive measure towards the increase of effectiveness of a particular plan of organizational change. The above suggestions are being supported by the view of Rowden (1999, 22) who stated that “the traditional HR functions of staffing, recruiting, compensation and benefits are losing ground to a new generation of value-added core HR functions that include career planning, executive development, training, succession planning and organization development”. However, all strategies designed and applied in the context of the organizational change have to be studied carefully in order to avoid any potential damage in the firm’s performance (either in the short or in the long term). V. Conclusion The workplace is characterized in general by the existence of several factors which “lie beyond and within the workplace have been used to explain variations in workplace relations patterns; these include changes in labour and product markets, political tendencies and institutional processes, technological and organisational change, and managements human resource strategies and systems” (Frenkel, 2002, 150). In the above context, managers have to choose the appropriate strategies in order to ensure the success of the policies applied within a particular organization. These policies are going to be based on the specific firm’s culture and the competencies of employees who are going to participate on the specific plan. At a next level, it has been found by Muir (1996, 475) that “many companies have recognized the benefits of a multicultural workforce and have supported diversity efforts in a number of ways; however, there are still problems for minorities trying to assimilate into work settings as reflected in the many accounts of feelings of discomfort, alienation, and frustration experienced by racial and ethnic minority employees”. Under these terms the application of a diversity strategy in the firm’s recruitment procedure, could be proved particularly helpful for the successful adaptation of plans for change within a specific workplace. For this reason, it is noticed by Cooper (1997, 79) that “flattened managerial hierarchies, the domination of teams and work groups, and new patterns of work (such as home-based work sites, job-sharing, and variable work hours) will become the norm rather than the exception; in addition, an increase in the number of diverse, multi-generational employees will force attention upon social, cultural and value-based issues”. The study of the above researcher refers to an extremely flexible workplace (in terms of the schemes of employment available to employees and the programs applied regarding their training on current organizational issues) which is rather difficult to operate successfully mostly because in real terms employees are not likely to agree to extended changes within the workplace but their attitudes could be differentiated after a specific period of time under the involvement of other variables (development of employees’ position through the change plans, improvement of remuneration and so on) The role of managers in the design and the application of plans of change has been significant. However, this procedure can have several effects to managers as part of the organizational context. Like all other employees of a particular firm, managers have to face the consequences of change in the organizational structure and operations either in the short term or in the long term. Towards this direction the study of Goffee et al. (1992, 363) showed that “for managers in large-scale organizations, careers have traditionally provided a set of organizing principles around which they have been able to structure both their private and professional lives while personal feelings of growth and advancement have been achieved through jobs which provide not only the opportunities for the completion of specific tasks but also a mean whereby longer-term personal goals can be achieved”. Martin (2005, 747) also notices that “some managers now mobilize a form of “social capital’ in the form of reputations that are grounded in informal networks; however, this reputational capital can be difficult to stabilise and therefore risky to hold; managers therefore attempt to convert it into wealth - economic capital”. It should be noticed however that any plan of organizational change should include provisions for the role of managers within the new organizational framework. 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