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Chapter 2 - Preparing for Change Starts Now

Intentions to Resist Future Changes

from Part II - The Evolution of Change and Its Responses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2023

By
Pedro Neves
Edited by
Shaul Oreg ,
Alexandra Michel  and
Rune Todnem By
Shaul Oreg
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Alexandra Michel
Affiliation:
Universität Heidelberg
Rune Todnem By
Affiliation:
Universitet i Stavanger, Norway
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Summary

Employee resistance is often seen as the major force against the enactment of change. The literature has privileged the view that resistance, for the most extent, is the resistors’ own fault. As Ford and Ford put it, “the assumption is that they resisted a perfectly logical move.” I build on the approach that resistance to change is a form of feedback, to argue that, if organizations and their agents examine the underlying reasons, they will be better equipped to deal with the challenges related to resistance. In light of Uncertainty Reduction Theory, I also suggest that we need to move beyond the viewpoint that examines change as a one-off phenomenon and interpret it as grounded in the broader organizational life. Finally, and building on recent empirical evidence, I put forth a framework on anticipating intentions to resist future change that integrates the organization’s history of change, individual characteristics, leadership factors, and organizational factors, alongside important boundary conditions that influence the sensemaking process underlying the development of intentions to resist future changes.

Keywords

resistance to changeintentions to resist future changessensemakinganticipationuncertainty reduction
Type
Chapter
Information
The Psychology of Organizational Change
New Insights on the Antecedents and Consequences of Individuals' Responses to Change
 , pp. 15 - 41
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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