Resistance to Change

Resistance to change may be categorized into three groups of factors (Mabin, Forgeson & Green, 2001): organizational, group and individual. Organizational factors are caused by threats presented by unknown or unwelcome organizational structure and process change and threats induced by the environment inside or outside of the organization. Group cohesiveness and social norms under threat and participation in decision-making not properly attended would trigger resistance to change. Individual factors related to the personality impose different emotional reactions to change (Bernerth, 2004). Compared to the other factors, individual factors have been intensively researched (Cheng & Petrovic-Lazarevic, 2005a). An interesting approach to the individual factors comes from Harris (2002) who divides them into: Lip Service: Sabotage by Disregarding as an instrumental compliance in that in recognizing the legitimate authority of the hierarchy and the benefits of the continued employment, employees overtly and orally conform but covertly resist attempts to be subjugated; Prolonged Argument: Sabotage by Erosion involving the tenacious use of vociferous and protracted oral arguments upon all possible occasions to erode enthusiasm, support, or argument with the management-espoused change; Hijacking: Sabotage by Transformation where employees endeavour to transform the adopted change into something more acceptable to their function, or simply something more personally palatable; Scarcity Creation: Sabotage by Undermining including the purposeful behaviour of a more confrontational form; Direct Conflict: Sabotage by Battle reflecting extremely pronounced personal opposition to change that could result in resignation. The other approach emphasises eight distinctive phases through which people would likely to go through whenever they feel trapped in a change that they do not want but cannot control (Conner,1998; Cheng & Petrovic-Lazarevic, 2005b). These are: stability as a stage