Resistance to Change: A Case Study in the Food and Beverage Department
2
Change is common in an organization and is initiated due to the need to survive and adapt to the changing market. As change is a disruption of routines and what people
are used to, resistance to change is a common reaction of the change recipients. People resist changes because changes are uncomfortable and require them to adapt to a new way of thinking and doing things. Also, people have trouble envisioning how
life will be like after changed; hence, they tend to stick to the unknown rather than embracing the unknown. This essay is going to demonstrate why employees resist
change in the hospitality and gaming organization with around 6000 employees and how the change agent can turn their resistance to advantages.
The Food and Beverage department (F&B) is undergoing a change in the food safety management initiated by the new F&B director. The director attempts to introduce a
new food safety audit scheme with the objective to raise the food safety standard of the dining outlets. The change recipients, the F&B Kitchen, Service and Stewarding
teams, are resisting the change by ignoring the director’s requests and refusing to cooperate with him. The change of food safety management creates disruption in the daily operations of the change recipients. As a result, rather than providing
improved services, the number of guests’ complaints and the turnover rate of F&B staff increase drastically one month after the change has started. The process of
change is now stuck at its beginning because of the conflicts between the director and the F&B teams. The employees’ reactions and resistance are so great that the change The proposed change, which is
now appears to be impossible to implement.
originally of a good intention to upgrade the F&B outlets, is doomed to failure because the change agent – the F&B director – is so engrossed in his plan that he never tries to
Bibliography: AMASON, A.C. (1996) Distinguishing the effects of functional and dysfunctional conflict on strategic decision making: resolving a paradox for top management teams. Academy of Management Journal, 39, pp. 123-148. BUCHANAN, D.A. and HUCZYNSKI, A.A. (2010) Organizational Behaviour. 7th ed. England: Pearson Education Limited. DENT, E. B. and GOLDBERG, S. G. (1999) Challenging “resistance to change”. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 35, pp. 25-41. FORD, J.D. et al. (2008) Resistance to change: the rest of the story. Academy of Management Review, 33 (2), pp. 362-377. HULTMAN, K. (1979) The Path of Least Resistance. TX, Denton: Learning Concepts. LAWRENCE, P. R. (1969) How to deal with resistance to change. Harvard Business Review, 1, pp.49-57. MALTZ, M and BASLER, F. (1997) Portable Conference on Change Management. Hiam: HRD Press. MINTZBERG, H. and WATERS, J. (1985) Of strategies, deliberate and emergent. Strategic Management Journal, 6, pp. 257-272. PARDO DEL VAL, M. et al. (2003) Resistance to change: a literature review and empirical study. Management Decision, 41 (2), pp. 148-170. SHAPIRO, D. L., and KIRKMAN, B. L. (1999) Employees’ reaction to the change to work teams: the influence of “anticipatory” injustice. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 12(1), pp. 51-66. SPREITZER, G. M. and QUINN, R. E. (1996) Empowering middle managers to be transformational leaders. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 32, pp. 237-261. 10 TORMALA, Z. L., and PETTY, R. E. (2004) Resisting persuasion and attitude certainty: a meta-cognitive analysis. In KNOWLES, E. S. and LINN, J. A., (eds.) Resistance and Persuasion. Mahwah , NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 65-82. TRADER-LEIGH, K.E. (2002) Case study: identifying resistance in managing change. Journal of Organization Change Management, 15(2), pp. 138-155. WADDELL, D. and AMRIK, S. S. (1998) Resistance: a constructive tool for change management. Management Decision, 36 (8), pp. 543-548. WEICK, K. (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.