Resistance to Change

Change is inevitable; so is resistance to change. Paradoxically, organizations both promote and resist change. A commonly held view is that all resistance to change needs to be overcome, but that is not always the case.

Resistance to change can be used for the benefit of the organization and need not be eliminated entirely. By revealing a legitimate concern that a proposed change may harm the organization or that other alternatives might be better, resistance may alert the organization to reexamine the change.

Six major organizational sources of resistance: overdetermination, narrow focus of change, group inertia, threatened expertise, threatened power, and changes in resource allocation. Of course, not every organization or every change situation displays all six sources.

Individual sources of resistance to change are rooted in basic human characteristics such as needs and perceptions. Researchers have identified six reasons for individual resistance to change: habit, security, economic factors, fear of the unknown, lack of awareness, and social factors.

People tend to resist change for a variety of reasons. Organizations and managers who effectively overcome this resistance will likely continue to keep abreast of their competitors and remain viable organizations. But organizations and managers who do not deal with resistance may be contributing to the eventual demise of the firm.