European Journal of Business Science and Technology 2018, 4(1):56-68 | DOI: 10.11118/ejobsat.v4i1.129

Resistance to Change in Public Organization: Reasons and How to Overcome It

Ayesha Amjad1, Muqqadas Rehman1
1 The Superior University, Lahore, Pakistan

The objective behind this paper is to explore the main sources of resistance to change and how that resistance effects the whole organization. Employees' duty and overseeing resistance effectively are basic essentials for forceful change management. This paper implements qualitative approach to observe the employees' resistance to change in one of the government organization working under Ministry of Industries of Pakistan. This is a qualitative study in which sample of 10 interviews have been conducted from the managers, deputy managers and executives working in this government organization. As indicated by Kurt Lewin's force field analysis this study shows, a manager looking for to "push" the procedure of organizational change must put all push to decrease the impact of preventing forces while expanding the impact of main driving forces and along these lines work with resistance of employees towards change.

Keywords: resistance, organizational change, qualitative, employees
JEL classification: L16

Published: July 31, 2018  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Amjad, A., & Rehman, M. (2018). Resistance to Change in Public Organization: Reasons and How to Overcome It. European Journal of Business Science and Technology, 4(1), 56-68. doi: 10.11118/ejobsat.v4i1.129
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Anderson, D. and Anderson, L. A. 2002. Beyond Bovey, W. H. and Hede, A. 2001. Resistance to Change Management: Advanced Strategies for Today's Transformational Leaders.
    2. Anderson, D. and Anderson, L. A. 2010. Beyond Change Management: How to Achieve Breakthrough Results Through Conscious Change Leadership. John Wiley & Sons.
    3. Ansoff, H. I. 1991. Critique of Henry Mintzberg's 'The Design School: Reconsidering the Basic Premises of Strategic Management'. Strategic Management Journal, 12 (6), 449-461. Go to original source...
    4. Asgarkhani, M. and Patterson, B. 2012. Information and Business Process Re-engineering through Application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). International Conference on Recent Trends in Computer and Information Engineering. Organizational Change: the Role of Cognitive and Affective Processes. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22 (8), 372-382. Go to original source...
    5. Bryman, A. 2004. Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press.
    6. Carr, J. B. and Brower, R. S. 2000. Principled Opportunism. Public Affairs Quarterly Spring, 24 (1), 109-138.
    7. Charmaz, K. 2006. Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis. SAGE Publications.
    8. Creswell, J. W. 1998. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Designs. SAGE Publications.
    9. Creswell, J. W. 2012. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. SAGE Publications.
    10. Dworkin, S. L. 2012. Sample Size Policy for Qualitative Studies Using In-Depth Interviews. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41 (6), 1319-1320. Go to original source...
    11. Fleming, P. and Spicer, A. 2003. Working at a Cynical Distance: Implications for Power, Subjectivity and Resistance. Organization, 10 (1), 157-179. Go to original source...
    12. Guba, E. G. and Lincoln, Y. S. 1994. Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research. In Denzin, N. K. and Lincon, Y. S. (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research, Chapter 6, pp. 105-117.
    13. Hornstein, H. 2010. Successes and Potential Obstacles to Change Management in the Public Service. Ivey Business Journal, 74 (6), 1-25.
    14. Kunanbayeva, D. and Kenzhegaranova, M. 2013. Resistance to Change in Organizations of the Republic of Kazakhstan: Country-Specific Reasons and Ways to Overcome it. World Applied Sciences Journal, 28 (2), 223-232.
    15. Lewin, K. 1951. Field Theory in Social Science.
    16. Maurer, R. 1996. Using Resistance to Build Support for Change. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 19 (3), 56-64.
    17. Mlay, S. V., Zlotnikova, I. and Watundu, S. 2013. A Quantitative Analysis of Business Process Reengineering and Organizational Resistance: The Case of Uganda. The African Journal of Information Systems, 5 (1), 1-26.
    18. Oliver, D. G., Serovich, J. M. and Mason, T. L. 2005. Constraints and Opportunities with Interview Transcription: Towards Reflection in Qualitative Research. Social Forces, 84 (2), 1273-1289. Go to original source...
    19. Schraeder, M. 2009. Leveraging Potential Benefits of Augmentation in Employees Training. Industrial and Commercial Training, 41 (3), 133-138. Go to original source...
    20. Schuler, R. S. and Jackson, S. E. 1987. Linking Competitive Strategies with Human Resource Management Practices. The Academy of Management Executive, 1 (3), 207-219. Go to original source...
    21. Shermet, M. A. 2010. Change Management. Delo.
    22. Toosy, M. A. 2006. Role of Leadership in Reducing Resistance to Change.
    23. Waddell, D. and Sohal, A. S. 1998. Resistance: A Constructive Tool for Change Management. Management Decision, 36 (8), 543-548. Go to original source...
    24. Wanberg, C. R. and Banas, J. T. 2000. Predictors and Outcomes of Openness to Changes in a Reorganizing Workplace. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85 (1), 132. Go to original source...
    25. Welsh, E. 2002. Dealing with Data: Using NVivo in the Qualitative Data Analysis Process. Qualitative Social Research, 3 (2).
    26. Wilson, A., Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J. and Gremler, D. D. 2012. Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm. McGraw Hill.
    27. Yilmaz, D. and Kiliçoğlu, G. 2013. Resistance to Change and Ways of Reducing Resistance in Educational Organizations. European Journal of Research on Education, 1 (1), 14-21.

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content