Page 343 - DMGT402_MANAGEMENT_PRACTICES_AND_ORGANIZATIONAL_BEHAVIOUR

Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes 16.8.1 Sources of Resistance

The sources of resistance to change can be categorized into two sources: individual and
organisational.
1. Individual Resistance: One aspect of mankind that has remained more or less constant is
his innate resistance to change. Individuals resist change because they attach great preference
to maintaining the status quo. Individual sources of resistance to change reside in basic
human characteristics such as perceptions, personalities and needs. The following are the
reasons:

(a) Economic Reasons: The economic reasons to fear change usually focus on one or more
of the following:
(i) Fear of technological unemployment.

(ii) Fear of reduced work hours and consequently less pay.
(iii) Fear of demotion and thus reduced wages.
(iv) Fear of speed-up and reduced incentive wages.

Changes in job tasks or established work routines can also arouse economic fears if
people are concerned they won't be able to perform the new tasks or routines to
their previous standards, especially when pay is closely tied to productivity.

(b) Fear of the unknown: Change often bring with it substantial uncertainty. Employees
facing a technological change, such as the introduction of a new computer system,
may resist the change simply because it introduces ambiguity into what was once a
comfortable situation for them. This is especially a problem when there has been a
lack of communication about the change.
(c) Fear of Loss: When a change is impending, some employees may fear losing their
jobs, particularly when an advanced technology is introduced. Employees may also
fear losing their status because of a change. Another common fear is that changes
may diminish the positive qualities the individual enjoys in the job. For example,
computerizing the customer service positions, threaten the autonomy that sales
representatives previously enjoyed.

(d) Security: People with a high need for security are likely to resist change because it
threatens their feeling of safety.
(e) Status quo: Perhaps the biggest and most sound reason for the resistance to change is
the status quo. As human beings, we are creatures of habit. Change may pose
disturbance to the existing comforts of status quo. When confronted with change,
this tendency to respond in our accustomed ways becomes a source of resistance.
Change means they will have to find new ways of managing them and their
environment—the ways that might not be successful as those currently used.
(f) Peer Pressure: Individual employees may be prepared to accept change but refuse to
accept it for the sake of the group. Whenever change is unwilling to the peers, they
force the individuals who want to accept change to resist change.
(g) Disruption of Interpersonal Relationships: Employees may resist change that threatens
to limit meaningful interpersonal relationships on the job.
(h) Social Displacement: Introduction of change often results in disturbance of the existing
social relationships. Change may also result in breaking up of work groups. Thus
when social relationships develop, people try to maintain them and fight social
displacement by resisting change.

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