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Employees Actually Embrace Change: The Chimera of Resistance

2002; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

1556-5068

Eric B. Dent, Edward H. Powley,

Organizational Learning and Leadership

The belief that people resist is widely held in organizational life. This paper will explore that belief in a number of ways. The phrase to change is unmasked by briefly deconstructing the term. A review of the literature suggests that there is no commonly held definition for resistance to change. In fact definitions range from willful opposition to valuable passion. To begin an effort at understanding in all its richness and depth, an exploratory study used interviews to reveal the fullness of how people experience at work. Six primary dimensions surfaced from 945 incidents analyzed. Reactions to varied considerably by dimension. Overall, interviewees made 1.9 positive statements about for every negative statement. The belief in resistance to may be not only inaccurate, but one which impedes the success of efforts.