Economics, Management and Sustainability

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Kuzhda, T. (2016). Diagnosing resistance to change in the change management process.
Economics, Management and Sustainability, 1(1), 49-59. doi:10.14254/jems.2016.1-1.5.
ISSN 2520-6303

Diagnosing resistance to change in the change

management process
Tetiana Kuzhda
Ternopil Ivan Pul'uj National Technical University,
Ruska str., 56, Ternopil, 46001, Ukraine
PhD, Associate Professor, Faculty of economics and management

Abstract: This article explains the change

management process and resistance to organizational
change through examining causes of resistance to
Article history:
change, diagnosing them, and finding the ways to deal
Received: November, 2016
with resistance to change. In business environment,
1st Revision: November,
the one thing any company can be assured of is
2016
change. If an organization experiences change it may
Accepted: November, 2016
also need to implement new business strategies,
which can create resistance among employees.
Managers need to know in which phase they have to
JEL classification:
expect unusual situations, problems, and resistance to
J53
change. Most successful organizations are those that
are able to adjust themselves to new conditions
quickly. Preparing for change, managing change
DOI: through resistance management plan and reinforcing
10.14254/jems.2016.1-1.5 change have been identified in the article as the main
phrases of change management process that lead to
improve the organization performance. Managing
resistance to change is important part for success of
any change effort in each company. Dealing with
resistance in large part will depend on timely
recognition of the real causes of resistance to change
and finding the ways to reduce, overcome or eliminate
the resistance to change. Developing efficient ways to
introduce and implement change can ease the stress
the staff feels when change is introduced. Different
resistance states, causes of change resistance and
forms of change resistance have been emphasized in
the change management process. The proposed
diagnosing model has been used to identify significant
and weighty causes of resistance to change by using
the expert survey and ranking causes of resistance to
change. The ways to reduce and overcome resistance
to change have been explained.
Keywords: change management process, resistance
to organizational change, change management tools,
causes of resistance to change and types of resistance.
Corresponding author: Tetiana Kuzhda
E-mail: [email protected]

This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

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1. Introduction

In order to successfully manage change processes, it is necessary to analyze the phases of

this process, identify the causes of resistance to change and diagnose the resistance to change.
Managers need to know in which phase they have to expect unusual situations, problems, and
resistance to change. Most successful organizations are those that are able to adjust themselves to
new conditions quickly. This requires preparing for change, managing change through resistance
management plan and reinforcing change that lead to improve the organizational effectiveness.
Change is any alteration occurring in the work environment that affects the way in which
employees will act. These changes may be planned or unplanned, catastrophic or evolutionary,
positive or negative, strong or weak, slow or rapid stimulated either internally or externally. In
times of change, the natural employee reaction is to resist. It is normal to experience resistance
whenever there is change. In the current climate many companies are dealing with difficult
situations and resistance types while implementing changes. They need to understand different
resistance states such as cognitive, emotional and behavioural, and identify the causes of change
resistance and forms of change resistance. Managing resistance to change is important part for
success of any change effort in each company. Dealing with resistance in large part will depend on
timely recognition of the real causes of resistance to change and finding the ways to reduce,
overcome or eliminate the resistance to change. Developing efficient ways to introduce and
implement change can ease the stress the staff feels when change is introduced, and it can also help
the vendors, customers and business partners adjust to any changes in the way an organization
does business.

2. Literature review

Many authors such as Pashchenko (2014), Lysun and Mikh (2015) focus on implementing
change process through different organizational change models: Lewin’s Organizational Change
Model, Seven S Framework Model, ADKAR Organizational Change Model or Bullock and Batten’s
Integrative model for Change and insist on their use in domestic practice. Each of these models
allows change management teams to focus their activities on specific business results. However,
none of them explains in detail how to diagnose and overcome resistance to change. The other
authors (Oleksiv, & Lisovych, 2013) considers the evolutionary stages of organizational changes
implementation at enterprises from the mid– of the XX century until now. They single out the main
areas of organizational changes implementation in enterprise control system and note that
efficiency of enterprise development directions depends on company’s capacities, both financial
and technical and raising funds from external sources, and combining companies into clusters.
Their studies does not pay enough attention to the employee actions when they perceive that a
change that is occurring as a threat to them.
Also, the literature review indicates that a plenty number of change initiatives are
unsuccessful and the researchers generally agree that employee resistance is one of the leading
causes for the failure of change initiatives (McCalman, Paton, & Siebert, 2016). A few studies
examine how employees emotionally react to and deal with changes and which role their emotion
regulation has in dealing with organizational change (Cummings, Worley, 2009). The other
scientists emphasize that it is important to pay attention to employees’ emotions and how
employees express and regulate these emotions, because this can have an impact on the acceptance
of a situation (Kondalkar, 2013), on job satisfaction, and the intention to leave the organization
(Harigopal, 2006). Reiss (2012) emphasizes the core features of the approach to managing change
such as balancing and blending. His study is focused on managing two categories of barriers: the
barriers to success as a contribution to opportunity management and the barriers to failure as a
contribution to risk management. The author believes that the blending of management tools is
used to handle different risks (due to resistance, inertia or confusion) and opportunities in change
projects.
We can conclude that the most authors have examined the organizational change
implementation models and they have not yet conducted a detailed research of resistance change in
the change management process.
The main aim of this article is to develop diagnosing model of resistance to change and
explain its practical use. The objectives are the following: to explain the change management
process and resistance to organizational change through examining causes of resistance to change,
diagnose them, and find the ways to deal with resistance to change. At first we will examine the
change management process steps and identify the phase where we can expect the resistance to
change and manage change by using some tools such as resistance management plan. Also, we will

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point out the main metrics which a manager can use to track change management process
effectiveness. Within the current study we will examine the cognitive state, emotional state and
behavioural state of resistance to change and forms and causes of change resistance as well.
The applied methods used in this study is the expert survey through examining the experts
answer questionnaires, selecting and ranking causes of resistance to change and the methods to
deal with organizational change resistance.

3. Key research findings

Change process is the technique and process used to plan, implement and evaluate changes
in a business operation to achieve a certain goal. For all organizational changes processes, there is a
reason, force, cause, or source of the organizational change. Change management process is the
sequence of steps or activities that a change management team or project leader would follow to
apply change management to a project or change (Kuzmin, 2014; Andrushkiv, 2011). The most
effective and commonly applied change, they have created a change management process that
contains the following three phases:

Figure 1: Change management process steps

PHASE 1 – PREPARING FOR CHANGE

Define change management strategy

Prepare change management team

Develop the sponsorship model

PHASE 2 – MANAGING CHANGE

Develop change management plans

Take action and implement plans

PHASE 3 – REINFORCING CHANGE

Collect and analyze feedback

Identify gaps and manage resistance

Implement corrective actions

The first phase is preparing for change including preparation, assessment and strategy
development. It’s a series of readiness assessments and analysis provides the situational awareness
required to manage the change at hand. The outputs of this phase are the customized change
management strategy, the supporting structures (sponsorship and team model) and special tactics
for the initiatives. Change management team is important because it is responsible for conducting a

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strategic review of its respective operations and organization to identify functions, programs and
project which can be scaled down, phased out or abolished, or those which need to be
strengthened.
The second phase is managing change including planning and change management
implementation (Kuzhda, 2013). It’s a process of creating and using the five change management
tools, such as:
– communication plan aims at creating awareness and reinforcement, because
communication is a tool used to build employee’s awareness of the need for change and desire to
participate and support the change as well as to reduce resistance and ensure methods of
overcoming unusual and unexpected situations;
– Sponsorship roadmap lays out what the sponsor needs to be doing with the project team,
managers, and employees. It also breaks down activities by the phase of the project, for example
initiation, design, implementation and closeout. Effective sponsorship is needed to create an
awareness of the need for change and is critical in building the desire to participate and support the
change with each employee;
– Coaching plan outlines the steps for involving managers in change management activities.
First, it lays out how the project team and change management resource will build commitment,
train and skill up managers and supervisors related to their role in a change. The coaching sessions
are crucial to getting employees and the organization moving forward with change adoption;
– Training plan is focused on building skills and capabilities and addressed knowledge and
ability. Training is an important part of creating successful change, but must come after sufficient
awareness and desire already exist;
– Resistance management plan includes the steps that organizations and managers can take
to prevent and mitigate the impact of resistance. The resistance management plan also identifies
who will be involved in managing resistance and how to prepare them to intervene.
The third phase is reinforcing change covering the mechanisms that are established for
gathering feedback, identifying resistance, correcting gaps and measuring adoption and
compliance. This holistic process ensures that best practices are incorporated, important steps are
not missed and lessons learned are applied to speed up the change management.
Depending on the type of change, measuring change management process effectiveness has
long been considered a lofty attempt (Kondalkar, 2013). It can be difficult to put in place
measurement systems and metrics that provide solid data and information on how change is
progressing, but there are practitioners leading the way. In fact, measuring the people side of
change is becoming an expectation and even a requirement in many organizations (Reiss, 2012).
The table below contains the main metrics which a manager uses to track change
management process effectiveness. These metrics can be broken into three groups: individual
employee, overall project performance and change management activity metrics.

Table 1: Metrics used to measure the change management process effectiveness

Individual employee Overall project Change management
metrics: performance metrics: activity metrics:
1. Tracking of change
1. Employee awareness and 1. Project performance
management activities
understanding of the change measurements
conducted according to plan
2. Employee engagement in change 2. Progress and adherence to 2. Training tests and
management process plan effectiveness measures
3. Employee feedback and the level 3. Business and change 3. Training participation and
of employee resistance to change readiness attendance numbers
4. Quantity of requests for support 4. Benefit realization and
4. Resistance to change level
during the change process profitability index
5. Employee readiness assessment 5. Adherence to timeline and 5. Communication
results speed of execution effectiveness

One of the most unpredicted problems which business executives face is employee
resistance to change. Such resistance may take a number of forms: persistent reduction in output
and employee productivity, increase employee turnover, chronic quarrels and conflicts, sullen
hostility, slowdown strikes, and, of course, the expression of a lot of other reasons why the change
will not work. Even the more petty forms of this resistance can be troublesome.
Resistance to organizational change is the action taken by individuals and groups when they
perceive that a change that is occurring as a threat to them. The company executives should
understand different resistance states, identify the causes of change resistance and forms of change

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resistance (Kuzhda, 2014). Resistance to change may be defined as a cognitive state, an emotional
state and behavioural state.
Cognitive state refers to the negative mind set toward the change. Cognitive resistance to
change occurs as an individual perceives how the change will affect their likelihood of voicing ideas
about organizational change. Signals of cognitive resistance may include limited or no willingness
to communicate about or participate in change activities (such as those involving planning change,
resource allocations, or change implementation) (Harigopal, 2006).
Emotional state addresses the emotional factors, such as frustration and aggression, which
are caused by the change. Emotional resistance to change occurs as an individual balances emotions
during change. Emotions about change are entrenched in an organization’s values, beliefs, and
symbols of culture. Signals of emotional resistance include a low emotional commitment to change
leading to inertia or a high emotional commitment leading to chaos (Harigopal, 2006).
Behavioural state refers to the action or inaction towards the change. Behavioural resistance
to change is an integration of cognitive and emotional resistance that is manifested by less visible
and more covert actions toward the organizational change. Signals of behavioural resistance are the
development of rumors and other informal or routine forms of resistance by individuals (Harigopal,
2006).
Also, understanding the different types of resistance will help managers in preparing
employees for change. Let’s take a look at different types of resistance to change in the
organization.
Logical and rational resistance – these resistances are the outcomes of disagreement with
rational facts, rational reasoning, logic and science. These arise from the actual time and effort
required to adjust to change including new job duties that must be learned. Logical resistance to
change includes the following: time required to adjust, extra efforts to relearn, possibility of less
desirable condition, economic costs of change and questionable technical feasibility of change
(Petrova, 2008).
Psychological resistance – these types of resistances are typically based on emotion and
attitude. It is internally logical from the perspective of the employee attitude and feelings about
change. Employees may fear the unknown, mistrust management, or feel that their security and ego
needs are threatened. Even though management may believe that there is no justification for these
feelings they are very rational to employees, and as such mangers must deal with them.
Psychological or emotional resistance may take place in the following manner: fear of unknown,
low tolerance of change, dislike of management/change agent, lack of trust in other, need for
security and desire for status quo (Petrova, 2008).
Sociological resistance happens when it is seen as a product of challenge to group interests,
norms, and values. Sociological resistance includes the following: employee’s coalitions, opposing
group values, vested interest and desire to retain existing friendships (Petrova, 2008).
Managing resistance to change is important part for success of any change effort in each
company. Resistance in any form is intended to protect the employee from the perceived or real
effects of change. Dealing with resistance in large part will depend on timely recognition of the real
causes of resistance to change that can be broken into individual and organizational. Let’s take a
look at different forms and causes of change resistance.
Individual change resistance is the refusal of a single employee to fully support and
participate in change activities. Individual causes of resistance to change reside in basic human
characteristics such as perceptions, personalities, and needs. The following summarizes seven
reasons why individuals may resist change (Kuzhda, 2013).
1. Habits. Employees work in large part is based on habits, and work tasks are performed in a
certain way based on those habits. Organizational changes require shifts of those habits and
because of that dissatisfaction from the changes.
2. Job’s security. Organizational change can eliminate some work places or produce
technological excess, layoffs and so on. People with a high need for security are likely to resist
change because it threatens their feeling of safety. For example, when a company announces
personnel cutbacks or introduces new robotic equipment, many employees may fear that their jobs
are in jeopardy.
3. Economic factors. Organizational changes sometimes can be seen from the employee’s side
simply as something that will decrease their salary or other economic privileges that some
workplace brings to them in the moment before implementation of the change process. It is normal
to expect that those people who feel that they will lose the portion of their salary will resist the
change.
4. Fear of unknown. Organizational change in many cases leads to uncertainty and some dose
of fear. It is normal people to feel fear of uncertainty. When employees feel uncertainty in a process

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of transformation, they think that changes are something dangerous. This uncertainty affects
organizational members to resist the proposed change.
5. Selective information processing. Employees usually doing selective information
processing, or hear only something that they want to hear. They simply ignore information that is
opposite of the current situation, and with this, they are preventing to accept important aspects of
proposed changes, and it affects appearing resistance to change.
6. Increasing workload. In the process of organizational change, employees except for normal
work activities usually will be loaded with activities of a new change process. These increasing
workloads affect appearing resistance to change.
7. Threat to interpersonal relations. Employees are often friends with each other and they
have a strong social and interpersonal relationship inside and outside organization. If an
organizational change process can be seen as a threat to these powerful social networks in the
organization, the affected employees will resist to that change.
Organizational change resistance is the tendency for a group of employees to reject an
attempted change, even if that change is promoted over a long period of time by a substantial
fraction of the employees. Organizational causes of resistance to change relate to organization’s
strategy, policy, rules and include the following (Kuzmin, 2014):
1. Structural inertia. Organizations have built-in mechanisms to produce stability. For
example, the selection process systematically selects certain people in and certain people out.
Training and other socialization techniques reinforce specific role requirements and skills.
Formalization provides job descriptions, rules, and procedures for employees to follow. The people
who are hired into an organization are chosen for fit; they are then shaped and directed to behave
in certain ways. When an organization is confronted with change, this structural inertia acts as a
counterbalance to sustain stability.
2. Limited focus of change. Organizations are made up of a number of interdependent
subsystems. It’s impossible to change one without affecting the others. For example, if management
changes the technological processes without simultaneously modifying the organization’s structure
to match, the change in technology is not likely to be accepted. So, limited changes in subsystems
tend to get nullified by the larger system.
3. Group inertia. Every organization has their own mechanisms as a rules, policies, and
procedures. Even though individuals want to change their behaviour, these mechanisms in many
cases can resist to the proposed changes.
4. Threat to expertise. Organizational changes in many cases result in personal discomfort
and make employee’s life more difficult. They make a transfer from the comfort of the status quo to
discomfort of the new situation. Employees have skills and expertise to do an old job without some
special attention to accomplishing the task. Each new task requires forgetting the old methods of
doing the job and learning new things that lead to waste of energy, and causes dissatisfaction.
5. Threat to established power relationship. Any redistribution of decision-making authority
can threaten long-established power relationships within the organization. The introduction of
participative decision making or self-managed work teams is the kind of change that is often seen
as threatening by supervisors and middle managers.
6. Threat to established resource allocations. With organizational changes, some groups,
departments or sectors in the organization can receive more resources while the others will lose.
So, this will bring resistance from the individuals, groups or departments who will lose some of
there currently available resources. Those groups in the organization that control sizable resources
often see change as a threat. They tend to be content with the way things are. Will the change, for
instance, mean a reduction in their budgets or a cut in their staff size? Those that most benefit from
the current allocation of resources often feel threatened by changes that may affect future
allocations.

4. Research methodology

The main overall methodological approach used in this study concerns the estimation of
resistance to change through examining the change formula and the experts answer questionnaires,
selecting and ranking causes of resistance to change. In the current climate many companies are
dealing with difficult situations and factors while implementing changes. Three factors must be
present for meaningful organizational change to take place. Diagnosing resistance to change is the
process of assessing factors affecting the organizational change. Beckhard and Harris put these
factors into a change formula that provides a model to assess the relative strengths affecting the
likely success of organizational change programs (McCalman, 2016).

Dissatisfaction · Desirability · Practicality > Resistance to Change (1)

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This seems to be a simple statement, but it’s surprisingly powerful when used to structure a
case for change. Let’s define each element:
1. Dissatisfaction with the current situation. Employees have to feel dissatisfied with the
current situation before a successful change can take place. Without satisfaction, no one will likely
feel very motivated to change.
2. Desirability of proposed change. The proposed solution must be attractive, and people
need to understand what it is. If a team doesn't have a clear vision of what things will be like after
the change, and why things will be better, then they probably won't be willing to work to deliver it.
The clearer and more detailed vision, the more likely it is that the team will want to agree with the
change and move forward.
3. Practicality of the change. People need to believe that the proposed changes are realistic
and doable. It’s not necessary, or even practical, to try and plan out the whole thing in detail, but a
high level description of how to get there with clear first steps, should be in place.
4. Resistance to change includes people’s beliefs in the limits of the change, stubbornness
toward any change, and general inertia or lack of interest at the beginning.
The change equation is used at the beginning or at any time during a change programme.
Diagnosing causes of resistance to change is the process of identifying significant and
weighty causes of resistance to change by properly using the methods of expert survey and ranking
causes of resistance to change. We propose methodological approach that includes the following
steps in diagnosing causes of resistance to change:
1st step: Expert survey is a structured communication technique or method which relies on a
panel of experts. The experts answer questionnaires, select significant and weighty causes of
resistance to change. The experts are the internal or external change agents. Internal change agents
are the managers or employees who are appointed to oversee the change process. External change
agents are the outside consultants who bring an outsider’s objective view to the organization.
2d step: Ranking causes of resistance to change is a processing of survey results. This method
consists of the average rank method or median rank method.
3d step: Finding ways to deal with the resistance to change that are some common practices
used to prevent, reduce and overcome resistance to change in the organization.

Table 2: Results of expert survey

Experts / Scores
Middle level

Consulting agency
Employees

managers

managers

managers
Low level
Top level

№ Causes of resistance to
change
Group of Group of
consultants consultants
1 2
Skepticism about the
1 100 70 60 80 80 60
need of change
Economic factors
2 100 50 70 100 80 -
(decrease in salary)
3 Increasing workload 100 40 90 90 -
4 Limited resources 90 40 70 60 80 60
5 Fear of unknown 100 60 80 100 70 80
Misunderstanding the
6 70 20 40 50 60 -
process
Mistrust to initiators of
7 80 30 40 60 50 30
change
Threat to interpersonal
8 80 20 30 40 50 80
relations
9 Previous experience 70 100 90 80 50 40
Uninformed
10 80 30 50 40 - 60
employees
Source: author’s computations

The application of above-described diagnosing method in business practice is given below.

A pipe manufacturing company introduces some kind of technological changes. It must select
the most significant causes of resistance to change and the ways to deal with resistance to change.

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The employees, top level managers, middle level managers, low level managers and external change
agents have participated in the survey of change resistance causes. After expert survey it was found
ten weighty causes of resistance to technological change in the company: skepticism about the need
of change, economic factors, increasing workload, limited resources, fear of unknown,
misunderstanding the process, mistrust to initiators of change, threat to interpersonal relations,
previous experience and uninformed employees.
100-point scale is used to assess the causes of resistance to change, where 10 is the score for
the least important cause and 100 – is the score for the most significant cause. The results of expert
survey are listed in the table below.

5. Results

Each of resistance causes gets its rank r = {1, 2, ..., n}, where 1 – is the most significant cause
that occurs most frequently, and n – is the least important cause. The ranking results are shown in
the table 3. Low median rank indicates the most important causes of resistance to change. The
survey processing results are shown in the table 4.

Table 3: Ranking causes of resistance to change

Experts / Scores
Consulting agency
Middle
Top level Low level Group of Group of
Employees level
Causes of managers managers consultants consultants
managers
resistance to 1 2
change
Score

Score

Score

Score

Score

Score
Rank

Rank

Rank

Rank

Rank

Rank
Skepticism about
the need of 100 1 70 4 60 5,5 80 2,5 80 2,5 60 5,5
change
Economic factors
(decrease in 100 1,5 50 5 70 4 100 1,5 80 3 - -
salary)
Increasing
100 1 40 5 90 2,5 90 2,5 - - 60 4
workload
Limited resources 90 1 40 6 70 4 60 5 80 2,5 80 2,5
Fear of unknown 100 1,5 60 5 80 3 100 1,5 70 4 - -
Misunderstanding
70 1 20 6 40 4 50 3 60 2 30 5
the process
Mistrust to
initiators of 80 1,5 30 6 40 5 60 3 50 4 80 1,5
change
Threat to
interpersonal 80 1 20 6 30 5 40 3,5 50 2 40 3,5
relations
Previous
70 4 100 1 90 2 80 3 50 6 60 5
experience
Uninformed
80 1 30 5 50 3 40 4 - - 70 2
employees
Source: author’s computations

Conclusion is that the median rank method shows that the most significant and weighty
causes of resistance to change are the economic factors (decrease in salary), increasing workload,
uninformed employees, and fear of unknown. So, the top executives have to focus on these causes
and find the effective ways to overcome them.
The study identifies proper education, effective communication, facilitation, motivation,
negotiation, manipulation, co-optation and coercion as possible methods for managing resistance to
change. The use of any of these methods or combination of some, however, depends on the type of
organization, nature of resistance and stage of intervention.

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While every organization is different, we pointed out the most important approaches used to
overcome resistance to change.

Table 4: Survey processing results

Causes of resistance to change Total ranks Median rank

1. Skepticism about the need of change 21 3,25

2. Economic factors (decrease in salary) 15 3
3. Increasing workload 15 2,5
4. Limited resources 21 3,25
5. Fear of unknown 15 3
6. Misunderstanding the process 21 3,5
7. Mistrust to initiators of change 21 3,5
8. Threat to interpersonal relations 21 3,5
9. Previous experience 21 3,5
10. Uninformed employees 15 3
Source: author’s computations

1. Education and communication. To inform and educate staff about the change beforehand,
early approaches and communication helps stakeholders see the rationale for change, which also
reduces unsupported and incorrect rumors. If people’s working style or habits need to change, the
employees should be noted instead of being automatically put up to change (Kuzhda, 2013).
2. Participation and involvement. When employees are involved in decision-making, it can
help to motivate the workforce. But this is a time consuming effort where it involves lots of
consultations so that the workforce can accept this change. Having employees involved in change
always eases the process because they have a say in what should be changed. This will help them
ease into the change process because they would be changing to something that they want, thus
motivating them to adapt (Pashchenko, 2014).
3. Facilitation and support. Another way that managers can deal with potential resistance to
change is by being supportive. This process might include providing training in new skills, or giving
employees time off after a demanding period, or simply listening and providing emotional support
(Stepanenko, 2016).
4. Negotiations and agreement. Another way to deal with resistance is to offer incentives to
active or potential resisters. For instance, management could give an employee a higher wage rate
in return for a work rule change; it could increase an individual’s pension benefits in return for an
early retirement.
5. Manipulations and co-option. Manipulation, in this context, normally involves the very
selective use of information and the conscious structuring of events. One common form of
manipulation is co-optation. Co-opting an individual usually involves giving him or her desirable
role in the design or implementation of the change. Co-opting a group involves giving one of its
leaders, or someone it respects, a key role in the design or implementation of a change. This is not a
form of participation, however, because the initiators do not want the advice of the co-opted,
merely his or her endorsement (Kuzmin, 2014).
6. Explicit and implicit coercion. This is a last resort strategy if employees resist against
change. Coercion can be used by managers to force staff to accept change. Examples include
transfer of employees, dismissals or not promoting them.

6. Conclusions

It is significant to mention that that in business environment, the one thing any company can
be assured of is change. If an organization experiences change it may also need to implement new
business strategies, which can create resistance among employees. Many times, after the
organizational change is introduced and met resistance, the executives say that “they saw when
reaction coming”. They need to know where resistance can be expected (department, team or
phrase of change management process), whether the department or team can impact on change
process differently than others, and what causes of resistance change depending on how each
department or team is related to the change.
The phrases of change management process such as preparing for change, managing change
and reinforcing change has been described and the place of resistance to change in the change
management process has been identified.

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Depending on the type of change, measuring change management process effectiveness is

important in order to provide quantitative data and information on how change is progressing. The
individual employee, overall project performance and change management activity metrics have
been pointed out in the measuring change management process effectiveness.
Different resistance states, causes of change resistance and forms of change resistance have
been emphasized in the change management process. The proposed diagnosing model has been
used to identify significant and weighty causes of resistance to change by using the expert survey
and ranking causes of resistance to change. The ways to reduce and overcome resistance to change
have been explained.

Appendix A. Supplementary material

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at
http://dx.doi.org/10.14254/jems.2016.1-1.5.
Funding
The authors received no direct funding for this research.
Citation information
Kuzhda, T. (2016). Diagnosing resistance to change in the change management process.
Economics, Management and Sustainability, 1(1), 49-59. doi:10.14254/jems.2016.1-1.5.

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