Messages on "Resistance to change" in German change management approaches

• Main Author: Fassauer, Gabriele
• Other Authors: Technische Universität Dresden, Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden 2015
• Subjects: Deutschland; Change Management; Germany; change management; ddc:330; rvk:QP 340
• Online Access: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa-170116; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa-170116; http://www.qucosa.de/fileadmin/data/qucosa/documents/17011/messages_on_resistance_to_change_in_german_change_management_approaches.pdf

"Resistance to change" is one of the most important topics of change management in organizations. The paper investigates the analytical framing of „resistance“ and the „resistant employee“ in established German literature on change management. The analysis reveals three main messages referring the characteristics of resistance and the resistant change recipient. These are 1) that resistance is a „natural“, nearly inevitable phenomenon in organizational change processes, 2) that every behavior of employees in change processes is potentially resistant and thus often „false faced“, and 3) that resistance often is based on „irrational" and "emotional” motives. From a critical standpoint, this appears as a rather problematic understanding of (employee) agency and resistance. The result once more point to the overdue reconceptualization of "resistance to change" within the change management discipline and raise general questions referring to the high popularity of the analyzed segment of literature.