The Roles of Organizational Change Management and Resistance to Change in the Modern Business World

Background

In a rapidly changing world, the unique competitive advantage of organizations appears to be its ability to adopt and adapt to change (Lawler & Worley, 2006). Most of the literature on change management was developed in Western countries (Pihlak & Alas, 2012). The greatest constant of modern times is the change (Sterman, 2000). Change and the way to lead it have become a critical issue in the organizational leaders’ minds (Ramezan, Sanjaghi, & Baly, 2013). Managing change requires leadership (Johnson, 2004). The process of change implementation is a critical task for all firms that pursue to develop and maintain a competitive position in modern organizations (Burke, 2002; Zajac, Kraatz, & Bresser, 2000).

Change is a requirement for continued success (Anderson & Ackerman Anderson, 2010). Resistance is defined as a phenomenon that introduces unanticipated delays, costs and instability into the process of strategic change (Ansoff, 1988); the enemy of change (Schein, 1988) in order to maintain the status quo in the face of organizational pressure to change the status quo (Zaltman & Duncan, 1977); any employee actions perceived as attempting to stop, delay, or alter change (Bemmels & Reshef, 1991); and an expression of reservation, which normally arises as a response or reaction to change. Buono and Kerber (2010) stated that from a conceptual vantage point, there are three interrelated approaches to implementing organizational change (i.e., directed change, planned change, and guided change).