What is Competing Commitments

Information system development, like information systems adoption, can be considered to be a change process; yet problems arise when change is introduced. Resistance to the change can develop and the reasoning behind the resistance needs to be determined in order to address it. Resistance can be straightforward, where the change threatens a person’s job or creates stress for individuals, yet resistance can also be hidden and complex. Individuals may describe themselves as supporting a change, yet they work against that change (even if they are unaware that they are doing so). When this is happening, competing commitments can be at play; a competing commitment is where an individual professes a commitment to a course of action yet works against that commitment in different, usual subconscious, ways. The competing commitments process is a means of identifying why resistance is occurring even though individuals profess support.