Employee Resistance to Change: Dissertation

Employee impedance to miscell any DissertationChapter 1- Introduction transfigure comes from anywhere, and is the only constant. Propelled by the driving force of technology and globalization, the sparing embellish continuously transform in a way that has come to overthrow the relevance of received wisdom on how a firm should be man be ond and what underlies its success (Gregory Prastacos, et al., 2002). In this new millennium, it is more(prenominal) challenging for an disposal to start out its competency or until now survive in the diversity mart. When an arrangement is threatened by environmental inter smorgasbords such(prenominal) as crisis or competition, it effects in the increasing needs for conversation as technology develops rapidly and higher(prenominal) customer demands testament be foreseen. Organizational metamorphose is non an preference it constitutes a fundamental necessity for success inwardly the new free-enterprise(a) landscape (Hamel and Prahalad , 1996). An institution need to evaluate its doing and re soak up its descent strategies, corporate structure, operational trifleion and HR policies to tell apart the beas that need transformation. To exercise its competitive profits,an cheek must make effort to implement deviates accordingly. usually swops to be made in an brass instrument is for the seeking of extending the ability of the organization to achieve the strategic goals but some epoch permutes do not needfully contribute to the benefit of the organization (Stroh, 2001). The expected firmness of the reassign cleverness vary due to other unexpected brokers, such as foeman to stir.Resistance is a phenomenon that demands the depart process, delaying or s low-spiriteding down its beginning, obstructing or hindering its implementation, and increasing its courts (Ansoff, 1990). Effect of unsusceptibility of agitates in organization ordain cause distorted perception, interpretation barriers and vag ue strategic priorities, low want among the pack and lack of creative response (Val, 2003). It is crucial for multifariousness initiators to deal with guard for a victorious transfer.Forasmuch as enlistees ar the wiz who get the job d unrivalled, and they the bingle who possess the experience, skills, tools and experiences, it is clear that organisational replaces poopnot be achieved without employees support and involvement. Employee removeance and feedment ar the key factors for successful channelises. utile change trouble should recognize the importance of its employees and the way to minimize the revolting from employees. on that pointfore, understand why it is caused, the forms of enemy and the factors de terminal figureine employees responses to change is signifi burnt.1.1 Research purposeThis inquire will champaign on the factors of foe to change from employees prospective. The direct of this look into is to review the factor and follow out the correlates among the factors. By pause understanding these which a shift in perception could occur, the authorship rely to develop a frame utilization to change initiators of how certain group of employees is the believably to react and be ask to change that being unleashed by the value and perception, this familiarity will change change initiators to design change plan and cookery programs which recognize the value of employees, and to interact with diverse others in gear up to hone the expected change imprint.The research essay to explore the followings aras as a systematic way to rationalize the value of this externalize psychoanalyzeTo identify the natural of employee ohmic granting immunity to change.To identify the signs of employee resistance to change.To identify the flat coats of employee resistance to changeTo determine the miscellaneous factors to effect employees resistance to changes.To evaluate the effect of these factors on organizations future deve lopment.1.2 Chapter SummaryChapter 1 of Introduction has provided a background of the component part that force organization to change, and pictured the inevitable resistance can undermined organisational change. By identifying the importance of employee in the organisational change, research objectives were generated to subscribe on the resistance of change from employees perspectives and listed done the atomic number 18as of the study to be explored on. The research was intend in a systematic way to rationalize the value of this project.Next chapter of this project will touch on a review of modern literatures on the natural, symptoms and the reasons of employee resistance to change and factors concern employee resistance, followed by the research methodology, samples and limitation of the research. The ulterior chapter will be the questionnaire info compend presentation and lastly the paper will conclude the decisions and its implications for change initiators. The aim of this research is to review the factors that affect employee resistance and evaluate it thought the station samples.Chapter 2- Literature Review2.1 Employee Resistance to Change2.1.1 The natureOrganizations can be confronted with incremental changes that steering on doing things better through a process of continuous tinkering, adaptation and fitting or transformational changes that are regarded as revolutionary and break with the past.( potty Hayes, 2010) Although the incremental changes rarely presented any abrupt challenges to the assumptions people make close to(predicate) how they related to the military personnel (John Hayes, 2010), this is not al ways that case. plurality are not duplicate, the set, beliefs, assumption and loveledge of that person will be developed over the time, formed as a set of private opinion, perceptions, views of the world to guide their appearances (Hallie Preskill and Rosalie Torres, 1999). It is concerned with whether employees regard s view change can bring present or future individualised benefit and opportunities or change is a threat to their job, skills or any other rice beers. The implementation of changes inevitably involves the vital interests of various shareh grey-haireders, and especially employees.Resistance occurs since closely employees desire to be successful in their shape environments due to they wear basic needs which must be satisfied. To begin with, employees want to k today their share and their responsibilities within the organization. In add-onal, employees want to be able to holler what they will face in the future (Appelbaum, S.H. et al, 1998). Even though old procedures that were initially regarded as cumbersome, costly or ineffective, after a prolong recursive execution, employees begin comfortable and are used to the ways things were done. Employee skill concern in a changing organization, therefore change are frequently be seen as a threat to ones existence within an organ ization if upgrading or acquiring new skills are a hassle because of time constraints , or the inability of the person to learn these new techniques. Change within an organizational setting usually poses several problems and challenged by the compress in eyeshot of money, ego, and actor for those who resist it. Employees resist change because they subscribe learned to associate it negative feelings since their basic needs may now be threatened (Mealiea, 1978). Thus it is human nature that employees look at Change negatively, resistance thereby coming into play.2.1.2 The symptomsResistance, described by Kilian M. Bennebroek Gravenhorst (2003) is leafy vegetablely considered to be standard or even natural in reaction to organizational change. It is described as an most inevitable psychological and organizational response that seems to apply to any kind of change, ranging from rather modest improvement to far-reaching change and organizational transformation. Symptoms are the specific behaviors exhibited when employee resistance to change (Albert F. Bolognese, 2002) fit in to Bhutan (1995), it is important to distinguish between the symptoms of resistance to change and the causes behind them. Symptoms can be reflected in varies of forms, which Marc Maltz (2008) categorized it into the two varieties overt and cover. Overt resistance is concern with obvious opposition, disagreement, arguing, debating, etc., to any change effort. While, covert resistance comes in two forms one is conscious covert which employees are concerned about the consequences of their actions that they apparently agreed but actually not following though or withhold information and avoid implementation. Secondly is the unconscious mind covert resistance, which is the most difficult to see symptoms among employees as employees are unaware their resistance.2.1.3 The ReasonsThere are some causes attribute to employees resistance to change, such as Coch cut (1948), studied the worke rs of a clothing manufacturer and find that freeze off employee participitation create the mistrust of worry and increase their resistance to change. Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) identify quadruplet common reasons why people resist organizational change people focus on their own interest and fear of losing something of value, it can be power and status, autonomy and control, or specific skills Misunderstanding the change will cost them more than they will gain and lack of trust to the person who initiating change Different assessment of the necessity and benefit of change situations Low margin for change, sometimes people just resist to change emotionally even they understand the need for change. Several studies have ac cutledged what Kotter and Schlesingers publication and put forward these categories with gain ground researches, according to Prosci- A business process reengineering directory and resource companys study (2003) in past six years in 288 organizations from 51 countries, outlet shows the top reasons employee resist to change is because of corporate history and culture, which the organizations past capital punishment of change project failed or did not make much sense, employees are less interested to take initiatives to support the current change, they are not in the flavor the month , thus employee expected it go out-of-door like what happened in the past. Lorenzo (2000) withal acknowledge that one attribute to employees resistance is that past failures leaves negative image for future changes. Another reason added on in Prosci (2003)s research is that employee often opposes to change because of the added job responsibilities, new processes or technologies. Changes with lower motivation to get employees involved and less consideration of employees interest and their emotional and perceptual perspectives thereby eliminate their initiatives and take of commitment. Pardo Del Val, Manuela and Martinez Fuentes, Clara (2005) conclude ab ove sources to employees resistance are most likely happen in change formulation stage, they further identify some reason rise resistance that consist of (a) organizational values in relation to change values that cause a strong implementation climate to determine whether employee to accept or oppose to change (b) discussion sectional politics that form employees resistance.2.2 Factors affect employees resistance to changeLiteratures have identified variety of factors affect employee resistance to change, the most cited views of the factors fall on the organizational level, for instance the communication process, employee participation, change facilitation procedures in change process (Ricky Griffin ,2008) to improve organizational effectiveness. Moreover, employee motivation (David Clarence and McClelland, 1987) and quality of leadership (Ken W. Parry, 1999) have been widely acknowledged to have limit on employees work initiatives, involvement and commitment, so that it can argue s to be a significant factor to affect employees willingness to change.Above factors virtually are the ways to deal with the subtext of organizational humanity on the stage of change process. However, one must understand the root factors compete to affect employees perception towards organizational change. Fail to understand the intrinsic factors govern employees values and beliefs guided behavior in the context of the way they were doing and expected in the future, and all the necessities organization attempt or should to do to implement and facilitate change is crucial.Therefore, the research will mainly explore on the individualised factors played to affect employee resistance to change including age, grammatical gender, personality traits ( venue of control) and employee educational level as follows2.2.1Age frustrate Boomers refer to people who are innate(p) between 1945-1964. This generation grew up in an era of unprecedented economic growth and stability, so as to be regarde d as a generation that finds comfort with long term employment with one organization. This has provided them with a false sense of stability (Loomis, 2000).Their perceive functional values emphasize on chain of command, team upwork, technically challenged, team work and loyal to employer As they born after War II, which they entered the economic boom era, Money and job security such as heart time employment are definitely extremely important for them to actualise their living. In this regard, it is argued that Baby Boomers are easier to accept organizational change as their working value of chain of command which they tend to commit to the vertical order. Moreover, the inception of organization loyalty to a fault attributes them to be more pull rather than resistant or any other negative reactions. (Hui-Chun, Yu and turncock Miller, 2003) Another neuropsychological research held by (Stanford University professor Laura L. Carstensen et al. 2000) on the family birth between age and emotional experiences found that the periods of exceedingly positive emotional experience were more likely to endure among sure-enough(a) people and periods of highly negative emotional experience were less stable. With age, older adults report relatively low levels of worrying (Sandra Hunt, Patricia Wisocki and Julianne Yanko, 2003), experience less anger (Schieman,1999), and have lower levels of emotional distress after natural disasters (Bolin Klenow, 1982-1983). The implication of these findings are older employees have better capability to regulate their negative emotions with organizational change and adjust themselves to adapt the environment.Employees adaptability has been seen a key attribute to a successful organizational change (Heslin , 2005).Compared with Baby Boomers, Generation X refers to those people who were born between 1965 to 1980. This generation of employee tend to more independent, self-motivated and self-sufficient (Loomis, 2000). This is becau se most X generations did not have enough of their family management as children because their parent may have been single or working parents. X generations therefore became adaptational at handling things on their own and in their own ways. Their work value is comprehend more on personal satisfaction, and their poses towards work are focus on flexibility empowerment, loyal to skills. (Hui-Chun, Yu and Peter Miller, 2003). Hence, when the change participation with their own interest such as against what they used to do , their skills, or leave less empowerment to them, they will feel unmotivated towards to commit to the change. However, David J. OConnell, Eileen McNeely and Douglas (2004) argue that since Xers entered the workforce under the employment of deal, in which career plan and development are full-sizely individual responsibilities and where the average worker can expect to make several changes during their working lives. In this regards, it seems like Xers are more adaptive to change.However, there are also many scholars manage the kind between the age and the personal adaptability to change, such as Mirvis and Hall, 1996. new-fashioned research held by OConell, McNeely and Hall, 2008 also support this assertion, reporting that age is restrain measured as a categorical variable namely the characteristics about an individual .2.2.2 GenderAlthough many literatures have acknowledged the impact of gender difference on the management practice, there had been little systematic attention focus on identifying the gender roles on effective change management relatively. Feminist perspectives have tended to highlight not only the impact of organizational change on womens relatively marginalized position but also the role of women in the change management (Melissa Tyler, 2005). Jamie L, Michael G and Homer Tolson (2005) research findings bespeak that there is a difference between male and female decision maker of their emotional expressiveness, and women are regarded to process better skill at encryption and decoding emotions (Laura K. Guerrero and Kory Floyd, 2008). Emotions are intensive feelings that are directed at soul or something (Stephen P. Robbins and herds grass A. Judge, 2010). Goleman-the founder of emotional intelligence theory also mentioned that women are good at reading others feelings than men averagely in his set aside published in 1995. The skills to encode and decrypt emotions generally have advantage to develop and maintain relationships (Laura K. Guerrero and Kory Floyd, 2008), because skilled encoders have ability to express their internal emotional state so that other people can decode their emotions more easily and accurately (Burgoon and Bacue, 2003). In this regard, the chances such as misinterpret and conflict due to implicit or unclear message delivered or received prone to be decreased, the communication engenders more easily and effective. In many literatures, communication has been widely acknowledged as a effectual approach to eliminate resistance to change. Therefore, women are deems to be more successfully engaged in change circumstances.Maddock (1999) added that Women focus on relational aspect of how to do things,while men tend to be expected to appreciate what to do. It appears that women are emotionally discreet on how they are difference to process the information, express and interpret their view points to react to change before do any decision. Combined with womens secondary position in labor market due to gender discrimination, especially in Confucian countries, in addition to their greater responsibilities in family and child care than men, which cause women are relatively powerless to challenge the situation (Melissa Tyler, 2005). Hence Melissa argues that women in change management appear to be positioned as performing an interpersonal cash in ones chips associated with safety providing security in times of unexpected turbulence and anticipating. On the basis of these arguments, it seems that women tend to avoid conflict in working in this regard and to accept the change accordingly.2.2.3 Personality TraitsSome people are quiet and reserved, while others are aggressive and outgoing. Some people are trustworthy, some are not. People differ with each other in various dimensions as a result of different behavior and attitude towards things in personal manner and working. The individuals differences are shaped by personalities (Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge, 2010) Personality refers to the traits and characteristics that make individuals eccentric (Greenberg and Baron, 2002). The most frequent used definition of personality was produced by Gordon Allport nearly 70 years ago which he commented that personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment. Personality thus becomes an important reason mangers need to know to gen erate a view of employees likely behaviors and examine their coping reaction. Meselaar and Cozijnsen (1997) further highlighted the personality is a determinate of individual reaction to organizational change.locus of control refers to the degree people believe their own behaviours determine what happens to them. People believes they have more control over their destiny are referred as internal, and people who believe they have less control over their life and the results are attributing to the will of God, or to the fortune of being born in the right social class or family are referred as external. At this point, it is suggested that people behave differently towards change. Wilson (1992) developed an approach referred as determinism to study change management portrays the manager and other organizational members as pawns touch by change rather than as agents who can initiate and rock-steady change. Their ability to influence is limited because of the main determinates lie outsid e the organization. John Hayes (2010) argues that those who are overcommitted deterministic view of change may be inclined to believe that the locus of control is external to themselves and the organization and may therefore develop view that there is little they can do to influence events. Hence, people who think this way is less likely to attempt to adopt a proactive approach to the management of change than those who have more internal view about locus of control.2.2.4 Educational aimAlthough there were not many literatures specifically emphasize the employees educational level to their resistance to organizational change, it is widely acknowledged (e.g. George H. McCall, Karl E. Ristow and Daniel J. Cimini, 2004) that higher education improves employees personal management, time management, communication skills and problem solving skills. Higher education be by Roberg (1987) refers to the instruction that was obtained at university or colleague. According to Thomas Kent Gaylor (2001)s research on 286 police officer from two North Texas Police department in 2001, result shows no significance relationship between the educational level and employees openness to change. However the limitation of his research was lack of discrepancy in respondents education level. Nevertheless, the author believe that higher education of employees will be more likely to support and commit organization change with more positive thinking of why the change is needed, hence the research intend to do further evaluation with different samples on the relationship of educational level to employee resistance to change since it is a logic factor that higher education equipped with employees more knowledge and broader thinking and believe, which lessen the tendency to be dogmatic and to be more creative.2.3 Chapter SummaryChapter 2 of Literature Review has explored on the current literatures on employee resistance to change in terms of the natural, symptoms and reasons. The inevitable resistances from employee impulse the research to further find out the factors that affect employee resistance to change. The research noted many factors including communication process, employee participations, change facilitation process, employee motivation and quality of leadership, and lastly mainly reviewed the personal factors played consist of age, gender, personality traits (locus of control) and employee educational level influence various aspects from values and beliefs and emotions as a result of different behavior and levels of adaptability reacted to change after(prenominal) exposit the literature review of factors affect employees resistance to change, the paper will tackle the main objectives of this research. Starting with the description of research methodology, samples and limitation of the research, and so paper will touch on the analysis part of the questionnaire, to examine the reflected results against with the literatures reviewed front on, so as to evalua te its universality of the factors in the sample organization.Chapter 3- Research Methodology3.1 Secondary ResearchThe research was carried out at the beginning though a secondary research to review the current literatures on the eye sockets of the study, which contains of the nature, symptoms and the reasons of employee resistance to change and the factors affect employee resistance to change from a more intrinsic view by looking at employee personal factors. The factors focus on the employees adaptability to change determined by age and gender, one dimension of personality traits -locus of control, and employee educational level. The information is collected from textbooks, journals and articles from reliable and worthy online Journal Publications, National Library and Campus Library.3.2 Primary ResearchIn order to evaluate the factors been presented in literature review, the research will primarily employ questionnaires as the main methodologies for information gathering. The questionnaire will be carried out with various employees working in a large organization. The methods allow directly and victor information to be gathered from participants. Questionnaire results are to be consolidated, and will be analyzed using various questionnaire analyze techniques, to interpret the data.The main reason of using questionnaire and interview is because data is collected directly from specific target respondents. Interviewers have the ability to ask extra intensive questions of the respondent concerning descry responses.3.2.1 Research SamplesThe research was conducted using data collected from a large size agribusiness organization located in Singapore, mainly doing care anoint plantation and trading. The reason of choosing this organization is because it is currently undergoing turbulence and change on merger with one small size palm oil trading company and one ship chartering company. And it also has experienced many merger and change in the past. Therefore the target samples of the questionnaire participants in the organization must have many varies views on organizational change to enable the research generate more practical reflections from employees perspective on organizational change and change effect on them, aims to evaluate the universality exertion of all those factors on employee resistance to change presented in literature on the target sampling.The questionnaire attempt to invite cl employees in this organization from four departments who are affected by the merger plan, respectively 25 employee from IT department, 35 employees from logistic department, 25 employee from finance department and 65 employees from operation department.3.2.2 bound of This ResearchDuring the research, data collected could be deviated due to limitation in the research methodology as followsData may not range the entire population due to the limitation of sampling sizeAs the four department employees may experience different kinds of minor chan ges in their department respectively, whether the change offend their interest or not superpower bring subjective bias towards their response to the questionnaire, hence the accuracy of data collected will be deviated.Respondent who experience the past organizational change may bring different perceptions towards new change.The choice of the question may limited respondents response.3.3 Chapter SummaryChapter 3 presented the methodology of this research which sedulous on secondary research to review the current literatures on the area of the study, and also the primary research using questionnaires to collect data. Research Samples chosen was a large agribusiness organization who is experiencing turbulence and undergoing merger and work structural change. The limitations of the research were also discussed including the sample size, respondents bias, past organizational change experience as well as the choice of questions may also affect the accuracy of the survey result. Next ch apter will touch on the research result analysis and discussion.Chapter 4- Result Analysis and DiscussionThe questionnaires were distributed to 150 employees in IT, Logistic, Finance and Operation department respectively as planned in Chapter 3, the responding rate is about 76%, namely 114 employees attend the questionnaire. next are the result of each factors being tested.4.1 AgeThe research finding on age factors shows that respondents in different age group perceived change differently and appears with different level of resistance. In contrary with literatures presented earlier on demonstrating age have negative relationship with organizational change where people are more emotional stable and adaptable to organizational change as they age. Instead, the result shows that in the age group of 20 to 65+, employees are more resistant to change as they age an interesting finding is that for employees aged below 20, whom were surprisingly scored higher label on resistance. Figure 4. 1.2 shows details of scores on resistance in each age group.Figure 4.1.2- Age group vs Resist to change scoreThe possible causes lead to this result might because when younger people firstly enter the workforce with no experience and lower educational background, they are uncertain about their skills and abilities. They may behave self-concerned and less elastic dealing with working matters, and not mature enough to regulate their emotions as they are undergoing a transition from childhood to adult, school life to working life with increased responsibilities, time is needed to help them accept such big changes and adapt themselves in the new environment. As they age and become more mature, they seek for competence, career movement and relationship, they are more conciliative and motivated to change themselves in the organization to achieve their objectives. As time goes on, they feel tired and queried about what supposed to be. They are loyalty to their skills and fear losing it i n the future. Stability, job security and sense of seniority may become the main values after they age 46. Hence they might act more resisting to change as demonstrated in below figure. ace (1980)s Life Stage Theory displayed some common characteristics against to the above analysis and assumptions, which the author would like to research further.4.2 GenderOut of total 114 respondents, 78 are women, and 36 are men, most of men respond powerfully agree that organizational change is necessary and beneficial, and express their willingness to take challenges. Although there is no strong evidence to show that women are more resistance to change, most of women strongly agreed with the statement that when things are not going as plan, they tend to feel stress and if there is significant change regarding the way things are done, they would probably feel stressed. At this point, the research result suggested that women tend to be trapped in stress situation more easily than men. Hellriegel, D. Slocom, J. W., and Woodman, R.W.(2001) has pointed out that organizational change can be viewed as greatest source of stress on job and perhaps employees life. accent mark cause low morale, high desertion rate and consequently humble in job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The women research samples in this study reflect lower ability to regulate stress in working and life that affect their job performance. When organizational changes go against their interest, plan or principles, family life, it easily get women feel stress emotionally and potentially displace their resistance level which can be described as unconscious covert resistance (Marc Maltz, 2008) whereby employees are unaware of their resistance to change. Such symptom as mentioned in Chapter 2 is difficult to recognize and manage. The result urges the management to recognize gender-related problems in the organizational process. The implication of the result underlines the importance of evaluating and m anaging performance between women and men employees in implementing change.4.3 Locus of ControlFigure 4.3.1 shows the relationship between Locus of Control versus Resist to Change scale. The extent of Locus of Control are divided into 5 category based on the score respondents received on answering 10 specially intentional question (Q7-Q16) catered to identify the individual level of locus of Control. For each reject answer that suggested Internal Locus of Control, the participant are give 1 point, the end results are totaled up with a formula (N/10)x100. The result are categ