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Seeks to help managers to recognize different types of resistance and how to react to them. Categorizes types of resistance (resistance quadrants) and presents questions to help identify the personality of the resistor. Resistance to change can be intentional or unintentional, covert or overt. Describes causes of resistance and presents diagnostic questions. Managers with self‐awareness and a sense of humour are most successful in overcoming resistance to change.

This paper examines organizational change, focusing on the distinction of changes according to their scope and presenting a typology of evolutionary and strategic changes. It also offers an in‐depth study of resistance to change. Through empirical research, the paper analyzes the importance of the sources of resistance to change defined theoretically, and considers both types of changes. The article shows which sources of resistance differ most, according to the scope of change, offering hints about where organizations should pay special attention when initiating a change process.

Traditionally, resistance has been cast as adversarial ‐ the enemy of change that must be defeated if change is to be successful. While it is apparent that classical management theory viewed resistance in such a manner, recent literature contains much evidence that suggests resistance may indeed be useful and is not to be simply discounted. Present day suggestions and prescriptions for managing resistance have evidently disregarded this research and left little room for utility in resistance. This paper argues that the difficulty of organisational change is often exacerbated by the mismanagement of resistance derived from a simple set of assumptions that misunderstand resistance’s essential nature. It is suggested that management may greatly benefit from techniques that carefully manage resistance to change by looking for ways of utilising it rather than overcoming it.

This paper's purpose is to examine the nature of resistance to organisational change – why and how it occurs and the importance of effective response.

The paper argues that change resistance may in some circumstances be a hindrance and an obstacle to achieving effective organisational change.

The paper reveals that, if understood and dealt with effectively, change resistance may also form a constructive part of the process of organisational change management. The importance of a clear understanding of the reasons underlying change resistance and appropriate and effective responses is emphasised.

This paper provides useful information for those wishing to implement organisational change.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are inherent to firms evolving in today’s business world, whether they be corporate giants, SMEs or start-ups. While the ultimate objective of an M&A is to improve the newly constructed firm’s performance, financial and technical impacts are but some of the considerations the organization will need to face. Indeed, employee resistance appears to be a major factor in the overall success of this strategic move. Throughout this three-part paper, the purpose of this paper is to provide a thorough overview of the forces at play in employee resistance to change, its influence on the M&A’s success, and the ways to address such resistance.

Based on existing empirical studies, industry expert findings and academic reviews, this paper sought to link together the concepts of communication at a time of change, leadership, employee involvement, feeling of adherence to the firm (the four key pillars), and their respective influences in how they may handicap or aid the firm in achieving its M&A objectives.

Although it may seem like a straightforward concept, resistance to change in the turbulent time that is an M&A situation is anything but simple. Classic assumptions of resistance being a negative force or participation being a requisite part of overcoming resistance are challenged. At the same time, leadership and employee feeling of adherence to their previous organization play a supporting role when compared to the significant influence of communication pre, during and after the merger. The ensuing portrait is, thus, multifaceted and underscores the complexity of handling an M&A at the human resources level.

Whilst the paper allowed to identify and link the different factors at play, a thorough empirical study in order to compare and contrast those factors at an M&A’s different stages (pre-during-post), and thus evaluate their respective importance, would be commendable.

In providing an overview of several aspects at play in employee resistance to change, this paper allows management practitioners to consolidate their knowledge on the process’ four key pillars.

By illustrating not only its – expected – negative outcomes, but by also providing a glimpse at some potential benefits in terms of increased merger performance, this paper gives managers incentives to not always challenge but also embrace their employee’s resistance to change as a healthy part of the firm’s transformation process.

This literature review provides an overview of resistance to change and draws parallels between the concepts explored herein and the M&A situation, which would be useful to the general practitioner undergoing an M&A.

As Piderit (2000) points out, much of the work on resistance to change borrows from the field of mechanics, conceptualizing resistance as a force that slows or stops motion and increases the energy and work required to alter the rate and magnitude (distance) of movement. These ideas are evident in Lewin's (1947) work on resistance in which he conceptualizes a quasi-stationary equilibrium as a dynamic balance between a field of forces driving for movement in one direction and a field of forces driving for movement in the opposite direction; movement in the equilibrium occurs only through increases and decreases in these forces.

Pandemic along with causing disruption in economy and health of the communities, has also exposed the vulnerabilities of the people and the government. Innumerable research papers reported that this is leading to an increase in psychological issues like depression, OCD, anxiety, etc.,. However, our past experiences with pandemics has shown that the survival of communities depends on the level of adaptability and change management. This study aims to observe the influence of the disruption in emotional health measured in terms of Level of Adaptability and Level of Resistance to Change as a result of Lockdown.

(1) Assess the level of disruption in the emotional health (in terms of Level of Adaptability and Level of Resistance to Change) of the people due to this Lockdown. (2)Impact of this disruption on physical health.

This is a cross-sectional survey of the urban Indian population. The sampling method used was the snow-ball sampling. Adaptability and Resistance to change have been considered as the measure of a person's emotional health and then correlated to their physical health.

The study hypothesized that people underwent emotional disruption and that affected their physical health negatively. But our findings showed that people were happy and used this time to improve their lives and relationships. The study found age having a significant association with both adaptability and resistance to change. There was inverse correlation between Resistance to change and physical health. And the level of Adaptability was considerably high in participants who were greater than 30 years and participants who were Self-employed or salaried.

The disruption in the lives of people due to Lockdown has given ample time for families to reconnect and relationships to improve. People have had time to introspect and hence have adapted well to the impending crisis.

In the period of organizational change and transformation, the attitude of employees towards change has become a key factor in the success of organizational change. Based on the uncertainty management theory (UMT), the paper considers authentic leadership as an important antecedent of employee resistance to change and explores the mediating role of perceived uncertainty and the moderating role of uncertainty avoidance between authentic leadership and employee resistance to change.

The paper conducted a questionnaire survey study and a scenario experimental study. In study 1, the authors collected two stages of data from 256 employees in Central China, one month apart. In study 2, the authors designed a scenario experiment and invited 130 Chinese adults to participate.

The authors find that authentic leadership can effectively reduce employee resistance to change by reducing employee perceived uncertainty. In addition, for individuals with a higher (vs lower) degree of uncertainty avoidance, the direct impact of authentic leadership on perceived uncertainty and the indirect impact of authentic leadership on resistance to change through perceived uncertainty are both stronger (vs lower).

The presented results reveal the mechanism between authentic leadership and employee resistance to change from cognitive perspective and depict an important step toward understanding how authentic leadership and employee uncertainty avoidance interact and how they interact with employee resistance to change.

This research aims to explore the effect of change management on job satisfaction. A conceptual model involving knowledge management and resistance to change as moderators tested the relationships in the context of a developing country, India.

Data from 413 respondents from four important sectors – healthcare, education, manufacturing and information technology – were collected from southern India. First, the psychometric properties of the survey instrument were checked, and then hypotheses were tested using Hayes's PROCESS macros.

The results indicate that change management significantly predicts employee productivity and job satisfaction. Further, employee productivity mediated the relationship between change management and job satisfaction. This study also found that the resistance to change (first moderator) and knowledge management (second moderator) interacted with change management to enhance employee productivity.

This study has several contributions to the practitioners and academic scholars. The study has limitations, which are inherent in survey-based research, of common method bias and social desirability bias. However, the authors have taken adequate care to minimize these biases.

The three-way interaction (moderated moderated-mediation) tested in this research uniquely contributes to the literature on change management. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this moderated moderated-mediation has been tested for the first time in the context of a developing country, India, and provides valuable insights into the practicing managers and change agents in bringing successful change in organizations.

When organizations implement a new information system (IS), they often experience users' resistance behaviors. This study explored the effects of IS self-efficacy, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and anxiety on resistance to IS change within the hospitality domain. It also compared these relationships before and after completing e-learning courses for a new IS.

Survey responses were gathered from current and future hospitality employees. All hypotheses were tested via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The results demonstrated that (1) IS self-efficacy had significant effects on both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of IS; and (2) IS anxiety had a significant impact on resistance to IS change, both before and after completing the e-learning courses. The results also showed that self-efficacy had a significant effect on anxiety and, in turn, resistance to change, after completing the e-learning courses, but not prior to the training.

This study addressed the lack of theory-driven empirical research on predictors of user resistance to IS change, based on social cognitive theory, technology acceptance models, and user resistance research.

Based on the findings, hospitality operators and vendors can focus on improving factors influencing user adoption of a new IS when they design and implement it. Operators can design better change management strategies to reduce resistance to IS change.

Few investigations have been conducted to explain the relationships among the aforementioned factors, before and after completing e-learning for a hospitality IS.