Resolving Employee Resistance to New Personnel Policies: A Case Study

1948 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-196
Author(s):  
Lillian Low
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Crestani ◽  
Jill Fenton Taylor

PurposeThis duoethnography explores feelings of belonging that emerged as being relevant to the participants of a doctoral organisational change study. It challenges the prolific change management models that inadvertently encourage anti-belonging.Design/methodology/approachA change management practitioner and her doctoral supervisor share their dialogic reflections and reflexivity on the case study to open new conversations and raise questions about how communicating belonging enhances practice. They draw on Ubuntu philosophy (Tutu, 1999) to enrich Pinar's currere (1975) for understandings of belonging, interconnectedness, humanity and transformation.FindingsThe authors show how dialogic practice in giving employees a voice, communicating honestly, using inclusive language and affirmation contribute to a stronger sense of belonging. Suppressing the need for belonging can deepen a communication shadow and create employee resistance and alienation. Sharing in each other's personal transformation, the authors assist others in better understanding the feelings of belonging in organisational change.Practical implicationsPractitioners will need to challenge change initiatives that ignore belonging. This requires thinking of people as relationships, rather than as numbers or costs, communicating dialogically, taking care with language in communicating changes and facilitating employees to be active participants where they feel supported.Originality/valueFor both practice and academy, this duoethnography highlights a need for greater humanity in change management practices. This requires increasing the awareness and understanding of an interconnectedness that lies at the essence of belonging or Ubuntu (Tutu, 1999).


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Alya Ateeq Al Remeithi ◽  
Syed Zamberi Ahmad

Learning outcomes This case study focuses on change management and employee resistance when implementing a new initiative. The case may be helpful to students to clarify their understanding of the following: the importance of employee involvement in the change management process in the government sector. Understand how to help employees to deal with change more effectively, maintaining their commitment and bringing them successfully through the change. Understand the importance of communication during the change process. Successful approaches used when implementing change, such as the Lewin model and Kotter 8. The obstacles to change, including resistance and adverse reactions to change and connecting employees, as well as the causes of resistance when implementing a change. Case overview/synopsis The Crown Prince’s Court is an independent government entity established in 1971, providing support to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi with the help of almost 300 employees. The Training and Career Development subsection headed by Sumaya Al Saedi decided to initiate an online training and development program for employees. Given that national service, maternity leave and emergency leave had led to working pressure and less training and development for the employees, Sumaya and her team realized that few employees were registering for the course and few of those that did register actually completed their course. Several causes were identified that had led to employees avoiding the online courses. Work pressure and technical issues were among the most salient reasons that kept registered employees from completing the course. The lack of policies at an institutional level to aid changes in training structures reduced the number of employees who felt that they could register for the courses. Therefore, Sumaya and her team had to decide how to attract their employees to online courses and how to support them. Complexity academic level This case study was written for Change Management courses in Bachelor of Business Administration programs. This case examines employee resistance to change when implementing a new system. It can, therefore, be used for undergraduate-level courses. As it concerns employees during the implementation of changes, this case study can be used to help students develop their planning and implementation skills. By focusing on internal departmental challenges, students are introduced to the change process of implementing an initiative and how to deal with employees in the organization. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 6: Human Resource Management.


2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Cooper

Explanations of politicization tend to focus on historical trends, administrative traditions, and government preferences. Absent from this literature are the actions of bureaucrats themselves. Drawing on theories of employee resistance from organization studies suggesting that changes threatening the financial security and professional identity of employees may be resisted, this article explores whether bureaucrats resist, and seek to deter, efforts of politicization. Through a most likely case study design of New Brunswick (Canada), this article finds that bureaucrats not only resisted efforts of politicization but that such actions also deterred the government from making any further dismissals.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
pp. 386-392
Author(s):  
Felix Chari ◽  
◽  
Vhuramayi Chimbindi ◽  
Martin Chikozho ◽  
Nyasha Mapira ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk J. de Vries ◽  
Andries Haverkamp

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the added value of philosophy in understanding and overcoming resistance to quality control. Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes a case in which the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd was applied to give advice on a standardisation project within a company. The authors evaluate the project and resistance to it after six years, using the same philosophical approach. Findings – Economic goals of quality control were achieved without any substantial employee resistance by addressing non-economic aspects. Apparently, social needs are not necessarily detrimental to economic goals. On the contrary, it is difficult to achieve economic goals if the social aspects are not being addressed. Research limitations/implications – Though based on one case study only, the findings suggest that a multi-aspect approach to quality management is very promising. Practical implications – The approach is not just a TQM tool but rather a way of addressing various aspects in a systematic and balanced way. Familiarising managers with this approach should help them to balance financial and other aspects without making those other aspects instrumental to achieving financial targets. Originality/value – The paper presents a new multi-aspect approach to quality management, based on philosophy in business research. It seems that the value of this approach reaches beyond the area of quality management and can be important to organisation studies in general.


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (01) ◽  
pp. 102-129
Author(s):  
ALBERTO MARTÍN ÁLVAREZ ◽  
EUDALD CORTINA ORERO

AbstractUsing interviews with former militants and previously unpublished documents, this article traces the genesis and internal dynamics of the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (People's Revolutionary Army, ERP) in El Salvador during the early years of its existence (1970–6). This period was marked by the inability of the ERP to maintain internal coherence or any consensus on revolutionary strategy, which led to a series of splits and internal fights over control of the organisation. The evidence marshalled in this case study sheds new light on the origins of the armed Salvadorean Left and thus contributes to a wider understanding of the processes of formation and internal dynamics of armed left-wing groups that emerged from the 1960s onwards in Latin America.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lifshitz ◽  
T. M. Luhrmann

Abstract Culture shapes our basic sensory experience of the world. This is particularly striking in the study of religion and psychosis, where we and others have shown that cultural context determines both the structure and content of hallucination-like events. The cultural shaping of hallucinations may provide a rich case-study for linking cultural learning with emerging prediction-based models of perception.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Povinelli ◽  
Gabrielle C. Glorioso ◽  
Shannon L. Kuznar ◽  
Mateja Pavlic

Abstract Hoerl and McCormack demonstrate that although animals possess a sophisticated temporal updating system, there is no evidence that they also possess a temporal reasoning system. This important case study is directly related to the broader claim that although animals are manifestly capable of first-order (perceptually-based) relational reasoning, they lack the capacity for higher-order, role-based relational reasoning. We argue this distinction applies to all domains of cognition.


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