Active and Passive Resistance to Organizational Change

Author(s):  
Mehmet Eymen Eryılmaz ◽  
Filiz Eryılmaz

Today, almost all organizations (private or public, small, medium or large in size etc.) need to change. However, organizational change efforts are not always successful for various reasons. Active and passive resistance to organizational change is one of these. In this chapter, efforts to form an entrepreneurship minor program in a public university and some reasons for active and passive resistance to it are examined. For this examination, data was mainly collected from one-to-one and semi-structured interviews which were mostly conducted with the vice deans of various faculties and from the participative observation of one of the researchers. In addition, some documents about the program were examined.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 269
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Vlachopoulos

This study investigated perceptions of organizational change management among executive coaches working with British higher-education leaders and factors that make leaders effective when managing change. This basic qualitative research used semi-structured interviews with eight executive coaches selected through purposeful sampling. As main challenges to efficient, inclusive change management, participants mentioned leaders’ lack of a strategic vision or plan, lack of leadership and future leader development programs, and lack of clarity in decision-making. They recognized that leaders’ academic and professional profiles are positively viewed and said that, with coaching and support in leadership and strategic planning, these people can inspire the academic community and promote positive change. Additional emphasis was given to the role of coaching in the development of key soft skills (honesty, responsibility, resiliency, creativity, proactivity, and empathy, among others), which are necessary for effective change management and leadership in higher education. The paper’s implications have two aspects. First, the lessons of the actual explicit content of the coaches’ observations (challenges to efficient change management and views of leaders); second, the implications of these observations (how coaching can help and what leaders need).


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Westerberg ◽  
Susanne Tafvelin

Purpose – The purpose of the this study was to explore the development of commitment to change among leaders in the home help services during organizational change and to study this development in relation to workload and stress. During organizational change initiatives, commitment to change among leaders is important to ensure the implementation of the change. However, little is known of development of commitment of change over time. Design/methodology/approach – The study used a qualitative design with semi-structured interviews with ten leaders by the time an organizational change initiative was launched and follow-up one year later. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the interviews. Findings – Commitment to change is not static, but seems to develop over time and during organizational change. At the first interview, leaders had a varied pattern reflecting different dimensions of commitment to change. One year later, the differences between leaders’ commitment to change was less obvious. Differences in commitment to change had no apparent relationship with workload or stress. Research limitations/implications – The data were collected from one organization, and the number of participants were small which could affect the results on workload and stress in relation to commitment to change. Practical implications – It is important to support leaders during organizational change initiatives to maintain their commitment. One way to accomplish this is to use management team meetings to monitor how leaders perceive their situation. Originality/value – Qualitative, longitudinal and leader studies on commitment to change are all unusual, and taken together, this study shows new aspects of commitment.


Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492110070
Author(s):  
Kathryn Shine

Numerous quantitative studies from around the world have found that women are under-represented as sources in news content. This study aims to add to the existing quantitative research by describing female experts’ attitudes about being interviewed as news sources, and their experiences of interacting with journalists. It reports the findings of semi-structured interviews with 30 Australian female academic experts from a broad range of disciplines. Almost all of the women experts in the group were willing to be interviewed by a journalist, and reported that their experiences with the news media had generally been positive. However, they referred to various factors that may act as deterrents. These included a lack of confidence, a reluctance to appear on camera, time constraints and a lack of understanding about how the news media operates. This research provides valuable insights for journalists and editors, and outlines recommendations about how to encourage female participation in the news.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-103
Author(s):  
Ain Suraya Harun ◽  
Norhanim Abdul Samat

Teacher trainees should be prepared to teach and exposed to the approaches, models, and techniques of literature teaching. Being ready can also boost their confidence to teach literature so that the lessons can be delivered smoothly.  These teachers are so new to teaching that they might face difficulties when teaching English, specifically literature. There are teaching techniques, strategies and approaches that those pre-service teachers can investigate to understand better how to apply in their teaching. Additionally, their lack of exposure towards literature teaching can also affect the performance of teaching. This paper seeks to investigate pre-service teachers’ readiness to teach literature in schools and the challenges faced by them while teaching literature. It also attempts to offer suggestions to improve better literature teaching. This mixed method research study used questionnaires distributed to 22 TESL pre-service teachers from a public university in Johor. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two lecturers who have vast experiences in supervising pre-service teachers at schools. Results show that a majority of fourth year TESL students are ready to teach literature with the training and courses provided by the university. Also, among the challenges that they faced are time management and their students’ feelings on the subject. This study hopes to provide insights to training teachers on literature teaching.


2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 785-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliza Maria Rezende Dázio ◽  
Márcia Maria Fontão Zago ◽  
Silvana Maria Coelho Leite Fava

Abstract OBJECTIVE To understand the meanings that male university students assign to the condition of users of alcohol and other drugs. METHOD An exploratory study using a qualitative approach, with inductive analysis of the content of semi-structured interviews applied to 20 male university students from a public university in the southeast region of Brazil, grounded on the theoretical-methodological referential of interpretive anthropology and ethnographic method. RESULTS Data were construed using content inductive analysis for two topics: use of alcohol and/or drugs as an outlet; and use of alcohol and/or other drugs: an alternative for belonging and identity. CONCLUSION Male university students share the rules of their sociocultural environment that values the use of alcohol and/or other drugs as a way of dealing with the demands and stress ensuing from the everyday university life, and to build identity and belong to this social context, reinforcing the influence of culture.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Madeline Pringle

Organizational change is inevitable and its impacts will affect all members, albeit to different degrees. These changes also bring about uncertainty, especially as it pertains to one's organization-based identities. However, when studying change and identity, organizational communication scholars have often missed studying the interplay of one's many organization-based identities and how these are made sense of and managed amidst major organizational change. This thesis employs a phronetic-iterative methodology to analyze 16 semi-structured interviews with U.S. graduate students to understand how they have made sense of and managed their organization-based (i.e., graduate student, teaching assistant/instructor, department, university) identities after the COVID-19-induced transition to fully online education in Spring 2020. Analysis of this data suggested that participants used two types of ideal self discursive resources to make sense of and manage these identities, while also experiencing their sensemaking and identity management processes in two distinct stages. Additionally, participants revealed the importance of organizational places as it pertained to making sense of this change and its impacts. With these findings, this thesis extends theoretical work surrounding sensemaking, identity, and place, especially as it pertains to organizational change and providespractical recommendations for organizational leaders in academia to assist some of their highly impacted and identity-precarious populations--graduate students.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. pp71-83
Author(s):  
Julie Béliveau ◽  
Anne-Marie Corriveau

Organization members often complain about insufficient time to reflect collectively as they grapple with constant significant changes. The Learning History methodology can support this collective reflection. Given the scant empirical studies of this action research approach, the present paper fills this gap by giving an overview of this methodology and by presenting a qualitative study that answers the following research question: How does the Learning History methodology contribute to collective reflection among organization members during major organizational change? To answer this question, an empirical research project was led within five healthcare organizations in Canada during their implementation of the Planetree person-centered approach to management, care, and services. The data set includes 150 semi-structured interviews, 20 focus groups and 10 feedback meetings involving organization members representing all hierarchical levels in the five participating institutions. The results highlight the five types of contributions of the Learning History methodology to collective reflection within the five institutions that participated in the study: 1) a process of expression, dialogue, and reflection among organization members; 2) a portrait of the change underway; 3) a support tool for the change process; 4) a vector for mobilizing stakeholders; and 5) a source of organizational learning.  The results also show how organization members’ collective reflection is built through the various stages of the Learning History methodology. By demonstrating that this collective reflection leads to true organizational learning, the findings position the Learning History as a research-action method useful both from a research standpoint and as an organizational development tool. In the conclusion, lessons learned using the LH approach are shared from a researcher’s perspective. This paper should interest researchers and practitioners who seek research methodologies that can offer an infrastructure for collective reflection to support organizational change and learning.


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Kump

Previous approaches to describing challenges inherent in radical organizational change have mainly focused on power struggles. A complementary but less researched view proposes that many problems occur because radical change causes certain incongruences within an organization. In line with the latter perspective, this article suggests that radical change leads to incongruences between “what they do” (practice), “what they know” (knowledge), and “who they are” (identity) as an organization; to achieve the change, these incongruences need to be accommodated by the organization’s individual members. The article takes a multilevel perspective and describes how in radical change organizational goals may interfere with individual characteristics at the intersections of practice, knowledge, and identity. This enables a fine-grained analysis of reasons why radical change efforts may fail, beyond power struggles. The model is concrete enough to help change managers foresee many practical problems, such as member disidentification, routine breakdowns, or knowledge gaps.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Hosseini-Nezhad ◽  
Saba Safdar ◽  
Lan Anh Nguyen Luu

This longitudinal qualitative research aimed to investigate the psychosocial adaptation trajectory of Iranian international students in Hungary and the challenges they encountered. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at seven-month to one-year intervals with 20 Iranian students; inductive content analysis was utilized to analyze the interview transcripts. Three topics were identified: (1) visa and banking challenges, (2) the impact of the currency crisis in Iran on mental health, and (3) positive and negative changes in psychological well-being over time. The results revealed that almost all students’ well-being improved over time, despite facing challenges related to visas, banking, and Iran’s recent economic crisis (specifically, the drastic plunge of the Iranian currency).


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document