Organisational change factors : more than disgruntled employees or poor process

The origins of resistance research began 70 years ago where the concept of groups developed from the individual, where variances in individual responses led to a balance in forces that promote or resist change (Patalano, 2011), being akin to inertia in the sciences. In group dynamics there are elements of interdependence in the task, where change begins with an initial state followed by an eventual equilibrium (Patalano, 2011, Lewin, 1945). Rather than purely being an individual response researchers have postulated that the original studies were surrounded by concepts of systems and group activities (Dent, 1999, Burnes, 2004, Patalano, 2011). More recently resistance has been investigated from an individual perspective where feelings, frustrations and motivational decrease are possible and management is interpreted as the controller so being responsible for the deficiency, leading to a suboptimal change outcome (Patalano, 2011, Coch, 1948). The research to date has investigated resistance factors singularly, yet more recently there has been postulation that the factors may co-exist and interrelate. It has been argued that the future research should not be conducted merely at a single level but also should include a multidimensional framework covering attitudes, continuous change and other dimensions (Bouckenooghe, 2010). Yet after this review it is contended that the concepts are diverse where there is no clear way forward for the research to advance. The topic has been credited as beginning with attitudes to change (Coch, 1948), later developed into that of readiness (Jacobson, 1957), resulting in a more recent concept that the perspective ranges from positive to negative (Lines, 2005).