Managing resistance in an organizational transformation: A case study from a mobile operator company

Organizations change. Change can be organized by projects and programs. Relevant environments of a change project or program can have different relationships to the change and may exert resistance. This paper presents a case study of an organizational transformation of a mobile operator company. The objectives of the paper are to discuss and reflect the management of resistance within a change program. Resistance is considered to possibly have positive and/or negative impact on a change, and to be exerted by internal or external environments. Within this change program, resistance is explicitly considered from a risk management perspective. The author therefore draws analogies to risk and discontinuity management and offers a model to manage resistance to change within a change program. The model discusses the identification and evaluation of resistance potentials, the planning of managing resistance, the avoidance and promotion of and the preparation for resistance, the resolution of resistance and the controlling of resistance measures and potentials.