Organisational Change

4.3.3 Consequences of Resistance to Change

If organisations do not overcome employees' resistance to change, they may have to pay a price. The consequences to the organisation may be drastic, depending on the extent of resistance exhibited by the employees. Employee reactions to change can be overt, subtle, implicit, immediate, or deferred. Sometimes, where changes of great magnitude are introduced without employee acceptance, the consequences may be overt, such as a strike. Needless to say this would cost both the organisation and the employees a lot of pain. Employees need not always be as overt in their resistance to change as to strike, but they could react in very subtle and dysfunctional ways. They could, for instance, introduce errors ...