Obstacles to effective organizational change:
the underlying reasons
Keywords
Organizational change,
Resistance, Costs, Work,
Legislation, Employees
Abstract
Our world abounds with constant,
relentless change to the extent
that most people no longer have
an open mind about it.
Unequivocally, they want it to
stop. Many organizations have
initiated change programs which
have failed. Often, such failures
are blamed on staff or on external
constraints, such as cost,
workload, and legislation. In this
study, more than 500 responses
were obtained from participants
who completed the statement:
``The three biggest obstacles to
bringing about effective change in
my organization are . . .'' A total of
89 per cent of these responses
pointed to factors within the
organization itself.
The views expressed in this
article are those of the
authors and do not
necessarily reflect the
official policy or position of
the Air Force, the
Department of Defense or
the US Government.
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
23/1 [2002] 6±15
# MCB UP Limited
[ISSN 0143-7739]
[DOI 10.1108/01437730210414526]
[6]
Bruce G. Hoag
Performance Advantage Ltd, Ely, UK
Hans V. Ritschard
RAF Lakenheath, nr Brandon, UK
Cary L. Cooper
Manchester School of Management, University of Manchester Institute of
Science and Technology (UMIST), Manchester, UK
Introduction
Constant change has permeated completely
and indiscriminately every aspect of life and
work. Its pace is ever increasing; and far
from embracing change, many managers
have had enough, and some would like it to
stop (Kanter, 1995; Chia, 1999). On the other
hand, there are those who believe that this
upheaval has benefited them through
improvements in technology (Galbraith,
1967) for example, and they anticipate eagerly
the opportunities that further change will
afford them in developing better products
and services and increasing their markets
(Koopman, 1991). Some will concede only that
they must change to survive, and still others
pretend that recent changes are just a blip in
an otherwise predictable continuum.
However, most recognize that some kind of
change is necessary in their organizations
and have made various attempts to
accommodate these pressures.
Many see change as a threat because the
outcome is less certain than leaving things as
they are (Fox-Wolfgramm et al., 1998; Greve,
1998). This dichotomy of attitudes cuts across
hierarchical boundaries in unexpected ways.
One would anticipate that pro-active, open-
minded managers would embrace change
willingly, as additional opportunities to
make their organizations grow, to generate
more sales and deliver more value to
customers (Katz and Kahn, 1978; Freiberg
and Freiberg, 1997). Equally, one would
expect employees to do all they could to
preserve the status quo in order to protect
their turf, social position, and livelihood
(Klein, 1970; Maslow, 1970; Watson, 1970;
Zaltman and Duncan, 1977; Kanter, 1995; Cox,
1997), and to change only when they believed
it was in their interest to do so (Manganelli
and Klein, 1994).
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Perhaps surprisingly, our research has
shown that the opposite is true: staff often
see the need for change and are anxious to
just do it, but their managers seem to be
unwilling or incapable of exercising the
leadership required (Kotter and Schlesinger,
1979; Manganelli and Klein, 1994). This article
will consider some of the popular reasons
managers give for why organizations resist
change and suggest some new underlying
obstacles.
Perspectives on obstacles
The belief is held by some that obstacles to
change are situational and too numerous to
consider (Zaltman and Duncan, 1977; Kotter,
1995); however, this seems to be more myth
than reality. Generally, the literature we
reviewed was divided into two categories:
1 External influences ± factors which
managers believed were outside of their
control.
2 Who should be blamed when change
initiatives failed.
External factors
There is a category of factors which
comprises a popular mythology. We call this
folklore the rumor mill ± a collection of
implied beliefs which has no empirical
support. The rumor mill has suggested that
the three main obstacles to change are cost,
workload (Zaltman and Duncan, 1977), and
legislation (Meyer, 1979).
Some managers believe that their
organizations cannot change because too
many resources have been committed
already to ``sunk costs'' ± monies spent
tooling up to deliver their existing products
or services. Changing direction, in their
opinion, could jeopardize their position,
especially if things go wrong (Tichy, 1983).
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Bruce G. Hoag, Other costs may take the form of ``managerial
Hans V. Ritschard and time'' (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979).
Cary L. Cooper
Obstacles to effective Some see change programs as one more
organizational change: thing to do in a day, week, or month when
the underlying reasons there is already an insufficient number of
Leadership & Organization hours to do what is deemed to be important
Development Journal
23/1 [2002] 6±15 (Kanter, 1995). This belief is understandable
given the complexity associated with
meaningful and effective change, but every
day, managers choose to change some things,
but not others. The issue, therefore, is not
lack of time, but lack of will.
Others believe that the scope for change in
their organizations is limited by government
legislation (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979;
Jackson, 1999), but these constraints have
been around since the beginning of politics
itself. While some might argue that this has
hindered organizational change, there is
little evidence to support this.
Some believe that other external factors
obstruct organizational change. For example,
managers who experienced ``institutional
change,'' such as that which occurred during
and after the collapse of the former
communist regimes of eastern Europe,
reportedly found it difficult to identify
and embrace the new value systems
(Newman, 2000).
Market conditions have been cited as a
barrier to change (Sachwald, 1998), but it is
more likely that they have forced
organizations to change rather than actually
preventing it.
Some organizations might resist change
because of an in-born desire to control
events, reduce uncertainty and preserve the
status quo (Watson, 1970; Katz and Kahn,
1978; Tichy, 1983; Carr et al., 1996). Closely
associated with this are ``ideologies'' which
``represent solutions to past problems''
(Newman, 2000).
Staff
A second category of obstacles discussed in
the literature is staff. The collective message
seems to be that if factors outside of the
organization cannot be blamed for the failure
of change initiatives, then it must be the fault
of the employees (Piderit, 2000). This
conclusion is remarkable considering the
great lengths to which most organizations
have gone to publicize the mantra that people
are its greatest resource (Meyer, 1979).
Koopman (1991) implies that all
organizations have ``resistors'' ± people ``who
will resist any change at all costs.'' Larsson
and Finkelstein (1999) report that staff
exercised active and passive resistance in
response to merger and acquisition activity
by speaking out or resigning, through
``sabotage, absenteeism, disobedience, and
shirking.'' However, none of these studies
attempts to explain why staff had resorted to
such measures; only that they were to blame
for doing so.
In spite of the challenges just mentioned,
all organizations change or adapt to some
degree, often positively, during their
lifetimes. For example, staff turnover alone
changes an organization: it changes when
one person is hired or another leaves (Fayol,
1987). In addition, changes occur as the result
of the introduction of new products or
services, and the deletion of old ones.
This is not to say that external factors do
not have an impact; they do. Equally, some
staff do resist change; but the blame for
unsuccessful organizational change must lie
with those who are responsible for
implementing it, not with other things or
other people. Indeed, if factors such as
institutional change, government
regulations, market conditions, and
disgruntled employees are responsible for
preventing positive change, then it means
that managers are nothing more than
hostages to fortune. If, however, it is accepted
that change can afford opportunities through
which the adept manager can take advantage,
then it will be recognized that, while these
factors have influence, fundamentally they
are not obstacles.
In this article, an obstacle is a factor which
prevents the implementation of positive
change in organizations. In view of this
definition, it is easy to understand why the
examples discussed above really are not
obstacles.
The primary purpose of our study was to
determine what obstacles impeded positive
change in organizations. In it, we took the
view of human resources professionals ±
those people who often are tasked with the
change program implementation, but who
receive much of the criticism when things go
wrong.
Methodology
The study primarily was exploratory and no
a priori hypotheses were identified.
However, there was a general suspicion that
the rumor mill had identified incorrectly the
underlying obstacles. Over a period of
several months, 146 human resources
professionals in the UK ranging in
responsibility from students to human
resources directors, to a few pensioners, were
surveyed. Each participant was asked to use
a worksheet to record the three biggest
[7]
Bruce G. Hoag, obstacles to effective change in his or her
Hans V. Ritschard and organization, and the reasons for those
Cary L. Cooper
Obstacles to effective obstacles if the respondent knew them. The
organizational change: questions were entirely open, and no
the underlying reasons
suggestions were offered.
Leadership & Organization
The worksheets were handed out by the
Development Journal
23/1 [2002] 6±15 primary author prior to a presentation he
gave as a guest speaker to various groups of
Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development and Institute of Management
members. None of the respondents knew in
advance that the worksheets would be
distributed, and all worksheets were
collected before the presentations began. The
surveys were administered in an entirely
anonymous fashion, and no minimum
number was sought. Respondents were
offered copies of the research findings in
exchange for their participation.
No attempt was made to qualify
participants in any way, so no figures are
available regarding, for example, their
ages or gender.
There were a number of anomalies in the
collection of the data. Three participants
changed the wording of the question,
disqualifying their responses from the
survey. One admitted to being self-employed,
and since the question was about ``my
organization,'' those data also were omitted.
A fifth respondent simply indicated that his/
her work was as a part-time careers advisor,
and commented, ``I don't think I can provide
any useful answers.'' Although a few
participants were retired, it was not clear
who they were, and so their responses were
included in our sample.
Some participants listed only one or two
obstacles; others provided several. On a
number of occasions, obstacles for some were
reasons for others. Consequently, each
obstacle and each reason had to be evaluated
on its own merits to determine whether an
obstacle or a reason was being reported.
Where reasons did not clarify the obstacle, but
suggested a new one, the reason was counted
as an obstacle. A few responses were illegible.
As a result, 503 statements were collected.
A pilot test was conducted on 20 of the
statements to determine whether interrater
reliability could be established in rating the
responses. The primary author trained the
secondary author, and both then performed a
pilot evaluation. The evaluations were based
on a seven-point Likert scale according to the
following categories:
. cost;
. workload;
. legislation;
. leadership;
. management;
[8]
. culture; and
. other.
The following guidelines were used:
1 Cost ± referred to insufficient financial
resources.
2 Workload ± concerned the volume of
work.
3 Legislation ± referred to laws, legal
mandates, or regulations.
4 Leadership ± included vision, planning,
strategy, direction, purpose, or decision
making.
5 Management ± referred to senior
managers, and the organization's
structures or systems.
6 Culture ± referred to middle or junior
managers', or employee perceptions and
training or development deficiencies.
7 Other ± any statements that did not fit in
the above six categories.
A score of seven was given when the
responses matched exactly or included the
category word; a score of six was assigned to
responses which made the rater think
immediately of the category, but did not
include the category word; a score of five was
assigned when the rater felt that the response
could have been placed into more than one
category. In these cases, the best category
was chosen for the rating. The remaining
responses were rated one to four depending
upon the strength of feeling of the rater that
an item should be included in a particular
category. Only one category was permitted
for each response. On those occasions when
none of the six categories seemed
appropriate, the ``other'' column was ticked,
and the rater was instructed to use one or two
words to describe a suitable category.
Each category was weighted equally as a
nominal variable (n = 7). A low interrater
reliability was obtained using the method
described above, and low reliabilities
followed two further pilot evaluations with
training. These low interrater reliabilities
seemed to derive from the apparently
overlapping categories that initially were
chosen. As a result, we had to admit that our
initial expectations may have been too
ambitious. The data were then re-rated again
by both the primary and secondary authors
using only four categories defined as cost,
workload, and legislation. The remaining
category, defined as ``other,'' was made to
include all other responses which could not
be placed confidently into the first three
categories. By using these four categories,
a high interrater reliability coefficient of
0.81 on all 503 statements was obtained
(Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994).
Bruce G. Hoag,
Hans V. Ritschard and Discussion
Cary L. Cooper
Obstacles to effective The manner in which the sample was collected
organizational change: was one of convenience (Fink, 1998).
the underlying reasons
Consequently, some might argue that since
Leadership & Organization participants were not selected randomly, this
Development Journal
23/1 [2002] 6±15 study contains bias and therefore threatens
internal validity (Campbell and Stanley, 1963).
This charge, however, is unwarranted since no
selection took place at all. Those in attendance
simply were given the opportunity to take part.
To our knowledge, no one refused, and no
suggestion was made implicitly or explicitly
that non-participation was unacceptable.
Others might argue that since no specific
statistics were noted regarding the sex, age,
levels of responsibility of the participants, or
size of the organizations represented that our
results were skewed in some way. However,
it must be noted that despite the absence of
this information, the words used by the
respondents to describe obstacles to
organizational change were remarkably
similar, suggesting that these factors were
observable by staff irrespective of those
delimiters.
External validity pertains to
generalizability. Since the literature seems to
have avoided staff perceptions in large
measure, and our study is based on data
collected from staff employed by a broad
spectrum of organizations, we assert that our
findings are generalizable.
A key word analysis was used to identify
obstacles to effective organizational change.
The rumor mill, which asserted that cost,
workload and legislation were significant,
was wrong, predicting only 11 per cent of the
empirical variance (Table I). However,
management and organizational culture,
which accounted for nearly 89 per cent of the
variance, emerged as the two most
significant obstacles to organizational
change (Table II). Communication was seen
as the channel through which the
Table I
Examined H1
Management/culture/
Rumor mill communication/miscellaneous
n (%) n (%)
56 11.1 447 88.9
Table II
Summary of underlying obstacles
Communication/
Management Culture Rumor miscellaneous Total
209 179 56 59 503
management influenced the organization's
culture, whether positively or negatively.
Leaders or managers?
There is no doubt that organizational
leadership is conceived and executed by
senior managers. Although it is possible that,
in the past, the roles of leader and manager
were performed by different people,
clearly this artificial distinction is
counterproductive in modern organizations.
One person can and often does fulfill both
roles. In fact, for organizational change to be
effective, these roles must be seamless, a
theme which was supported by our study.
While senior managers are expected to be
effective both as leaders and managers, it is,
perhaps, easier to understand these roles if
we discuss them separately.
In this study, respondents described five
characteristics of poor leaders and four
characteristics of weak managers which they
felt were obstacles to effective organizational
change. For clarity, we have used italics
within quotation marks to identify actual
quotes from our data.
Leadership
No vision
Leadership was seen to be poor when there
was no vision for the future. Many
statements referred to the ``lack of goals,
plans or strategies.'' Closely related to this
was the apparent focus on short-term
challenges. Other statements conveyed the
sense that senior executives were unable to
agree or to prioritize issues for change,
suffering from the proverbial analysis
paralysis. Uncertainty precluded action, and
no one seemed to be willing to take
ownership for any decisions regarding
change, possibly because no one wanted to be
responsible for failure.
It was implied that staff wanted to know
where their organization was headed, and
what to expect along the way. Managers who
could not or would not provide those
signposts were seen to be weak, failing to
exercise leadership. Staff expected executives
to decide where they wanted the organization
to go, to create a vision of the future, to
communicate it to the staff, and to work
towards it, recognizing from the beginning
that the outcome could not be known fully in
advance.
No support
Leadership was seen to be poor when
managers were unable to garner the support
of those concerned. Many responses
conveyed the idea that the staff were left to
interpret executive missives because
[9]
Bruce G. Hoag, managers could not articulate the need for or
Hans V. Ritschard and the methods of change effectively. In
Cary L. Cooper
Obstacles to effective addition, there seemed to be a less than
organizational change: wholehearted commitment to change by
the underlying reasons senior managers. This may have hindered
Leadership & Organization their ability to communicate clearly the
Development Journal
23/1 [2002] 6±15 benefits they expected.
Obstructive senior team
Poor leadership was cited as an obstacle
when the senior executives themselves
obstructed change (Cunniff, 1993). Several
references were made to the ``board,
partners,'' or ``key individuals.'' The sense
was that managers were more interested in
themselves than in the organization. In
addition, executives were seen to disagree
about what to do or what was important.
Responses such as ``fragmented views between
directors as to the priorities'' and lack of
`agreement of senior managers as to the best
solution/way forward' illustrate this.
Not yet
Some respondents implied that senior
managers had recognized the necessity of
change, but had adopted a not yet policy.
Several statements referred to the ``amount''
or ``pace'' of change. One respondent said that
his organization needed to ``secure the present
situation'' before embarking on any new
change initiatives. This perspective reflected
the view that any existing pressures to
change were temporary aberrations, and that
soon everything would get back to normal. In
fact, it appeared that many managers had not
understood why the current changes were so
intense or so radical, or what they would do if
normality failed to materialize.
No reason to change
Many respondents reported that their
managers saw no reason to change, taking
the view that what worked in the past would
continue to work in the future. These
managers seemed to assume that the context
in which the status quo was successful had
not and would not change. The question,
``why change?'' was echoed by several
respondents. This was seen as an absence of
leadership by subordinates who believed that
far from preserving the organization,
maintaining the ``status quo'' actually
threatened it. One respondent said: ``Old
school, dislike[s] new ideas from staff. They
know best.'' This was not a novel lament
among the responses. In fact, Taylor (1919)
said as much 90 years ago.
Management
The were four characteristics of weak
managers which were seen by many in our
[ 10 ]
sample to be significant obstacles to effective
organizational change (Kotter, 1995).
1 Pot-pourri. There was the sense that
managers dealt with a pot-pourri of
seemingly unrelated challenges. This was
reflected by statements such as
``seasonality of demand, lack of technology,
recruitment and space,'' and the tactic used
to cope with these challenges was
described as ``firefighting.''
2 Internal systems. The organization's
internal systems were reported to prevent
change initiatives from succeeding.
Historically, organizations have sought to
preserve themselves by controlling
everything: risk (Isenson, 1968), markets
(Goetz, 1968), subordinate activities
(Sayles, 1977), time (Mintzberg, 1973),
performance management, and budgeting
(Carroll et al., 1977) to name a few. The
hierarchy in traditional organizations
was structured deliberately so that
supervisors could control human
behavior at every level (Gulick, 1937).
The principle of organizational control
was designed to ensure that everything
remained the same, an ideal diametrically
opposed to change. When change
programs were introduced, the internal
organizational systems often were left
intact, creating a context within which
lasting change was untenable.
Metaphorically, this resembled bungee-
jumping, in which the organization was
propelled in one direction until the cord
was extended fully, whereupon it lurched
back from the brink, finishing its journey
within its own predetermined boundaries.
Respondents blamed failed attempts to
change their organizations on internal
systems such as ``functional (technical)
departments, reward systems [that]
promote the short term, administration,
bureaucracy, hierarchy and red tape.'' In
the face of such control, some remarked,
``why bother?'' Others implied that a ``lack
of sustainability'' and a tendency to drift
back to ``old ways'' made change programs
a waste of time. Another respondent
expressed his cynicism by saying that
``changes haven't worked before.''
3 Victim mindset. Managers claimed they
could not do anything differently because
of external factors. The irrationality of
this view was discussed earlier. One
respondent admitted that his organization
failed to ``work with external influences.''
Another blamed the ``competitive nature''
of the environment as an obstacle, and a
third respondent said that staff believed
Bruce G. Hoag, that they would ``always be victims of
Hans V. Ritschard and change.''
Cary L. Cooper
Obstacles to effective 4 Status quo. A common theme was that
organizational change: managers wanted the benefits of
the underlying reasons implementing change programs, but they
Leadership & Organization wanted to keep doing things the ``way they
Development Journal
23/1 [2002] 6±15 had always done them.'' One respondent
said, ``We've done the downsizing and the
right sizing, and we're trying to do all the
work we used to do when everybody else
was there.''
Culture
There is no agreement on the precise
definition of culture (Wilkins, 1983; Ashforth,
1985; Cooke and Rousseau, 1988). Some
understand it as ``shared beliefs and
assumptions'' (Ashforth, 1985; Nahavandi
and Malekzadeh, 1988). Schein (1987) says
that these beliefs and assumptions are
learned ``unconsciously'' through ``group
experience'' and ``define in a basic
`taken-for-granted' fashion an organization's
view of itself and its environment.''
Pfeffer (1981) says that:
[i]nstitutionalization . . . bind[s] participants
together with a common set of
understandings about the organizational way
of doing things [and] provides each person
with common beliefs . . .
Hofstede et al. (1990) says that culture is:
the collective mental programming of the
people in an environment . . . conditioned by
the same education and life experiences
(Hofstede, 1995).
In this article, culture is defined as the
emotional environment shared by members
of the organization. It reflects how staff feel
about themselves, about the people for whom
and with whom they work, and about their
jobs. These feelings are acquired through:
shared perceptions of daily practices [which]
are the core of an organization's culture[,]
shape[d by] the values of founders and key
leaders[, and] learned through socialization at
the workplace (Hofstede et al., 1990).
Therefore, managerial behaviors exemplify
acceptable and unacceptable staff behaviors.
Some researchers (see Ashforth, 1985;
Rousseau, 1988) have described differences
between climate and culture. However, since
our respondents made no such distinction,
neither do we.
As an underlying obstacle, culture was
described from four perspectives:
1 Uncertainty. Staff felt threatened by the
prospect of change itself. All change,
whether ``positive'' or ``rational'' creates
``emotional turmoil'' for those concerned
(Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979).
Uncertainty regarding the outcomes of
change left respondents feeling anxious
about their position in the organization
and, therefore, raised concerns about
their livelihood. For some this may have
meant that future plans had to be
suspended, either temporarily or
permanently. Others may have felt
stymied, unsure of what to do next
(Kanter, 1995).
Although managers may acknowledge
readily that better communication would
reduce uncertainty, some have argued
that confidentiality prevents them from
providing as much information as they
would like. Some people can ``tolerate''
greater ``ambiguity and uncertainty'' than
others (Duncan, 1972); but, in our sample,
managers who could not or would not
provide answers to questions such as,
``What does it mean to me?'' had to face
employees who felt that change was
``done'' to them without any
``consultation.''
When change programs impact on staff
personally, confidentiality can be seen as
a convenient excuse rather than a bona
fide reason for not ``keeping them in the
picture.'' It is imperative that managers
involve and communicate regularly with
the staff who are expected to implement
the change initiatives, since the
managers, and not the staff, will be held
accountable for its success (Koopman,
1991; Manganelli and Klein, 1994). Full and
open communication engenders trust and
cooperation; providing limited
information by hiding behind
confidentiality issues breeds fear, anxiety,
and mistrust. There is no middle ground.
Managers often are confronted by
uncooperative staff whose ``underlying
beliefs values, and norms'' are embodied
in their organizational culture (Tichy,
1983). Change programs may ask
employees to change what is important to
them. For example, in recent years, the
protestant work ethic (Weber, 1958) has
given way to the so-called now generation.
Delayed reward has been replaced by
instant gratification. Change programs
which impose criteria dependent upon
delayed reward are bound to be resisted
by those for whom instant gratification
has become the norm.
Managers who failed to address
concerns such as ``I may not have a job in
the new set up'' encountered staff who had
become suspicious of all organizational
motives, and who had lost faith in the
management as a whole.
Although it may be difficult to
[ 11 ]
Bruce G. Hoag,
Hans V. Ritschard and
Cary L. Cooper
Obstacles to effective
organizational change:
the underlying reasons
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
23/1 [2002] 6±15
2 Turf protection. Some respondents
3 Can't cope. There was a perception that
communicate strategies for change in a
climate where there is a dearth of effective
and ``relevant'' change models, the failure
to do so will contribute to the perception
that, despite all the hoopla surrounding
such programs, everything eventually
will get back to normal (Newman, 2000).
reported that there was a tendency for
staff to ``cling to the status quo.''
Statements such as ``tradition'' and ``turf
protection'' were typical. Some
respondents indicated that staff often
resisted change, but this seemed to have
more to do with living with a known devil
(Watson, 1970), than risking an
experiment with a new one, especially
where information regarding the impact
on them was sparse.
Closely related to this was the notion
that admitting that change was needed
was tantamount to saying that the old
ways were wrong, and that someone was
to blame for taking the organization down
that road. Responses such as
``unwillingness to make and learn from
mistakes'' were indicative of this
perception.
the staff were unable in some way to cope
with a change initiative. ``Lack of
knowledge, skill'' or ``training,'' or some
deficiency in their abilities were cited as
obstacles. This view is shared by Zaltman
and Duncan (1977), who found that:
the more personnel perceive that there is a
need for their department to change to meet
the increased demands of society, and so on,
the less do they perceive that their
department is really able to deal with
change.
It is possible that staff concerns such as
``fear of going wrong'' or ``anxiety about
their position in the structure'' were
interpreted as veiled indicators of this
perception. Staff who doubt their ``future
competence'' might resist change if they
believed that they could not learn the
new skills required to perform in the
new organization (Tichy, 1983; Kanter,
1995).
4 Internal politics. Statements such as
``eÂlitism, and inter-departmental rivalry''
suggested that internal politics was an
obstacle to change. People who needed
power or believed that their status would
be diminished (Cox, 1997; Zaltman and
Duncan, 1977) or who depended on others
for emotional or political security often
resisted change as well (Tichy, 1983). This
is an important consideration because it
demonstrates that ``[m]ajor structural

Table III
Summary of the literature
Obstacles
Management
Lack of leadership
Hierarchy, bureaucracy and
red tape
Systems, procedures and
administration; always done
it this way
Culture
People ± doubts about future
competence or place in new
set up; internal politics;
cannot cope
Fear and uncertainty
Reluctance or resistance,
change done to them
Tradition, status quo
Poor communication
Rumor mill
Related literature
Kotter and Schlesinger (1979), Cunniff (1993), Greenwood et al. (1994),
Kotter (1995), Newman (2000)
Manganelli and Klein (1994), Beer et al. (1995), Kanter (1995), Freiberg and
Freiberg (1997)
Bartlett and Ghoshal (1994), Jackson (1999)
Zaltman and Duncan (1977), Shepard (1995), Cox (1997), Johnson (1998),
Labianca et al. (2000)
Zaltman and Duncan (1977), Tichy (1983), Wilkins (1983), Hofstede et al.
(1990), Greenwood et al. (1994), Cox (1995), Hofstede (1995),
Langan-Fox and Tan (1997)
Pettigrew (1975), Koopman (1991), Carr et al. (1996), Begley (1998),
Larsson and Finkelstein (1999), Pideret (2000), Wanberg and Banas (2000)
Maslow (1970), Kotter and Schlesinger (1979), Tichy (1983), Fox-Wolfgramm
et al. (1998), Greve (1998), Johnson (1998)
Watson (1970; 1982), Kanter (1995), Dean et al. (1998)
Klein (1970), Katz and Kahn (1978), Pfeffer (1981), Cox (1997)
Zaltman and Duncan (1977), Koopman (1991), Manganelli and Klein (1994),
Kanter (1995), Wanberg and Banas (2000)
Zaltman and Duncan (1977), Kotter and Schlesinger (1979), Tichy (1983),
Kanter (1995), Jackson (1999)

[ 12 ]
Bruce G. Hoag, changes have political consequences''
Hans V. Ritschard and (Pettigrew, 1975).
Cary L. Cooper
Obstacles to effective
organizational change: Findings
the underlying reasons This study overturns the mythology that
Leadership & Organization cost, workload and legislation are the
Development Journal
23/1 [2002] 6±15 primary obstacles to effective organizational
change. Indeed, we have shown that it is
cultural entrenchment created by a
dysfunctional management which prevents
organizations from experiencing positive
change.
Future studies will enable us to describe
more precisely how management inhibits
change and how a culture which supports
change initiatives can be created. The clues
are there, but, at present, we can not state
this in a generalizable way.
A key word analysis found that the 503
unique statements were accounted for by 155
distinct statements. We believe that this
reduced group of statements will explain the
variance and will enable us to explain the
failure of change programs. The dependent
variable is change itself, and we will evaluate
management and culture as the independent
variables using factor analysis to discern the
subtleties between them.
Thus far, our study has accounted for most
of the factors proffered by other theorists on
organizational change (Table III) and
accounts for some which are not. In addition,
this study makes significant advances on the
elemental ideas articulated by Johnson (1998)
and others.
Future research
The next step will be to create a conceptual
model which explains how the 13 factors
identified in this paper are related. In a
subsequent study, we will discuss the
development of a new diagnostic which
reflects our findings. This work has begun
already.
Summary
Rumor has suggested that the primary
obstacles to effective organizational change
are cost, workload, and legislation. We found,
however, that when the executive level fails
to lead and manage the organization up to the
expectations of the staff this can create a
culture which is resistant to change. This
means that any obstacles managers
encounter in effecting organizational change
are largely of their own making.
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