| Conventional wisdom regarding organizational change and resistance presumes that change is extraordinary and resistance is to be expected. These notions, coupled with the assumptions that change occurs in a failure context and that people's resistive behaviors are driven by their fears, result in the belief that change is a problem that must be solved by management. This simplistic notion that fearful people resist change and management must overcome that resistance does not adequately describe the resistances and counter-resistances that are occasioned by the implementation and appropriation of data warehouses. This research study was launched to create a more accurate description of the dynamics of resistance to data warehouse initiatives as an archetype of organizational resistance to information technology driven change. Twenty five data warehouse program managers from higher education, high technology, and consulting participated as interview subjects in this study. Inductive theory building through qualitative analysis was employed. A descriptive model was constructed to document the interactions between change actors within the framework of the existing literature. The model uses three components to describe the systematic interactions between change agents and subjects in a data warehouse setting, namely, behaviors, assessments, and alignments. In terms of interaction, behaviors initiate assessments; assessments drive behavior choices, and alignments moderate assessments.;The degree of misalignment between change actors is the key variable discovered in this research. Misalignment is both practical to use and rich in meaning: it has its roots in history, personal success measures, cultural incompatibilities, and organizational dynamics. Seeking to control resistance through behaviors is counterproductive. If confronted, resistance will simply go underground. Seeking to control resistance through assessments is impractical because assessments cannot be directly observed. Thus, the practical control point for program managers seeking to reduce the debilitating effects of resistance and counter-resistance is to address misalignments. |
