Resistance to Organizational Change Efforts From a Careers Stages Perspective: A Conceptual Review

Abstract

This paper highlights that understanding resistance to organizational change efforts could benefit from taking a careers stages view. In mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, and/or other transformational change efforts employees must not only navigate the changed organizational landscape, but also have to resolve how the change impacts their career trajectories. Career stages of exploration, establishment, maintenance, and decline act as lenses that shape an employee’s experience of the work environment in characteristically different ways. I posit that these experiential differences should be considered in predicting who is likely to resist change and when. This conceptual critique offers an alternative explanation of the mechanisms and factors underlying resistance to change and presents a model and illustrative examples that shed light on unique career-related factors that can undermine and/or facilitate change efforts. Research questions and preliminary propositions are offered to spur future research, and practical recommendations for change agents are offered to effect lasting change.