Answer to Question #186466 in Economics for sushant

Question

A two-year-old start-up company dealing in 3D Printing is undergoing a major overhaul due to COVID 19 and require your help a. They are facing a lot of resistance to the changes being implemented and want to understand the reasons for this resistance? (5 Marks) b. Can you help them manage these resistances to change?

Answer 1

Resistance to innovation can have logical, psychological, social, economic reasons.

Logical resistance. It means the disagreement of employees with facts, rational arguments, logic. Logical resistance arises from the real-time and effort required to adapt to change, including mastering new job responsibilities. This resistance is associated with the real costs that the employees of the organization will incur.

Psychological resistance. Usually based on emotions, feelings, and attitudes. Psychological resistance is internally "logical" in terms of employee attitudes and feelings about change. Employees may fear the unknown, distrust managers, feel threatened by their safety or self-esteem. Even if managers consider these feelings unjustified, they are very real, which means that the manager must take them into account.

Social reasons for resistance to organizational change include:

· Interest in preserving the existing one. We are talking about those official, departmental, professional groups on which the solution of the problems of innovations depends. “No matter how difficult the situation may be, there are always social groups interested in preserving it, because they have grown accustomed to it, merged with it. Directly or indirectly, they tend to counteract changes that are undesirable for them. It is known, for example, that the growth of the independence of labor collectives is associated with the limitation of the interference of the apparatus of the ministries in their work. And this is seen in the apparatuses as a decrease in their power and even a threat to liquidate some of them.

The inertia of the organization. Organizational innovations of a social and managerial type are the cheapest from a financial point of view, but they deal with the most conservative sphere of human activity - characters, habits, values, etc. Therefore, from a social point of view, they are very expensive, sometimes leading to stress, conflict, and destabilization. The inertia of organizations is also explained by the lack of social technologies, professional methods serving innovation.

· Interdepartmental compromises. “When preparing a number of radical innovations of the managerial, economic, technical order, the consent of many bodies involved in it is necessary: ​​planning, financial, sectoral, control, etc. mutual concessions by reducing its innovative potential. Moreover, the interests of departments are respected, and the effectiveness of the innovation decreases, ”which in turn gives rise to a pessimistic attitude of some managers and specialists to the innovation.