Framing Resistance: Identifying Frames That Guide Resistance Interpretations at Work

Abstract

Programs aimed at implementing change in organizations regularly experience high failure rates. Exploring resistance to change is one promising way to better understand what might be done to improve these rates. Resistance to change has often been envisioned as employee noncompliance with one-way change messages. This study instead conceptualizes resistance as an interpretive system between implementers and employees. The project developed a grounded typology of the interpretive structures that employees and implementers used to interpret others’ behaviors as resistance or not. Four frames (or cognitive schema) that guide resistance interpretations were identified: (a) disagreeability, (b) protecting role performance, (c) conflicting stakes, and (d) habitual environment. Analyses examined patterns in these frames. This work develops a map of resistance frames that researchers studying resistance to change, communication campaigns, and implementation communication will find useful.