Reframing resistance to change: experience
from General Motors Poland

Dorota Dobosz-Bourne and A. D. Jankowicz

Abstract

This paper describes the successful introduction of a kaizen scheme in a

General Motors factory plant in Gliwice, Poland. Employee value systems changed,
despite the presence of strong, pre-existing values that might have inhibited this process.
These findings are drawn on to examine the concept of ‘resistance to change’ and replace it
with a notion of ‘functional persistence’. Our case study illustrates how assuming this
position can aid the development of new work attitudes, as opposed to constraining the old
ones.

Keywords

Resistance to change; knowledge transfer; post-command economy; personal

values.

A background to work attitudes in Poland

Until 1989, Poland operated as a command economy that had its goals politically
determined by the monopoly of a national communist party taking many of its priorities
from Moscow (Kostera, 1996). In an economy of shortage with overwhelming customer
demand, industrial production aimed at maximizing supply within a centrally controlled
system that discouraged consideration of standards and quality at the point of
production/service delivery (Dobosz and Jankowicz, 2002). Closed borders and the
central allocation of production goals and resources eliminated competition from outside
of the Soviet bloc. Consequently management functions such as quality management, cost
control and marketing, were underdeveloped in the Polish economy (Kozminski, 1993).

The political nature of command economy operations strongly influenced the

development of Polish employees and managers during the communist years. Career
progression was severely limited for the 25 per cent of managers who, by the end of the
command period, were not members of the Nomenclatura list of previously vetted
members of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Szalkowski and Jankowicz, 2004).
Managers learned to avoid responsibility and risk, and developed networking and
political influence skills (Jankowicz, 2001; Obloj, and Kostera, 1994). However, this led
to conflict between people from different levels within the organizational hierarchy. As
the managerial role was largely conditional on party membership, Polish managers were
perceived as representatives of the system and its regime. This led to antagonism
between the workers and managers, and ‘them versus us’ behaviours emerged (Kostera,
1996). Mistrust of the system and a growing willingness to beat it were additionally

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online q 2006 Taylor & Francis

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/09585190600965431

Dorota Dobosz-Bourne, Lecturer, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of
London, London E1 4NS, UK (e-mail: [e-mail]); A. D. Jankowicz, Professor
of Constructivist Managerial Psychology, Luton Business School, University of Luton, Park
Square, Luton LU1 3JU, UK (e-mail: [e-mail]).

Int. J. of Human Resource Management 17:12 December 2006 2021 – 2034

reinforced by resentment, passivity and a mistrust of authority, values characteristic of
the Soviet style of management and its outcomes (Zaleska, 1998). Tischner (1992: 161,
present authors‘ translation) describes this attitude well: ‘Homo Sovieticus: chronically
suspicious, full of sour demands, unable to take responsibility or to commit himself, ever
ready to wallow in his own misery and misfortune.’

Prior to the explicit revolts of the 1980s, covert rebellion against the regime

demonstrated itself in Polish enterprises as a lack of discipline, commitment and orderly
progress – a rebellion, somewhat paradoxically, reinforced by government policy on
unemployment reduction and the fact that, under communism, the government
guaranteed everyone a job (Bednarzik, 1990).

Despite the government efforts to create an illusion of economic prosperity and social

equality in the Soviet bloc, Polish people inevitably compared the economic
achievements of the command economy with those of the West.

The constant close contact with other cultures, historically imposed, results in ambiguous
attitudes: for example, an admiration of Prussian efficiency clashes with the fact that for many
years, sabotage and not efficient work was a patriotic virtue ... Looking at other countries, Poles
tend to attribute their successes to what is lacking in the ‘Polish character’: order, efficiency,
method. Therefore, the system is a myth. (Czarniawska, 1986: 15)

Comparing themselves with the West, the Poles developed a perception that a free

market economy was a foolproof recipe for a prosperous and luxurious existence so
the enthusiasm and hope for dramatic change which exploded in the country after the
collapse of communism in 1989 was understandable. Poland wanted to transform its
economy into a free market and effectively catch up with the West (Kozminski, 1993).

An approach to the identification of values in multicultural cooperation

The changes of the 1990s and expansion of the European Union created numerous
possibilities for cooperation between Western and Eastern Europe. The emerging
markets attracted the attention of foreign investors, General Motors among them.
Clearly, the arrival of multinational companies would not always lead to a smooth
implementation of Western managerial practices and their subsequent economic success,
since the interaction between local workforce and foreign investors was inevitably going
to be affected by the cultural differences between the two groups. The values brought to
any multicultural collaboration by both sides determine the outcome of this process since
they govern action (Balnaves and Caputi, 1993) and the choices between more and less
preferred action that lead to institutionalization (Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996). Thus a
consideration of relevant values in the cultures involved in international cooperation, and
the extent to which these values differ as a function of the ‘cultural distance’ (Barkema
et al., 1996) between the cooperating organizations, is especially important for the
successful implementation of new management ideas.

In research on managerial values, particular values have traditionally been represented

as points or locations along a number of cultural dimensions, as identified by such
authors as Hofstede (1991) and Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997). While this
approach to the study of values specifies value dimensions as a helpful first
approximation, it does not necessarily indicate the consequences for behaviour. This
broad-brush approach creates a generalist definition of values at the societal level
(Gesteland, 1999 exemplifies the insights possible) that does not, however, necessarily
reflect the particular personal values held by the individuals involved. In-depth
understanding at the personal level is important – Jankowicz (1996) provides instances

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of the way in which similar behaviour in different cultures may stem from different
values, and vice-versa: differing behavioural consequences drawn from similar personal
values. Therefore, in this paper we use a particular combination of qualitative and
quantitative research techniques (Kiessling and Harvey, 2005) to identify values at both
social and individual level.

If it is the case that sociologists have neglected the impact of individual differences

on the social phenomena being observed, (Schein, 1996) while psychologists have
ignored the traditions of sociologists and anthropologists, who observe a phenomenon at
length and in depth before trying to understand it, it would appear important to use
techniques that focus on individual perspectives in depth without trivializing them. In
the present study, the repertory grid technique (Kelly, 1955) provides the former, while
extended observation and ethnographic interviews conducted in situ provide the latter,
the two together resulting in a richer and more precise picture than a more generalist
dimension-based approach to cultural values might offer. Kelly’s technique focuses on
constructs rather than concepts, a construct being a distinction that a person makes in
order to make sense of an issue. Importantly for our purposes constructs are always
expressed in the form of contrasts – in identifying our respondents’ priorities, we were
able to examine what each person values, but also, what s/he choose not to value by
behaving in a particular way (Fransella, 1995: 57 – 8). The combination of the two
approaches works well: unthreatening in its approach, the ethnographic interview builds
an atmosphere of mutual interest, affinity and closeness without excessive intrusion into
the interviewee’s privacy, preparing the way for an in-depth grid-based assessment of
personal values that many people might otherwise feel threatened by without such
preparation.

The ethnographic interview has a long tradition in knowledge transfer research

(Rogers, 1995) but the repertory grid may need some further description at this point. We
used it in three stages. In the first, interviewees’ personal constructs were elicited by
asking each person to focus on, and recognize important similarities in and differences
between, critical incidents (Flanagan, 1954) in their working life. Examples of such
constructs might be: ‘This incident was exciting and challenging, whereas in contrast,
these were dull, a matter of practicing standard operating procedures’; or ‘These
incidents were due to the expatriate managers’ misunderstanding of local custom and
practice, while these, in contrast, were due to the Polish employees’ misunderstanding of
the intentions behind the changes being introduced.’

In the second stage, each interviewee was asked to indicate the personal value

underlying each construct, by an iterative process (‘laddering’) that seeks to identify the
reasons underlying the preference choices implicit in each construct. (Thus, a construct
‘Conscientious timekeeping, (as opposed to) Constant late attendance at work’ might
result in a value ‘Order (as opposed to) Chaos’ given that, for this interviewee, being a
conscientious timekeeper is about being reliable; reliability is important because with it,
one can predict and keep track of events; and prediction is important because, without
it, Order dissolves into Chaos.)

Finally, for each interviewee, each item in the set of personal values derived in this

way was compared in a forced-choice technique to result in a prioritized list of personally
more central, and less central, core values. Jankowicz (2003) describes these and related
techniques in detail.

The empirical work was carried out in two divisions of General Motors, the Vauxhall

Luton plant in England and the Opel Polska plant in Gliwice, Poland. The ethnographic
interviews, followed by the three-step repertory grid process outlined above, were done
with 30 managers as key informants (Tremblay, 1982), 16 British, two German, and 12

Dobosz-Bourne and Jankowicz: Reframing resistance to change

2023

Polish, these last having been trained by the English ones. All were chosen because of
their direct and extensive involvement in the process of knowledge transfer from
England to Poland when the Opel Polska plant was set up on a greenfield site in 1996.

The individual grid information was used to supplement and amplify the individual

ethnographic account as outlined above; additionally, all constructs were pooled to
provide an aggregated picture of the constructs and values among all 30 interviewees.
This was done by a content analysis of the 211 constructs obtained from all 30
interviewees, using a boot-strapping procedure (Honey, 1979; Jankowicz, 2003) in which
an acceptably high researcher reliability was achieved. Categorization and coding by two
researchers working independently gave a final result of 79 per cent agreement, Cohen’s
kappa for this analysis being 0.77, with a high and stable Perrault – Leigh reliability index
of 0.86, (the 0.5 per cent confidence interval on the latter being 0.024). Personal values
were aggregated using a similar procedure.

Giving a meaning to kaizen in Opel Polska

In developing the greenfield site at Gliwice, General Motors followed their normal
practice of using the original Japanese terms (kaizen, andon and gemba) for the quality
development and improvement procedures which, together with TQM practices,
suggestion schemes, policy deployment procedures, some localized problem-solving
techniques (Nowak, 2005) and general procedural standardization across the whole plant,
made up their integrated approach to vehicle assembly. Kaizen may be based on an
incremental paradigm (Proctor et al., 2004), but General Motors used the Japanese term
rather than some Polish translation, as a blunt and deliberate signal that new ways of
thinking were required. More subtly, the lack of pre-existing associations to the initially
meaningless foreign term provided a clear field in which new and more desirable
associations might be formed – a clean slate, as it were.

Several stages, involving three distinct groups of people, were involved in the

elaboration of meaning that followed. We draw on the ethnography first before drawing
on the repertory grid findings on values.

One group consisted mainly of British managers, all with previous experience from

Toyota or Nissan in Japan and the UK, responsible for starting up the plant and
introducing kaizen to Poland. The second consisted of Polish supervisors selected
according to general ability and an openness to new concepts, with an average age of 28.
Most had no prior experience of vehicle manufacturing or assembly but had the
potential to take over the English managers’ responsibilities during the following
three years, (and by and large did). A third group was created to serve as translators,
both literally, until the first two groups developed facility in each other’s language but,
more importantly, as translators of the new ideas brought onto Polish ground by the
English managers; a translation process involving the negotiation of mutually
comprehensible meaning that made sense in a local cultural context but introduced new
cultural values (see, e.g., Latour, 1986; Rogers, 1995; and the discussion in Dobosz and
Jankowicz, 2002). These three groups of people were to see themselves as ‘the creators’
of Opel Polska. For the Polish participants in particular, this made for a feeling of
ownership quite unique among the sunset industries of the region (mainly coal and steel)
with their traditional, authoritative/authoritarian Polish style of management
(Jankowicz, 1994; Maczynski, 1994).

Selected from a pool of 46,000 applicants, the general workforce of 1,800 was chosen

for similar attributes: young, relatively inexperienced, willing to learn and energetic
enough to perform repetitive tasks for long periods of time while maintaining good

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quality standards. The lack of experience was perceived as an advantage for a candidate,
since GM managers considered working experience in the Polish car industry as
undesirable due to the poor production and management standards of the past, and the
danger of importing ‘bad habits’ that might be incompatible with General Motors’ vision
of quality assembly work. What was looked for was, as far as possible, a tabula rasa to be
enscribed and developed by intense training and guided experience in the run-up to the
start of production.

A phase in which the theory of kaizen, andon and gemba was outlined and the values

underlying them articulated was followed by training in generic, transferable skills
related to job families (e.g. the handling and integrating of elements of standardized work,
together with a set of associated problem-solving techniques). On-the-job training
followed, supported by hands-on supervision by the expatriate managers. Visits were
organized to other GM plants. While the training content was focused on the development
of specific technical skills, one of the earliest attitudinal lessons for the Polish employees
was that the commitment to quality values was more than the token sloganizing their
parents’ generation had experienced on the shopfloors of the command economy. The
message was conveyed in such an intense way that it was initially viewed as excessive and
exaggerated, by the general employees to be sure, but by their Polish supervisors as well.

So, an example from the training phase: the basic training about quality, what it is, what it gives,
its measurable benefits, and ways of assessing and reporting it. It’s safe to say that all the
reporting requirements were met with utter distaste, That, yet again, to the limits of endurance,
one was required to take everything apart in fine detail because that’s the rule, that’s the
standard, and there’s no avoiding it. Having said that, this attitude eventually got into people’s
blood. (Polish Manager 1, Opel Polska)

The change objectives were clear, and the difficulties of introducing new ways of

thinking were not underestimated. Fortunately, the English managers had prior
experience of start-ups to draw on; (see also Wickens, 1987).

We decided to take things from Japan based on what would fit in with the local community of the
North East of England. And the similar type of thing, here, how it would fit in with a local, Polish
culture. But that’s not, to say, well, the culture would necessarily accept this. Because we have
to say, we might break the culture of the local area. And we do things differently, because we
have to do it, to avoid a clash of standards. We have to bring the best ideas and working practices
to the business and if that doesn’t quite fit in to the Polish culture, then we have to furnish a new
culture. (English Manager 1, Nissan UK, GME, Opel Polska)

The development of working practices at the level of individual behaviour was

coupled with an effort to create and shape culture at the broadest, plant-wide level, using
techniques and rituals to identify and support desirable general behaviour such as
attendance, punctuality, timekeeping, open communication and team-work. For this to
happen, change on a deeper level of personal values was required – in Kelman’s terms, a
matter of internalization rather than identification with supervisors, or mere compliance
as a function of behavioural sanctions (Kelman, 1958, 1970) – together with changes in
the fabric of day-to-day experience.

I’m particularly impressed by their [foreign managers’] systematic approach to their job. That
they really can think, react, divide and connect, analyse and partition, allocate work, collect
results and come to conclusions, all in a deliberate and measured way. Sure, it reflects an
enormously well developed training background; at the same time, those people really must
believe in what they’re doing, otherwise they couldn’t possibly keep it up on a day-by-day basis.
That’s what we lacked in the old days. (Polish Manager 1, Opel Polska)

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2025

New ideas were introduced as clusters which need to coexist in order to be

successfully implemented. And so, the idea of kaizen was identified with the broader
issue of the careful organization of ones’ general creative efforts. Work uniforms were
reconstrued as symbols of single status and a resultant team spirit, rather than as the
military-style clothing designed to lower ones’ status, as they had been originally viewed
when first introduced. Individual responsibility, a trait that had been underdeveloped and
discouraged in the command economy (Kostera, 1995; Kozminski, 1993; Krysakowska-
Budny and Jankowicz, 1991; Lee, 1995), was encouraged through the creation of a
no-blame culture, performance related pay and TQM technique. It became clear that the
adoption of any single idea depended on the implementation of the remaining ideas from
its particular cluster at a more general, organizational and societal level.

Polish managers and employees had grown up in a recent culture in which the

legitimacy of power, its ownership and opposition, had been debated with considerable
sophistication at all levels of education and society (see, e.g., Czarniawska, 1986;
Milosz, 1981). The choice of symbol and the metaphors it embodied mattered. And so, it
is important to note that each cluster of previously unknown ideas was carefully planned
prior to introduction, with careful discussion of its meaning between the English and
Polish staff, a discussion in which, in the early stages, the role of the ‘translator’ staff was
crucial. This resulted in the need to adapt General Motors practices to the specifics of
Polish culture. For example, the introduction of a single-status canteen was all very well,
just one of the new practices whose function in expressing equality was straightforward;
but the nature of the menu was something else again.

There was a problem with the canteen and the food. The foreigners couldn’t understand why
there could be no meat on Fridays. And we had to explain to them that Poland is a Catholic
country, and we would rather not eat meat on Fridays ... But for them it was a complete novelty
and we had to convince them; eventually they got it.’ (Polish Manager 2, Opel Polska)

This was not a matter of providing alternatives, as one provides a ‘vegetarian option’

in the West; nor were the employees necessarily devout in their Catholicism. In this
culture, one simply did not serve meat on a Friday and that was that. Other practices
required substantial change and adjustment on the Polish side

For many people, it was just inconceivable that it was possible to collect sick absence records,
what their illness was, and when they’re due back ... But they accepted it, and I get the feeling
that the most important thing was that people realized the importance of being at work. If they
don’t turn up, we won’t produce any cars, so nobody will buy them, so we may as well shut
up shop and take a vacation. And they understand that. It seems to me that the most important
thing is that they realized the importance of their role, how crucial it is in all of this. (Polish
Manager 2, Opel Polska)

The point here being that absenteeism had been widely accepted in the old working

culture. Taking sick leave for trivial reasons, with a doctor’s certificate often obtained
illegally, was common practice for many employees, and systematic investigation
viewed as an unwarranted intrusion into one’s private life. Changing this attitude
required careful attention. As mentioned above, linking absenteeism with poor
production results was one of the strategies. Additionally, performance related pay and a
small prize for employees with model work attendance were introduced as incentives.

One might multiply examples of this kind of cultural negotiation over meanings as the

changes were effected but, to appreciate the processes and dynamics involved, it is
necessary to examine the enduring Polish values and orientation to change – a matter of

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500 years of history rather than 50 years of command economy or two years of the
General Motors’ change intervention.

The reception of these ideas in the Polish experience

The successful introduction of procedures that marry creativity with organization has
often been problematic for Poland in the past, both historically and in the more recent
times of the command economy.

The institution of the Liberum Veto (a requirement that all parliamentary Acts be

passed unanimously) was first introduced in 1652 and used extensively until 1764 prior to
its replacement by majority voting in 1791 just four years before the final partition of
Poland. This concept of consensus rule was principled and creative in its time, but was
fatally vulnerable to misuse by local factions and external powers alike, and, taken
together with the institution of a monarchy elected since 1370 (a principled and creative
approach to some of the problems associated with primogeniture) contributed to a state of
anarchy from the mid-seventeenth century onwards (Davies, 2005; Kasprzyk, n.d.). The
communist years left Poland with a cultural heritage in which organization and discipline
were not recognized as important by the average worker. Combined with a tradition of
sabotage and mistrust in the communist system, these attitudes made attempts to
introduce a systematic approach to work very difficult under the command economy (see
esp. Roney, 1997). Consequently, the issue of order versus anarchy, and the articulation
of an appropriate balance in the form of personal values, have been problematic in Polish
culture for many generations.

The following comment taken from one of the early training visits concerns the

practices of organization and discipline in the German Opel plant, and is a good reflection
of the possible interpretation of such practices by the average Pole.

They all work homogenously so that their progress has added value. And this is what I liked
there. The approach to their duties involves reliability but without exaggeration in diligence. If
anyone ever tells me that Germans are hard-working, I will ridicule them. They are merely
systematic to the verge of idiocy, to the averagely imaginative Pole. You might say they are sad
drones at work. All they do at work is work, nothing else!’ (Polish Manager 1, Opel Polska)

Turning to the repertory grid results, it is noticeable that the value for Order, Control

and Direction – as distinct from Freedom of Spirit – is among the top four most
frequently mentioned by the Polish interviewees: see Table 1.

Equally, it is clear that the reason that this value is placed as the most frequent is that it

was particularly important to the English managers as well as the Poles; moreover, three
other values were as important to the Poles: Self-actualization, Progress, and Being
esteemed and respected. But the issue is crucial.

Historically, Poles like to see themselves as people with a free spirit and a great sense

of style (see Hoffman, 1989). The Polish word ‘fantazja’ standing for ‘imaginativeness’
identifies a trait which is greatly valued in Polish culture (Dyczewski, 2002) and
literature, (e.g. Gombrowicz, 2003; Slowacki, 2004; Zeromski, 2001) since it provides an
outlet for individual creativity. Significantly, it is diametrically opposed to the notion of
being systematic and well organized, traits traditionally considered as boring and
unnecessary; the contrast appeared frequently among the constructs elicited in the
repertory grid. But it means more than that. There are also connotations of being
independent, free of subjugation, as distinct from being obedient to standard operating
procedures. In a self-paced working environment, issues of self-discipline are raised.
‘Poles see no harm in a little disorder. To them lines and queues stand for regimentation

Dobosz-Bourne and Jankowicz: Reframing resistance to change

2027

and blind authority. I once saw a Pole crash a cafeteria line just to “stir up those sheep”’
(Hall, 1966: 128).

Although fantazja can be beneficial in the process of continuous improvement where

creativity is important, other characteristics, such as the Polish tendency to be disorganized,
and the chaotic approach to work, might prove devastating. Shaping a group of young,
energetic Polish employees who value fantazja into a team engaged in continuous
improvement in a systematic way might seem impossible, particularly when one considers
the full constructs (the meaning being asserted and the meaning being contrasted) involved,
together with the values that underlie them. Kaizen requires discipline and organization if
one is to reap the benefits in creative work improvement. Attributes which seem to be
opposed in the Polish employees’ psyche need to co-exist. How might this be achieved?

The second-most frequently mentioned personal value indicates a possible way forward.

The relative frequency of this value confirms that the GM culture at Gliwice was driven by
a vision of progress shared by both Western and Polish managers. Both groups involved in
the knowledge transfer were thereby open to change, the Western managers because it was
their responsibility to bring it about, and the Poles because they had been selected for their
willingness to learn and their openness to personal change. Now, the concept of ‘progress’
overlaps considerably in English and Polish (Jankowicz, 2004). Both languages encode the
same two distinct aspects of development inherent in the notion of ‘progress’: development
as initiation, and development as onward movement. (For example, to ‘develop a project’
can mean ‘to start a project’ or ‘to make ongoing improvements in the project’.) And
(remembering that the full meaning of a construct is conveyed by taking its contrast into
account), the same two contrasts are made in English and Polish: development versus stasis
(zastoj) and development versus stagnation (stagnacja); the concepts are linguistically
isomorphic. For our Polish respondents, it was the latter aspect that was at stake, for kaizen
is precisely about onward improvement; and stagnation, in turn, was described by some of
these respondents as something that lacks fantazja.

The remaining categories in the top five that between them make up almost 75 per cent

of the values mentioned relate to the Maslovian needs of self-actualization, esteem and

Table 1 Content-analysed values for 28 UK and Polish managers

No.

Personal value

Total

UK managers

Polish managers

n

%

n

%

1

Order, control and direction:

versus freedom of spirit

24

17

29.3

7

19.4

2

Self-actualization

15

9

15.5

6

16.7

3

Progress

15

8

13.8

7

19.4

4

Being esteemed and respected

10

3

5.2

7

19.4

5

Relationships

9

5

8.6

4

11.1

6

Satisfaction/contentment

5

5

8.6

0

0

7

Pride

4

4

6.9

0

0

8

Good world/peace

4

2

3.4

2

5.6

9

Security

3

2

3.4

1

2.8

10

Optimism

2

1

1.7

1

2.8

11

Sharing

1

1

1.7

0

0

12

Meaningfulness

1

1

1.7

0

0

13

Patriotism

1

0

0

1

2.8

Total

94

58

99.8

36

100.0

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social interaction. The overall picture created by all five might be interpreted as a concern
for development but not at all costs. Perhaps the readiness of Poles to accept change
easily stems from the need for self-actualization rather than order and control.

All these people working here realize that one has to produce goods to the highest standard, the
highest quality. And that’s for several reasons. One very relevant factor, quite apart from
the awareness that goods which aren’t of high quality wouldn’t sell, seems to be that here we
have a factor which is fundamentally Polish, and that’s a factor which I would characterize as
aspiration ... Young people have this about them; they’re ambitious. In contrast to older people
who come to work to earn money, younger people are engaged, somehow, and want to be told,
well, yes, it’s you who are building this car. You can tell that from the way they keep taking
photographs of themselves with the cars, they’re identifying themselves with it. (Polish Manager
1, Opel Polska)

Both the ethnography and the repertory grid data indicate that, for the Polish staff in

particular, the value of progress was closely related to learning, risk taking and challenge.
Within the GM quality system, these values gained behavioural expression through
carefully and explicitly planned tasks and procedures designed to be monitored and
measured. While this involved order and control, it was clear to the Polish employees that
these procedures made for freedom of spirit because they represented an effective and
flexible use of their time, and the Polish sample came to accept the relationship between
the two as meaningful. It was the time management training provided as part of the
generic skills training phase (see above) that created the possibility of self-managed
choice over how one is to partition one’s time within the constraints of the production
requirements: ‘People do things that are more work for them; it’s more difficult for them
but they understand the importance of doing it’. (English Manager 2, Nissan UK,
Vauxhall Luton, Opel Polska)

Commercial and production indicators show that the start-up of the General Motors

plant at Gliwice was a success. During 2000, for example, the plant recorded the best
quality and performance figures of all GM plants worldwide. It would appear that the
introduction and implementation of new managerial practices, and the development of a
culture of continuous improvement in Opel Polska, played a large part. In learning new
ways of construing, the Polish employees successfully managed the tension between
progress/freedom, and organization/planning.

In one sense, kaizen, andon, gemba and the suggestion scheme might be seen as a

safety-valve: as a ‘vent’ or outlet for the imagination and creativity that make up the
Polish notion of fantazja. Of course, the employees’ suggestions for improvement could
only be put into effect by being systematized as part of the quality procedures in an
organized and planned manner – only those ideas that could be systematized and tested
could be realized. In this way, General Motors linked creativity with order, and
introduced this combination as a financially rewarding practice (employees being
remunerated for successful ideas) as part of a quality system to which, since it became a
required working procedure, there was no alternative. This not only encouraged people
to implement new practices, but also provided the only way to achieve good results and
rewards.

The language of ‘resistance to change’

How might one conceptualize this account? The conventional way would be to see the
experience at Opel Polska as an instance of resistance to change, successfully handled.
The Western managers acted as change agents engaged in a necessary and inevitable

Dobosz-Bourne and Jankowicz: Reframing resistance to change

2029

conflict with the Polish managers and employees who had a position to defend; but the
outcomes were positive, since the resistance was overcome. This kind of analysis
obscures more than it illuminates, however. Typically, it places the change agent on the
side of the angels, and the people being changed as mulish and obstinate, resisting
innovations that have proved successful elsewhere. (And sometimes, it neglects the
possibility of incompetence: that change agents have misunderstood the situation, or
simply that they are not very good trainers.) Rather more seriously, though, the military
metaphor, with its images of conceptual and procedural invasion, forceful attack on
entrenched positions, and the final breakthrough when those positions are abandoned and
all opposition is overcome, trivializes the processes involved.

This is because, although the approach does make some concession to the notion that

existing positions may have value to the people being changed, it tends to be couched in
terms that discourage any detailed examination of the functionality of those positions;
nor does it encourage negotiation and debate over the values themselves. The concept of
resistance to change as taught in the basic management texts (see, e.g., Hellriegel et al.,
1995: 662) seems always to express each of the reasons for resistance in negative terms.
To take just three examples: Existing perceptions are discussed in terms of ‘the
perceptual error of perceptual defence’ without taking into account that it is the change
agent, rather than objective circumstances in the phenomenal flow of events, that sets the
terms of reference as to what is or is not accurate perception. In citing Personality as a
factor (and, quite rightly, cautioning the reader against over-emphasizing its importance),
it is nevertheless just the negative traits such as ‘dogmatism ... dependency ... low self-
esteem’ that are quoted. In discussing the role of existing habits as a source of resistance,
it is the negative factors such as the need for comfort and security that are cited.

Yet one could easily conceptualize the role of existing perceptions in terms of

cognitive mechanisms, leaving the issue of perceptual ‘error’ as an open one. One really
should use the full, professional personality trait labels (liberalism versus dogmatism,
self-sufficiency versus dependency, low self-esteem versus high self-esteem), instead
of automatically assuming that a position of resistance is necessarily based on the
negatively evaluated characteristic. And one might discuss habit in terms of well-
practiced coping skills or of the need for a measure of predictability in one’s daily
experience, rather than as some kind of self-protective search for security. (See
Jankowicz, 1996 for a fuller account.)

Now, there is no doubt that GM possessed powerful sanctions – the ability to provide or

withhold labour in a region where one in four adults were unemployed (GUS, 1998), and in
effect, used them in selecting a biddable workforce that saw the arrival of General Motors
as a chance to create something significantly different from the past, an open-minded
approach that enabled them to redefine their role in post-communist industry where being
members of the secondary world economy was not an acceptable option. Nevertheless, it
is clear from the foregoing that there was still an issue of disparate perspectives, and strong
disagreements between the westerners and the indigenous employees.

Notice how these were resolved: not through conflict, but through the negotiation of

mutually sensible meanings. After recruitment, the threat of termination of employment
was not used, as an account based solely on power differentials might suggest. The new
practices were introduced through careful and delicate discussion between foreign
managers and Polish staff before the introduction of the new practices and the
implementation of a system of sanctions. The usefulness of the values brought to Poland
was first presented, discussed and negotiated with Polish employees, and only then
implemented in the plant, creating a field in which agreement might be possible. New
values, embedded in Western ideas, proved to be meaningful replacements for some of

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the values that characterized Polish car assembly in the past but only because, as
Alexashin and Blenkinsopp (2005), and Gilbert and Gorlenko (1999) have emphasized, a
transfer of Western managerial values succeeds only in proportion to the effort made to
understand and articulate the new with the existing cultural values, particularly the
disparate ones.

As Roney (2000) has suggested in describing the introduction of TQM into newly

privatized Polish companies, quality systems of this kind are imprinted with values and
assumptions that need to be shared by both parties if transfer is to be successful. Where
this is not the case, clashes are best addressed by promoting selected, pre-existing values
that are consistent with the new, in order to adjust to the local context (Roney, 1997: 4);
and our own account above has provided several instances.

However, we have also shown that it is possible to promote values that are

inconsistent with local norms provided they are introduced skilfully. Employees can
accept a new practice if it is argued to provide a better alternative, not to an existing
practice per se, (which might bring new and old values into contention) but by
responding to an appeal to existing values of what is ‘better’. The point is not to change
all the values, for that is impossible, but to find a fit between the old and the new within
the existing matrix of ideas, norm, values and institutions.

It may be more useful to replace the terminology of ‘resistance to change’ with the

notion of ‘functional persistence’, as Fransella (1995) has suggested. We have shown
how change can be introduced by building on values that local people were persisting
with, namely, the values of creativity and freedom. The reluctance of Polish employees
to adopt certain practices such as organization, planning and self-discipline, despite
being destructive and unreasonable from the outsider’s viewpoint, was a rational choice
for them in protecting their sense of freedom and their need for creative expression. What
was required was a demonstration that personal and organizational success (the enduring
and persistent good that sets the criterion for what might be ‘better’) could be achieved
by avoiding a simple contrast between organization and planning on the one hand, and
self-expression and freedom on the other. The way in which these constructs were
articulated could be elaborated (Kelly, 1955). Organization might be contrasted with
chaos, self-expression with stasis. It might indeed be possible to achieve personal
and organizational success by combining organization and self-expression. In fact, a set
of organized procedures might be constructed that make self-expression possible: kaizen,
andon and gemba.

As demonstrated in this paper the success of an intervention that changed values

depended on the development of a fit between existing values and new ones within an
existing matrix of ideas, norms, values and institutions. In the case of Opel Polska, that
was a matter of interpreting the changes as congruent with pre-existing Polish cultural
standards of the good. At a time when Polish culture is engaged in a redefinition of its
relationships with other cultures, and a re-exploration of its west-European identity
(Mikulowski-Pomorski, 1991, 1993), the level of resolution at which the desirability of
change at Opel Polska is determined becomes a matter of importance: do we choose the
region, Poland as a whole, Europe, or indeed the global community as the ‘wider society’
within which judgements of authenticity are to be made?

The example of the introduction of kaizen, along with organization and self-discipline

in Opel Polska, shows that basic constructs and values, although being very difficult and
resistant to change, can be changed if an alternative for their elaboration is provided.
Therefore, the new idea must be considered in terms of its usefulness in replacing an
existing idea in accordance with the recipients’ criteria. The whole process should be

Dobosz-Bourne and Jankowicz: Reframing resistance to change

2031

focused on the negotiation over meaning leading to the elaboration of constructs that both
parties could use.

This issue might be examined further in the context of the debate on globalization,

Amin (1997) and Holden (2002) being particularly useful here. For the individual
manager working to bring about change, the most useful way of resolving the matter
of where the good – the appropriateness of a change over which there are contending
views – is determined is to ask where the level of resolution might lie.

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