ABSTRACT. An extensive theoretical and research
literature on organizational change and its imple-
mentation has been accumulating over the past fifty
years. It is customary in this literature to find resis-
tance to change mentioned as an inevitable conse-
quence of organizational change initiatives. Yet there
has been little discussion of the nature and forms of
resistance that is institutionalized in organizational
structure and processes. Furthermore, organization
development perspectives on organizational change
address management-initiated change, but not change
proposed by advocates for the powerless and disad-
vantaged. Focussing on institutionalized resistance
from the standpoint of the advocate of fundamental
change, this discussion proposes a typology consisting
of a sequence of forms of active resistance to change,
from denial through inaction to repression. The
typology is illustrated by referring to responses of
organizational decision makers to the efforts of
employment equity change agents to address issues
of systemic discrimination in the work place. The
purpose of the typology is to assist change advocates,
such as equality seekers, to name, analyze and think
strategically about the institutionalized resistance they
encounter, and about effective responses to the resis-
tance.

Keywords:

backlash; change agent; organization

development (OD); organizational change; resistance
to change; systemic discrimination in employment

Since the contributions of Kurt Lewin (1947,
1951) and other founders of the interdisciplinary
fields of organization development (OD) and
organizational behaviour, a large theoretical,
conceptual and research literature on the imple-
mentation of organizational change has accumu-
lated. This work reflects the perspectives of
several disciplines and fields of study including
social psychology, psychology, sociology, anthro-
pology, management and administrative studies.
OD has been strongly influenced by practitioners
writing about their experiences as consultants
and applied researchers. Despite the eclecticism
of views on implementing organizational change
there are common themes that recur and that
appear to have become articles of faith. One of
these is the assumption – and the warning to the
practitioner – that most change programs or
interventions are met with resistance.

Every change agent has experienced resistance,

and the writings of practitioners are rich in
“war stories” (eg. Klein, 1976; Wieneke, 1991).
Moreover, the research literature includes reports
of stalled and aborted change initiatives, with
failure attributed to various causes including
resistance to change (Mirvis and Berg, 1977;
Walton, 1977). Individuals are said to resist
change because of habit and inertia, fear of the
unknown, absence of the skills they will need
after the change, and fear of losing power.
Organizations are said to resist change because of
inertia, sunk costs, scarce resources, threats to the
power base of the old dominant coalition, values

Institutionalized Resistance
to Organizational Change:
Denial, Inaction and Repression

Carol Agócs

Journal of Business Ethics 16: 917–931, 1997.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Carol Agócs’ research and writing focus on workplace

discrimination, employment equity policy and imple-
mentation, and organizational change. This paper was
written while the author was a Visiting Scholar at the
Centre for Research in Women’s Studies and Gender
Relations at the University of British Columbia. The
paper served as a framework for a video entitled
“Backlash to Change: Moving Beyond Resistance”
(1996), which is available from the Department of
Equity Services, The University of Western Ontario.
Room 295 Stevenson-Lawson Building, London,
Ontario N6A 5B8.

and beliefs, conformity to norms, and inability
to perceive alternatives (Tichy, 1983, pp. 344–
360). The large literature on OD approaches to
organizational change presents a solid consensus
that change and resistance can and should be
“managed” by developing a strategy for change
and using the OD tool kit of interventions such
as training and communication programs, con-
frontation meetings, stakeholder participation,
team building, organizational diagnosis and
feedback, and other “technologies” based on
behavioral science (eg. Beer and Walton, 1990;
Tichy, 1983, pp. 294–295 and 344–360).

Yet is difficult to find in the literature a

definition of resistance, or any analysis of the
systemic or institutionalized forms it takes and
the ways in which it presents itself to change
agents. This omission is puzzling to advocates of
organizational change who work within a struc-
ture of resistance and confront the politics of
resistance daily. The lack of attention to institu-
tionalized resistance undermines the credibility
of OD as a practical guide to managing change,
especially change that does not originate with
top management or reflect the short term inter-
ests of those in power.

Institutionalized resistance to
organizational change

In this discussion I define institutionalized resis-
tance as the pattern of organizational behaviour
that decision makers in organizations employ to
actively deny, reject, refuse to implement, repress
or even dismantle change proposals and initia-
tives. Resistance is understood to be a process
of refusal by decision makers to be influenced
or affected by the views, concerns or evidence
presented to them by those who advocate change
in established practices, routines, goals or norms
within the organization. Resistance entails a
range of behaviours: refusal to engage in joint
problem-solving, refusal to seek common
ground, silencing of advocates for change,
sabotage, the use of sanctions, and another
repressive acts. It should be clear from this defi-
nition that debate, criticism, or disagreement do
not contribute resistance. On the contrary,

rigorous critique intended to produce better
understanding and solutions is a valuable contri-
bution to analysis and action toward change in
organizations.

To say that resistance is institutionalized means

that it is embedded in and expressed through
organizational structures and processes of legiti-
mation, decision making and resource allocation.
Institutionalized resistance may be embodied in
decisions to provide or withhold resources, to
adopt a new policy or change an established one,
or to implement or refuse to implement a policy.
Such decisions presuppose the power to
command organizational resources, including
information and employees’ time, the authority
to act or to choose not to act, and the power to
legitimate or to silence the voices of those who
advocate change. Institutionalized beliefs and
practices “become unquestioned and taken as
objective reality”, contributing to the stability
of organizations (Pfeffer, 1981, p. 290). More-
over, power holders can and do use their control
over resources and authority to resist change
when they perceive it as threatening.

However, both the impetus to change and the

uses and forms of power are understood to be
fluid and dynamic (Pfeffer, 1981). Hence the
“power structure” is not viewed as a monolith:
some actors who exercise power in organizations
may be champions or sponsors of some forms of
change while others may resist, and sources of
support and resistance may change over time (for
a discussion of roles of advocates, champions and
sponsors see Agocs, Burr and Somerset, 1992,
ch. 9).

This discussion is using the concept and ter-

minology of resistance, at least initially, in a
sense different from its meaning to describe the
actions of those who struggle against oppressive
regimes or systems of all kinds. Bell hooks
(1989), for example, speaks of resistance as a
position of those who struggle against racist
and patriarchal systems of domination. From
this standpoint, resistance means an ethical and
strategic position of active refusal to participate
in one’s own oppression or the oppression of
others. Resistance may include non-compliance,
opposition, rebellion, and in the case of move-
ments such as the anti-fascist resistance, the use

918

Carol Agócs

of any means to challenge and struggle against
the repressive power of institutions and organi-
zations. We will revisit this meaning of the
concept of resistance in the conclusion of this
essay.

The neglect of institutionalized resistance
in theory and research on organizational
change

The lack of attention to institutionalized resis-
tance to change in the research and theoretical
literature of OD and organizational behavior is
attributable to underlying assumptions and values
that inform these fields, and to their origins and
development as servants of managerial power. On
the one hand, OD has been described as a
normative approach based on “humanistic and
collaborative” values (Burke, 1987, p. 14). OD
is imbued with a sense of optimism that change
is possible, that it can be planned and managed,
and that resistance to change can be overcome
by means of specific interventions such as
education and communication, participation,
negotiation, manipulation, and even coercion
(Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979).

On the other hand, the typical organizational

change project places the OD practitioner or
researcher in the service of those who hold
power in the organization – a relationship that
begins when managers hire the consultant to
carry out change designed to achieve their objec-
tives. A prime example is what may have been
the first published study of resistance to change,
the classic article by the client-researcher team of
Lester Coch, the client, and John French, a
professor and former student of Lewin (Coch and
French, 1948).

This study investigated “resistance” by young

women working in a U.S. pajama manufacturing
plant that was managed under a scientific man-
agement regime. The management system
included piece work, time study, harsh produc-
tion quotas, daily prodding by male supervisors,
and public posting of the daily output of each
worker. The research was undertaken at the
behest of the factory managers who wondered
why these employees “resisted” arbitrary trans-

fers to new jobs by quitting, being absent,
restricting output and hostility toward manage-
ment. The researchers found that these behav-
iours were mitigated when groups of employees
were asked to participate in planning the job
changes, thus providing “the theoretical basis for
what we now call participative management”,
according to a prominent OD theorist (Burke,
1987, p. 54).

In the OD literature, “resistance to change”

typically refers to the behaviour of individuals,
small groups or categories of employees such as
middle managers, supervisors, shop floor or
unionized workers who are opposed to or unsup-
portive of changes that top management wishes
to implement (e.g. Bocialetti, 1987; Manz et al.,
1990; Schlesinger and Oshry, 1984). Many
published studies report in passing, without
analysis, that those who “resist” are women and
or minorities working within organizational
structures dominated by white males of the
majority culture (e.g. Coch and French, 1948;
Mills and Simmons, 1995, ch. 5 and 6). Until
recently, organizational theory and research have
failed to address the ways in which gender and
racial inequality are built into the structures and
cultures of organizations (Cox and Nkomo, 1990;
Forrest, 1993). These issues are still not being
investigated in research and theory on organiza-
tional change. A review of research published in
twenty leading English language journals in the
areas of organizational behaviour and human
resource management between 1964 and 1989
found not a single study of organizational change
and development that included consideration of
race effects (Cox and Nkomo, 1990, p. 426).

The traditional OD perspective has also been

criticized for failure to ground its understanding
of organizational change in a structural and
systemic analysis of power relations (Pettigrew,
1985, ch. 1; Burke, 1987, p. 17). The behavioral
science and practitioner literature on organiza-
tional change is not written from the standpoint
of those who advocate fundamental change on
behalf of powerless groups. Baritz (1960), Pfeffer
(1981, pp. 9–18), and Mills and Simmons (1995)
are among those who have argued that organi-
zation theory has been dominated by manageri-
alist assumptions and agendas and that it has

Institutionalized Resistance to Organizational Change

919

served as an ideological buttress for managerial
power. Hence the organizational change litera-
ture has not addressed resistance to change as a
pattern of behaviour enacted by power holders
in the face of challenges to their privilege.

Denial, inaction and repression:
A typology of institutionalized resistance
processes

The following discussion suggests a typology of
forms of resistance, summarized in Figure 1,
including (1) denial of the legitimacy of the case
for change, (2) refusal to recognize responsibility
to address the change issue, (3) refusal to imple-
ment a change initiative that has been adopted
by the organization, and (4) the reversal or
dismantling of a change initiative once imple-
mentation has begun. The typology describes a
hierarchy or sequence of stages from the stand-
point of change advocates who deal with resis-
tance. For example, decision makers may not
deny that an issue exists, but they may refuse to
own the problem, or they may accept responsi-
bility but refuse to act. They may take action by
initiating a new policy, only to allow it to be
dismantled later on. Our discussion of the first
and second stages of the typology is more
detailed than the discussion of the later two
stages, reflecting the fact that change agents most
frequently deal with denial, and many proposals
never get beyond that point.

Institutionalized resistance may be directed

toward undermining the content of a change

proposal or initiative, or toward the silencing,
marginalizing or sanctioning of its advocates.
Hence, institutionalized resistance entails a cycle
of processes and behaviours that operate and have
impacts at two levels: the level of organizational
structure and process, and the level of individual
behaviour and experience. At both levels the
dynamic is political, in that the exercise of power
and control are central, and ethical, in the sense
that fundamental values and principals are at stake
in the struggle over change.

Institutionalized resistance occurs through the

exercise of the power of organizational decision
makers to bring about the consequences they
desire. The power of decision makers to resist
change that is proposed by advocates resides in
the legitimation of their power, that is, in their
authority, through which social control and
compliance with that control are institutionalized
within the organization (Pfeffer, 1981, pp. 5–6;
Gamson, 1968). By virtue of their authority,
decision makers control the right and power to
establish, change, enforce or ignore organiza-
tional rules, including organizational policies and
practices, as well as the standards or criteria
authorities use to rationalize their decisions.
Authorities are also authorized to speak and to
extend or withhold the right of others to author-
itative speech, or voice (Smith, 1987, ch. 1). The
historic and systemic nature of organizational
inequality is such that authority is white, able-
bodied and male. Women, racial minorities,
persons with disabilities and aboriginal peoples
have been systematically excluded from access to
voice and to control over rule-making.

The exercise of the power to control rules and

voice is central to each of the forms of institu-
tionalized resistance. In contrast, the power of
advocates for change arises from their expertise
regarding the change issue, their knowledge of
the organization, their personal and collective
influence and political skills, their ability to
mobilize support for their position within and
outside the organization, their commitment and
perseverance, and their personal courage. When
advocates are women and minorities, they find
themselves working for change from within the
very structures and conditions that create and
perpetuate their disadvantage. They must make

920

Carol Agócs

1. Denial of the need for change.

a. Attacks on the credibility of the change

message.

b. Attacks on the messengers and their credibility.

2. Refusal to accept responsibility for dealing with

the change issue.

3. Refusal to implement change that has been agreed

to.

4. Repression: action to dismantle change that has

been initiated.

Fig. I. A typology of forms of institutionalized resistance
to change.

the case for change using an epistemology and
the norms of sciences that are integral to the
institutionalized structure of inequality they are
attempting to change (Harding, 1991, p. 117).
For them, the “playing field” is never level.

At present, organizations are the venue of

struggle over a number of issues of fundamental
change that are being raised by internal and
external advocates. Current efforts to bring about
fundamental change in organizations include: (1)
the environmental movement’s attempts to ensure
that companies and governments change their
behaviour away from a pattern of polluting and
destroying the environment and toward environ-
mental protection and renewal; (2) initiatives to
address systemic discrimination against women,
racial minorities, people with disabilities and
aboriginal people in the work place by removing
discriminatory barriers in organizational policies,
practices and cultures; and (3) dealing with
threats to health and safety in the work place. In
all of these domains of change, organizations are
being forced to respond to external pressures
including legislation, regulation and public
expectations. Yet internal and external advocates
for change are facing a wall of institutionalized
resistance by those who hold power in organi-
zations (Adamson, Briskin and McPhail, 1988).
The purpose of this typology is to contribute to
the capacity of change advocates to understand
and deal with the resistance they face by naming
it, by beginning to analyze and problematize the
resistance, and by developing strategic responses.

The typology will be illustrated with examples

from the experience of change advocates working
to end systemic discrimination in employment..
Systemic discrimination consists of patterns of
behaviour that are part of the social and admin-
istrative structure and culture of the work place,
and that create or perpetuate a position of relative
advantage for some groups, and disadvantage for
other groups, or for individuals on the basis of
their group identity. A growing body of research
has demonstrated how racial and gender dis-
crimination are embedded in a wide variety of
organizational policies and practices, including
those that govern decisions about recruitment,
selection, training and development, promotion,
performance appraisal, compensation, and con-

ditions of employment (e.g. Alvarez et al., 1979;
Braddock and McPartland, 1987; Collinson,
Knights and Collinson, 1990). Many studies
also show how informal social behaviour, net-
works and organizational culture contribute to
inequality and disadvantage for women and racial
minorities (e.g. Cockburn, 1991; Ibarra, 1993).
Comparative analysis suggests that patterns of
inequality on the basis of race and gender may
be similar in the U.S. and Canada (Reitz and
Breton, 1994).

The concept of systemic discrimination has

been used in both countries as a foundation for
legislation and regulations that require employers
to undertake organizational change to remove
barriers to equality (Agócs, Burr and Somerset,
1992). Affirmative action has existed for a gen-
eration in the U.S. and employment equity has
been mandatory in the federal jurisdiction in
Canada for a decade. Some employers have also
initiated “managing diversity” programs to bring
about change in organizational culture. Like
other large scale change initiatives in the work-
place, employment equity, affirmative action and
managing diversity are long term strategic
interventions that consist of a multitude of small
changes that address specific issues. Since the
problem of discrimination in the workplace is
systemic, the change required to address it is also
systemic. Resistance to this form of change is
systemic or institutionalized as well, and it takes
the form of the kinds of organizational responses
proposed in the typology, to which we now turn.

I. Denial of the need for change

“Often the belief that the ‘facts speak for them-
selves’ is the vital lie that fuels opposition, at least
in its initial stages. The oppositionists not only use
the norms of the organization or the society to
justify their case, but they often believe that the
higher administrators are committed to these
norms, even to the exclusion of maintaining the
appearance of control and wisdom. Such belief is
almost never warranted.”

Deena Weinstein (1979, p. 255)

Organizational change begins with a reason –

with demonstrations of the need for and desir-

Institutionalized Resistance to Organizational Change

921

ability of change. Addressing systemic discrimi-
nation requires a diagnosis of the structural and
cultural barriers in the organization that create
inequality and disadvantage and that are amenable
to remedy. A credible diagnosis of the problem
is needed as a basis for a plan for effective change,
and as a means of making the case for change to
organizational decision makers. “Speaking truth
to power” – the careful gathering and analysis
of facts and the presentation of an argument for
change that is based on sound evidence – is the
first element of a strategy for fundamental
change. Yet even a convincing case is often met
with denial that change is needed – denial of
the credibility of the change message, or of the
credibility of the messenger, or both.

The issue is fundamentally one of power: the

power to enable or silence voice, and the power
to accord legitimacy to some interpretations of
experience and deny it to others. Research and
theory in the sociology of knowledge, as well as
feminist and post-modernist critiques of tradi-
tional epistemological positions, have made the
case for the perspective that knowledge is socially
constructed (Berger and Luckmann, 1966;
Harding, 1991; Weedon, 1987). The contentious
questions, in Sandra Harding’s words, include
these:

Who can be subjects, agents, of socially legitimate
knowledge? (Only men in the dominant races and
classes?) What kinds of tests must beliefs pass in
order to be legitimated as knowledge? (Only tests
against the dominant group’s experiences and
observations? Only tests against what men in the
ruling groups tend to think of as reliable experi-
ence and observation?) What kinds of things can
be known? . . . Can there be ‘disinterested knowl-
edge’ in a society that is deeply stratified by gender,
race, and class? (Harding, 1991, pp. 109–110)

Much empirical work has demonstrated that

the perspectives of authorities – those who make
the rules in organizations – are often divergent
from those who are expected to follow those
rules. Hence women may see interpersonal and
organizational behaviour very differently from
the way men see that same behaviour (e.g.
Tannen, 1990; Thacker and Gohmann, 1993).
Blacks and whites are also likely to have diver-

gent perspectives (e.g. Alderfer et al., 1983;
Pettigrew and Martin, 1987). The difference is
that whites and males fail to see the disadvan-
tage and discrimination that Blacks and women
are experiencing, and may even feel that Blacks
and/or women are enjoying advantages.

For example, a study of perceptions of diver-

sity climate among faculty at a U.S. university
found that men rated the qualifications of women
lower than white women rated themselves. Men
believed that women had the same access to
resources as they did, but women believed that
they did not have equal access, and racial
minority women felt they had the least access
to departmental resources and support. Racial
minority men and women and white women
placed greater value on the university’s efforts to
promote diversity than did white men (Kossek
and Zonia, 1993). When groups differ in their
perceptions of their own and others’ contribu-
tions, and their views about the fairness and
equality of the system diverge because of dif-
fering experience, the differences tend to be
resolved in favour of the dominant group, and
in their interest. The difference is not treated as
an issue about which decision makers need to
learn more, and on which they need to take
action. This is the reality of institutionalized
resistance to change.

a. Denial of the credibility of the message

“But was there ever any domination which did not
appear natural to those who possessed it?”

J. S. Mill

If a change process is to proceed, a sound and
appropriately supported argument for change
must be heard, understood and accorded legiti-
macy by organizational decision makers who
have the power to enact change. However, equity
change agents often find that the most carefully
made case is met with denial that discrimination
occurs, or that it occurs in the organization or
in the manner that advocates for change have
alleged. Denial of the credibility of the change
message may take the form of claims that it is
exaggerated, biased, self-interested, irrational or
untruthful.

922

Carol Agócs

Denial is institutionalized when it is expressed

through the power of organizational authorities
to confer legitimacy on some interpretations of
experience and deny it to others. Authorities
exercise their power to legitimize by establishing,
changing, interpreting and enforcing rules that
serve to control, constrain, guide and make sense
of organizational actions (Mills and Murgatroyd,
1991, p. 4). These rules, which are embedded
in organizational structure and culture, include
criteria or norms concerning what counts as
knowledge, fact and truth, and what is to be
considered trivial or dismissed as hyperbole,
fabrication, exaggeration or unsubstantiated
claim. Advocates who present a case for change
in behalf of marginalized groups often find that
their knowledge and expertise is discredited and
dismissed in this way (Martin, 1993).

This was the case in 1989 when four women

faculty members made public “the chilly climate
report”, an exploratory study of employment
practices and decisions that resulted in inequality
and adverse impact on the careers of women
faculty in their university (for background about
the report and surrounding events see The Chilly
Editorial Collective, 1995). The study was based
on 35 interviews. It reported experiences of
discrimination against women in comparison
with their male peers in decisions about appoint-
ment, salary, type of position offered, work load
and promotion and other conditions of work. It
also reported experiences of sexual harassment
and “chilly climate”, such as sexist language and
comments and having one’s contributions appro-
priated by male colleagues. The authors released
their report in the hope of stimulating further
enquiry and organizational commitment to
identify and act on issues of gender discrimina-
tion, especially since an employment equity
program had just been initiated at the university.
However, rather than take up the opportunity
to acknowledge and address these issues, organi-
zational decision makers responded with denial.
The report was publicly attached by the univer-
sity’s president, provost and several influential
faculty members, including women. They did
not acknowledge that the report raised important
issues, but criticized it as anecdotal, exaggerated,
not representative of the experience of women

faculty in general, and damaging to the univer-
sity and to women faculty. These same authori-
ties leveled public personal attacks against the
report’s authors, claiming they had engaged in
bad scholarship and had acted in bad faith. This
event became a defining metaphor for institu-
tionalized resistance to change among women on
this and other campuses.

The chilly climate report and its reception

provides an illustration of ways in which institu-
tionalized denial of claims for change is enacted.
First, claims are discounted if they are based on
the experience of groups who are marginal to
the power structure. These groups may include
women, racial minorities, aboriginal peoples and
persons with disabilities, all of whom are present
in the organization primarily in lower ranking
positions and have little power. Within these
groups, interactive listening and speaking of
experience is a source of knowledge, a valued
method of learning and understanding. However
in bureaucratic contexts, arguments from the
standpoint of the lived experience of these
groups are dismissed as anecdotal, insubstantial,
and outside the boundaries of fact and knowl-
edge.

Denial may persist, however, even in the face

of a case made by “authorized” change agents,
in a form that conforms to accepted scientific
norms, and in a tone that is “professional” and
restrained. The chilly climate report was followed
by two more conventional sets of evidence
regarding inequality at the university. The first
was a 1990 survey of all employees, conducted
under the official employment equity program,
which found that 41 percent of women faculty
felt they had experienced disadvantage on the
basis of gender during their employment at the
university. The other study was a careful multiple
regression analysis of 1991 salary data for full time
faculty, which showed a substantial gender gap in
salary after length of service, unit, age, contract
status and rank were statistically controlled. The
employment equity survey’s finding did not
receive any official acknowledgment or response
from the university. The faculty salary study was
quietly shelved on the grounds that there were
problems with the university’s human resources
data. In 1995 a new regression analysis was finally

Institutionalized Resistance to Organizational Change

923

completed as part of the university’s response to
the Ontario Pay Equity Act of 1987. The study
identified a statistically significant salary disad-
vantage for full time tenured and probationary
faculty women (The University of Western
Ontario, 1995, p. 17). The salary adjustments
that were implemented in the summer of 1996
brought the salaries of women to 90 percent of
men’s, not to parity.

This saga of studies illustrates a common form

of institutionalized denial of a message that
change is needed – the response that change
advocates must “prove it” over and over again, in
many different ways, and as time advances and
conditions are alleged to change. Demands for
more studies, more data, different data, and
studies by different analysts are a familiar form
of administrative orbiting that is a strategy of
denial. The evidence of the need for change is
never satisfactory; it is never presented in the
preferred way. As change agents are kept busy
with the role of “chronic convincer”, their very
persistence turns them into “chronic com-
plainers” who can be marginalized and dismissed
(Martin, 1993, p. 29).

The response to the chilly climate report

illustrates still another form of denial: the indi-
vidualization of a claim for change, and the
refusal to admit the systemic nature of the
issue. Methodological individualism is deeply
embedded in the ideology of liberalism and
meritocracy through which bureaucratic deci-
sion makers typically filter their perceptions and
responses. Hence inequality is often dismissed as
an individual matter because there are members
of the same disadvantaged group who are
exceptional cases. It is argued that since these
individuals have been recognized by authorities
as successful, and since they do not endorse the
case for change, there is no pattern of systemic
discrimination that needs to be addressed by the
organization.

Faye Crosby et al. (1989) report findings that

both those who experience and those who
practice systemic discrimination on the basis of
gender may respond with denial. For individual
women, denial often takes the form of unwill-
ingness to perceive the personal relevance of the

disadvantaged position of their group in society,
especially among individuals who are not strongly
identified with their group. Crosby et al. also
found that the male administrators in their study
needed to be exposed to aggregate data about
disadvantage in their organization, not just to
evidence about individual cases, in order to be
able to perceive that systemic inequality is
possible. For administrators who are members of
the dominant group, denial is not merely a matter
of misogynist or racist attitudes: it is an active
choice not to expose themselves to disturbing
information about the disadvantage experienced
by others.

One of the prerogatives of a position of power

is the comfort of assuming that one’s own per-
ception of reality is reality and that one’s own
interests are universal interests. These assumptions
easily give rise to a myth that there is universal
agreement on assumptions that are central to the
culture of the organization, and in terms of
which decisions are legitimated. These include
the assumptions that the system is fair, that merit
is the basis for rewards, and that there is equality
of opportunity. The privilege of power holders
begins with the option to be ignorant, the
“right not to know” (Feldthusen, 1990, p. 178).
Discrimination and disadvantage generally lie
outside the experience of those with privilege.
Because learning about the discrimination others
experience may entail the unpleasant realization
of the price others pay for one’s privilege,
ignorance and denial may be preferred to
learning and awareness about sexism and racism.
“They just don’t get it” because they don’t have
to get it, and because it is in their narrow interest
not to.

The option to be ignorant extends to the

privilege of choosing whether or not to become
involved in learning about the need for a change
that one did not initiate. The tools in the OD
change agent’s kit of interventions – including
participation in decision making, training and
communication programs – are designed to deal
with the resistance of employees in the middle
and lower ranks of the hierarchy, not with the
resistance of those in power. Thus mechanisms
effective in convincing organizational members

924

Carol Agócs

of the need for organizational change are not
useful when key decision makers can choose not
to attend to the change message, no matter how
convincing the evidence it presents. Further-
more, it is in the nature of organizational
leadership that their choice not to know is a
model for others throughout the organization to
make the same choice not to take the message
of the need for change seriously.

Consequently, making the case for change is

a necessary but not sufficient beginning of action
toward organizational change. It is not knowl-
edge or expertise in itself that is a source of
power and a resource for organizational change.
It is not knowledge or expertise in itself that is
a source of power and a resource for organiza-
tional change: it is knowledge upon which
authorities have conferred legitimacy and assim-
ilated into the organization’s ideological frame-
work. Whether a change message will be
accorded legitimacy is the choice and decision of
authorities. Their immediate interests may be
well served by existing power relations and
patterns of resource allocation, which are pro-
tected through their control of rules and voice.

b. Attacks on messengers and their credibility

“The political is personal.”

It seems to matter very much who makes the case
for change. Shooting the messenger is a well
known form of institutionalized denial which
arises from the power that authorities have to
control and legitimize voice. Denial of voice as
a form of institutionalized resistance to change
may take the form of attacks on groups who
support a claim to change, or attacks on indi-
viduals who publicly advocate change, or both.

Claims by and in behalf of a group are often

discredited by marginalizing it as a “special
interest group” even if that group is in the
numerical majority. This kind of institutionalized
resistance seeks to discredit the change message
by suggesting that because the issue is being
raised by one group, for example women, it is
the concern of a self-interested minority – a

“women’s issue” – rather than a systemic issue
that the organization should address. This
argument would lose force if men would join
with women to present the case for change.

This form of denial also impugns the motives

of change advocates by suggesting that they are
speaking from self interest or perhaps vindictive-
ness. Attacks on the change advocates’ compe-
tence and objectivity in presenting their change
message may be part of this kind of institution-
alized resistance, as in the case of the chilly
climate report. Change advocates are portrayed
as political activists trying to use power for their
own ends rather than seen as responsible
members of the organization who are making
reasoned arguments based upon expertise and
evidence. A powerful example of this dynamic
is visible in Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the
People. There may be an implication that change
advocates are part of a conspiracy to undermine
the values, prestige or ordinary functioning of the
organization. In universities there is sometimes
the implication, or reality, that academic freedom
is the property of those who defend the status
quo in the institution, and does not extend to
those who challenge it. Labels such as “feminist
police”, “McCarthyism”, “radical” and “politi-
cally correct” have been manipulated as part
of the discourse of denial in the examples
mentioned above.

Members of dominant groups sometimes

respond to change messages with claims that
such messages are personal attacks on them
instead of critiques addressed to systemic issues
within the organization. This tactic turns the
tables so that disadvantaged groups become
defined as perpetrators of unfairness and por-
trayed as self-interested and vindictive, while
those in positions of power are transformed into
victims and helpless individuals. This form of
resistance individualizes and personalizes power
holders while presenting change advocates as a
faceless “group” of ruthless conspirators, as in
David Mamet’s popular play, Oleanna. These
tactics also deny the existence of systemic issues,
demanding that advocates of change direct their
critique toward specific individuals and events
rather than toward the patterns of disadvantage

Institutionalized Resistance to Organizational Change

925

and discrimination at the level of organizational
policy and practice they are actually seeking to
change.

This dynamic of challenge and resistance was

apparent in the events that occurred at the
University of Victoria in 1993, which began with
a report by women graduate students and junior
faculty raising concerns about a chilly climate in
the Department of Political Science. Senior male
faculty responded with demands that the report
be repudiated by its authors and that discrimi-
natory acts of individual male faculty be identi-
fied. They also threatened legal action against the
report’s authors (Globe and Mail, April 19, 1993,
p. 1; CAUT Bulletin, Oct. 7, 1993).

Institutionalized denial of the credibility of the

messenger may also be expressed in personal
attacks on change advocates in the form of public
statements, innuendo transmitted in private
conversation, or avoidance and marginalization.
The objective of this activity is to stigmatize and
thereby discredit the change advocate: to dis-
qualify him or her from full social acceptance by
creating an imputed social identity whereby the
individual is “reduced in our minds from a whole
and usual person to a tainted, discounted one”
(Goffman, 1963, p. 3). Suggestions that an
individual should not be taken seriously because
she is unbalanced, too ideological, irrational, too
focussed on a particular issue, or for other
personal reasons, damage her effectiveness as a
change advocate. They also exact personal costs,
including the targeting of the stigmatized indi-
vidual for discrimination within the organization.
This form of denial ensures that the political
becomes personalized, and that the change
message can be dismissed because it is carried by
someone whose credibility has been damaged. It
also diffuses the challenge represented by change
advocates. It forces them to redirect their limited
time and resources toward responding to and
recovering from the personal attacks, and away
from the substance of the change effort.

This kind of personal attack is often directed

toward whistle-blowers in organizations (e.g.
Weinstein, 1984). Authorities may punish
internal critics not only by attempting to dis-
credit and stigmatize them, but also by arranging
for them to resign or be dismissed. An unusual

example, because it became public and ended in
the vindication of the whistle-blowers, is the
1989 case of five employees of Majestic elec-
tronics who refused to carry out the company
president’s instructions to discriminate on the
basis of gender and race. They filed a complaint
with the Ontario Human Rights commission,
which resulted in a settlement against the
employer (Globe and Mail, January 7, 1989;
A1–2).

Whether it is the credibility of an individual

or of a group that is denied, the tactic is to
stigmatize change advocates as outsiders and
trouble makers whose message need not be taken
seriously. This kind of institutionalized resistance
is predictable in organizations in which decision
making authorities constitute a homogeneous
and cohesive group whose members share many
social characteristics and values, as well as a long
and demanding experience of socialization and
probation. A change message carried by an
insider may be taken seriously in such an
organization; hence the dilemma for change
advocates is that the most direct means of
securing voice is to struggle to obtain a seat at
the decision-making table. However, a recruit-
ment pattern that tends to exclude anyone who
is not perceived by the dominant coalition as one
of their own makes it unlikely that a messenger
of change would become an insider. Even if an
outsider were to become a nominal member of
the dominant coalition, this individual is highly
likely to be co-opted or treated as a token
(Kanter, 1977, ch. 8). The result would be to
silence or marginalize the individual, who would
then be ineffective as an advocate of change.

Because of the possibility that institutionalized

resistance will take the form of attacks on the
carriers of the change message, advocates are
confronted with the task of not only preparing
and presenting a sound case for change, but also
of accepting the risk of damaging personal attack.
Thus knowledge and skill, personal courage,
commitment to the change project, and an
instinct for survival, are all essential qualities of
advocates for fundamental change.

926

Carol Agócs

2. Refusal to accept responsibility for dealing with

the change issue

“Life itself punishes those who delay.”

Mikhail Gorbachev to Eric Honecker,

October 1989

Change advocates may succeed in convincing
decision makers that their concerns are real – that
systemic discrimination in some form, if not
under that name, actually exists in their organi-
zation. However, institutionalized resistance may
persist as refusal to own the problem. Decision
makers may simply refuse to deal with the change
issue without giving reasons, since they control
agendas for action within the organization. If
reasons for refusal to take responsibility for the
issue are given, they may include one or more
of the following:

1) It’s not my problem: I’m not responsible

because I didn’t create it; therefore it’s up to
others to fix it. The “others” may include the
government, the schools, parents and families,
individuals in society whose attitudes are “prej-
udiced”, etc.

2) The issue will be dealt with when the

disadvantaged groups change. Women and
minorities must earn more educational creden-
tials, in the right fields, and become more skilled
at organizational politics, networking, leadership,
career planning, etc. They must not expect
“special” treatment or make demands on the
organization. The underlying assumption is that
if women and minorities want a place in the
organization, they must become identical to the
white able-bodied men who dominate decision
making positions, no matter how impossible – or
undesirable – this may be.

3) If they are patient, time will fix the

problems. Public attitudes are becoming less
biased, the younger generation is more open to
gender and racial equality, there are a few more
women in prominent positions every year, the
older and more resistant generation will retire
some day, etc.

4) We can’t afford to deal with this issue at a

time when the future of our organization is
under threat. There are other more pressing
priorities.

5) We can’t address this issue and maintain the

essential values and mission of our organization.
If we change the way we have always made deci-
sions, or the way we claim to have made them,
the institution will be fundamentally damaged.
So, we can’t afford to entertain the possibility of
change. When the change proposal is addressed
to systemic discrimination in the work place,
this form of resistance is often coupled with
misconstruing the kinds of change that are
involved in employment equity. Rather than
taking a problem-solving approach and recog-
nizing that change involves identifying and
removing barriers to equality, decision makers
resist change by arguing that they are pro-
tecting the institution from such perils as
“reverse discrimination”, “quotas”, or hiring the
unqualified.

6) The issue is defined as a conundrum or a

condition, not a problem that is susceptible to
solution. In order for an issue to be addressed,
authorities need to define it as a problem on
which effective action toward solution can be
taken. To define an issue such as systemic
discrimination as a condition or conundrum,
rather than a problem, is another form of refusal
to own the problem and to accept responsibility
for dealing with its manifestations in the organi-
zation. The implication is that action to resolve
the problem is futile; it must simply be endured,
like aging or continental drift (Barzelay, 1992,
p. 21). This is a way of arguing for the accept-
ability of the status quo, a position that is clearly
more comfortable for the privileged than for the
disadvantaged who are living with systemic
discrimination, and who are willing and able to
present specific suggestions for addressing the
issue.

All of the rationalizations listed above make

one point: authorities are not willing to initiate
any change in the organization. If change is to
come, it must happen elsewhere. There is a large
research literature which casts serious doubt on
every one of the rationalizations listed above;
reviewing this evidence would require another
essay. And as we have seen, evidence alone may
not be enough to undermine institutionalized
resistance to change.

Institutionalized Resistance to Organizational Change

927

3. Refusal to implement change that has been

agreed to

“It is in the act of remedying the inequity that we
show our commitment to equality. In this sense,
inactivity, however it is translated into defensive
public or private rhetoric, is an acceptance of
inequality. No exigency, economic or political, can
justify the knowing perpetuation of inequality in
Canada.”

Judge Rosalie Silberman Abella (1984, p. 6)

Change advocates are familiar with the experi-
ence of getting organizational decision makers to
agree to change a practice or to adopt a new
policy, yet the change is never implemented. The
result is that the organization claims to be
responding to a change message but no real
change ensues. For example, in response to a
recommendation contained in a report that a
university’s employment equity committee was
mandated to submit, the president of the uni-
versity agreed that all decision-makers would
receive training about why and how to create a
more equitable work place. However, years after
the agreement, the training is not being done.

Failure to implement a change initiative that

has been agreed to may occur in a number of
ways, including:

1) failure to allocate the resources required for

implementation, including staff time, budget,
and/or technical support;

2) lack of enforcement of the new policy, and

failure to ensure accountability for results on the
part of those who are responsible for imple-
menting the policy;

3) failure to set standards, objectives or time

lines against which progress can be assessed, so
that there is no way to monitor implementation
or to ascertain whether change is occurring;

4) co-optation, which may involve the ap-

pointment of an individual or committee and
delegation of responsibility for implementing
change to them. However, decision makers may
fail to empower them to fulfill this responsibility,
or they may appoint individuals who are inclined
to accept the status quo, or overload the staff
appointee with numerous duties. Co-optation in
this fashion is a prevalent tactic whereby organi-
zational decision makers appear to initiate action

in response to pressures to address issues of
gender and racial inequality, but no real action
occurs.

5) sabotage, consisting of actions by decision

makers that undermine change by implementing
initiatives in such a way as to discredit them. For
example, this may happen if, in response to
demands that more women and/or minorities be
represented in decision making positions, author-
ities intentionally appoint someone who is clearly
unqualified for that position and doomed to
failure in that role.

These five forms of institutionalized resistance

to organizational change represent ways in which
decision makers choose not to implement change
initiatives they have agreed to undertake while
claiming that they are responding to the need for
change.

4. Repression: action to dismantle change that has

been initiated

“His resistance is the measure of your oppression.”

Sandra Harding

Perhaps the most severe and demoralizing form
of institutionalized resistance experienced by
advocates of fundamental change is to see hard
won accomplishments dismantled by organiza-
tional decision makers. This occurs when a
policy or program that has been initiated is
rescinded, shut down, deprived of resources or
otherwise rendered ineffective. At times repres-
sion also results in the termination of a change
advocate’s role or position in the organization.

This happened, for example, when a univer-

sity decided to “review” a race relations policy,
adopted only two years previously, that had been
applied in one highly publicized and controver-
sial case. Individuals who had no obvious relevant
expertise or experience were appointed to the
review committee. After a consultation process
from which the race relations officer was
excluded, the committee recommended that the
policy be revised so as to remove provisions for
dealing effectively with complaints. The race
relations officer who had been appointed under
the original, stronger policy, resigned amidst an

928

Carol Agócs

intimidating storm of editorials and letters to the
campus and local press, penned by tenured pro-
fessors, which savagely attacked her, the policy,
and the principle of equity (for more informa-
tion on these events see The Chilly Editorial
Collective, 1995 and Madhava Rau, 1996). At
this same university a similar process has been
initiated to “review” the policy on accommoda-
tion of students with disabilities, which has
been attacked by a number of powerful senior
members of faculty who deny the existence of
learning disabilities. The real issue is power:
according to a letter to the editor of the univer-
sity newspaper, “the academic domain has come
to be controlled by certain bureaucrats, instead
of academics” (Essex, 1995) – a reference to the
role and expertise of the university staff member
responsible for implementing the policy.

Responding to institutionalized resistance
to organizational change

“If you walk in the mist, you get wet.”

Dogan (Zen master)

This typology of institutionalized resistance

illustrates ways in which authorities use power to
deny the case for change, discredit change advo-
cates, resist implementing change, and dismantle
change initiatives. Our discussion has provided
examples that concern organizational change to
address systemic discrimination. Our analysis
suggests that institutionalized resistance to change
is integral to the nature of systemic discrimina-
tion. Organization authorities continue to resist
change and to exclude women, racial minori-
ties, aboriginal people and persons with disabil-
ities from positions of authority and power, the
case for change continues to be resisted, and the
cycle of privilege and disadvantage continues.

If institutionalized resistance to change is an

issue of power to control and influence rules and
voice, so too is advocacy for change. Effective
advocacy for change in the face of institutional-
ized resistance is an activity that requires expert
knowledge, research and communication skills,
commitment to the change project, personal
courage, and above all, political acumen and

ability to think strategically about how to
influence decisions about voice and rules.
Research which investigates the forms that insti-
tutionalized resistance takes, and the strategies for
change used by advocates, is needed as a basis
for a better understanding of the dynamics of
change.

Our analysis suggests six strategies for advo-

cates working to bring about fundamental change
in the face of institutionalized resistance:

1) Resist. As discussed early in this essay,

resistance is also a strategy of the powerless – a
strategy of refusal to collaborate with oppressive
institutions and authorities. Refusal to be co-
opted and withdrawal of support, compliance and
complicity are choices that individuals and groups
may make for ethical or strategic reasons.
Unfortunately, however, this kind of resistance
will not in itself lead to positive change.

2) Create allies. Cooperate with, help and

support other change advocates and seek
common ground and joint action wherever
possible. Protect individuals from having to deal
alone with attacks, repression and marginaliza-
tion.

3) Make the case for change. From inside

and outside the organization, continue to present
sound evidence and arguments and seek to
unmask ideological claims made by authorities
about the legitimacy of their resistance to change.
Engage in constructive criticism of change
arguments and evidence to ensure they are as
effective as possible.

4) Make effective use of existing

resources.

Work within the organization to

convince authorities that change is in their
interest, and if possible, attain positions from
which to influence decision making. Make full
use of the change-making possibilities of exist-
ing legislation, regulations, and organizational
policies and practices.

5) Mobilize politically. Effect change from

outside the organization by seeking improved
legislation and regulation, support from other
institutions, and public understand and support.

6) Build new parallel organizations that

embody the values that change advocates are
working toward, and seek to establish the effec-
tiveness and legitimacy of these new alternatives.

Institutionalized Resistance to Organizational Change

929

The histories of the labour, civil rights, peace,

feminist and environmental movements suggest
that all of these strategies are useful in dealing
with institutionalized resistance to change, and
all may contribute to progress toward a transfor-
mative social goal. The great and small victories
of these movements have been won through
effective presentation of the case for change, in
the context of strategic individual and collective
action by advocates with the vision, personal
courage and ethical commitment to speak truth
to power.

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