Change Dynamics

Antonie van Nistelrooij
Additional contact information
Antonie van Nistelrooij: VU University Amsterdam

Chapter 7 in Embracing Organisational Development and Change, 2021, pp 243-286 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The intention to change is never enough. There are limits to one’s willpower and desire to do something that we claim is important. There are so many things that happen between the moment of committing to an action and actually following through on it, leading to all kind of human dynamics. In this chapter, we discuss these occurring dynamics on the following three levels: (1) an intra-individual psychodynamic perspective; (2) a social-interactive group dynamic perspective; and (3) a social systems dynamics perspective. Following these levels in this chapter, we introduce and explore the following: How resistance to change as a scholarly concept has evolved in recent decades. That, for example, ‘resistance’ is not per se a nuisance but may also be a resource and that it is not per se a simple one-way concept but can also be seen as a recursive concept that works for both interventionist as well as the receiver. That the ‘resistance’ of a group can also owe to mostly unconsciousness, dysfunctional group behaviour, which come into play when group members increasingly become blind to their own inhibiting personal and interactive patterns. In this regard we discuss and compare, Argyris’ ‘defensive reasoning’, Janis’ ‘groupthink’ and Harvey’s ‘Abilene paradox’. That the ‘resistance’ of people can also be the result of a paradoxical situation in which they are stuck, or through a paradoxical ‘double bind’ message, a double commitment and/or a delay in a feedback loop.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sptchp:978-3-030-51256-9_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030512569

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-51256-9_7

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Texts in Business and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().