Assignment Management Of Change

Essay – Resistance to Change

Value: 35%
Due date: 07-Oct-2017
Return date: 30-Oct-2017
Length: 2,000 words (+/-10%)

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Task
Essay:
Discuss both of the following questions:
Why is resistance to change frequently demonised by managers, as a problem that
must be managed?

What are the ethical implications of this and how else can resistance be understood?

Use examples from your own organisation, or other sources, to illustrate your essay.

To help you to answer these two essay questions, it can be useful to break them down into a set
of sub-questions:
Drawing on your subject material (topic material, textbook, relevant required readings)
and your wider reading from the academic literature,

1. Identify and examine why employees resist change; critically discuss the range of different
understandings of resistance in the literature; explain why managers frequently consider resistance as a
problem that has to be managed.
2. From a critical perspective, examine the relationship between power and resistance in the context of
organisational change.
3. Identify the key ethicial issues associated with power and resistance, and drawing upon a relevant
ethical framework, analyse the ethics of the managerial and of resistant positions.
4. Assess the implications of the managerial and of resistant positions for achieving an effective change
management programme.
5. Draw conclusions that summarise your work and directly address the two essay questions.
You must follow an essay structure that is at a minimum:
 an introduction that provides an overview of the key issues and argument of the essay;
 a main body that uses relevant sub-headings,
 a conclusion that summaries the essay and that directly answers the two essay questions,
 a reference list.
Use appropriate sub-headings in the main body. Your writing style must follow professional
literacy: Citations and a final reference list that follows the APA6 guidelines accurately;
Quality in writing and presentation through: use of topic and linking sentences,
connected paragraphs organised in a logical flow of ideas; accurate mechanics (spelling,
grammar, punctuation, sematics, etc.); follow the guidelines on the presentation, use
respectful language to discuss all people; avoid emotive language; employ inclusive,
non-sexist language; not opinionated, i.e. support ideas and observations with evidence and logical
argument.
A minimum of twelve appropriate and relevant peer-reviewed references should be used.
Rationale
The aims of this assessment task are to:
 Assist you in developing your analytical and critical thinking skills by using them to deepen your
understanding of key concepts, issues and debates related to organisational change management.
 To provide you with experience to develop and refine you academic literacy skills
 To assess learning outcome 4 – Identify, analyse and critically evaluate resistance to organisational
change from a range of positions.
 To assess learning outcome 5 – Analyse and assess the ethical nature of organisational change.
 To assess learning outcome 6 – Assess an organisational change management programme and propose,
justify and evaluate an alternative to this.
Presentation
Place your list of references (in APA6 style) at the end of your assignment