Generative Resistance: The importance of enabling differences

Within the organizational change literature, resistance is often treated in ways that tether it to change as its shadow side and, consequently, minimize its value. In contrast to prior approaches, we offer a generative approach to theorizing resistance to change—one that suggests important contributions it can make to change when considered in its own right. We discuss three such contributions: surfacing rather than covering deep-rooted societal conflicts, fostering the development of group and organizational identity, and sustaining important differences. We offer narrative vignettes that illustrate each of these: the differing responses of evangelical Christians and human rights groups to World Vision, a humanitarian aid organization, and its brief decision to allow the employment of individuals in same-sex marriages; United States Roman Catholic sisters’ response to a Vatican Apostolic Visitation; and the steps taken by attorneys in Texas to resist the death penalty in counter-intuitive, entirely legal, but rarely enacted ways. In doing so we demonstrate how resistance in and of itself can address both theoretical and practical tensions pertinent to change. Theoretically, it can add a “neither/nor” dimension to “both/and” approaches to paradox and dialectics. Practically, it suggests why many standard ways of dealing with major societal conflicts are unlikely to succeed and what can be done instead.