Interpreting Resistance : Management Consultants' Insights on the Nature and Role of Resistance in Organizational Change

Organizational change is inherently challenging, with resistance often mentioned as a primary reason for whychange efforts fail. This thesis aims to explore the role of management consultants in organizational changeinitiatives, focusing on their change approaches in relation to employee resistance. Additionally, it seeks to find outwhether and how resistance can be constructive to the change process. With the use of a qualitative approach, 10semi-structured interviews with change consultants were conducted. Results reveal that consultants had a centralrole in the framing of change initiatives and a primarily supportive role in change implementation. However, theoverall approach to change, whether planned or emergent, has no significant impact on how these actors navigateresistance to change. Moreover, resistance was found to be constructive to the change process in two main ways:By injecting energy into the change process and providing feedback regarding compliance with laws and contracts.Ultimately, the study helps concretize which aspects of resistance that are recognized in practice while also pointingtowards academically suggested factors that are less relevant in relation to change agency.