Managing Resistance to Organizational Change: How GSS Can Reveal Role Related Resistance Behaviors Sajda Qureshi Department of Information Systems & Quantitative Analysis College of Information Science & Technology University of Nebraska at Omaha squreshi@mail.unomaha.edu Alanah Davis College of Information Science & Technology University of Nebraska at Omaha alanahdavis@mail.unomaha.edu Abstract Organizational change brings about a number of behaviors that are seen to run counter to the implementation of the information systems. These behaviors may be seen as jeopardizing the success of the change process and the success of the information system. This paper investigates the resistance to change using a change management game conducted with senior level employees and partners of a top four consulting company. While the task was based on a real organizational transformation, the participants were also going through the same real experiences. Following analysis of resistance to change behaviors, this paper provides insight into the ways in which resistance to change can be mitigated. The contribution of this paper is in the discovery of change management behaviors as they relate to organizational transformation and information systems development. Keywords: Resistance to Change, Stakeholders, Change Challenge, information and communication technology. 1. Introduction According to Klaus (1997) a survey of 4,300 US companies with 100 or more employees that found 54% of managers identified resistance as the main impediment to change. According to the Standish Group's 2004 third quarter report, 29% of all projects succeeded (delivered on time, on budget, with required features and functions), 53% were challenged (late, over budget and/or with less than the required features and functions), and 18% failed (cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used) (Standish Group, 2004). The CHAOS report cites User Involvement, Executive Management Support, and Clear Statement of Requirements as the top three criteria for success in IS projects. The existence of a hard working staff was considered to be least important in ensuring success of IS projects (Standish Group, 2006). The high incidence of implementation failures has traditionally been attributed to a lack of stakeholder participation in information systems development (Markus and Robey, 1988; Franz and Robey, 1984; Land and Hirschheim, 1983; Avison and Wood-Harper, 1990). Consequently information systems development methodologies such as ISAC (Lundberg, Goldkuhl, and Nissen, 1982), ETHICS (Mumford and Weir, 1979), and techniques such as Joint Application Development (Andrews and Leventhal, 1993) include participation. Even current wisdom on the use of traditional information systems development methodologies such as Structured Analysis and Design, SSADM, and information engineering (Downs, Clare, and Coe, 1988; Martin and Finkelstein, 1981) are suggested as tools for participation. However, evidence supporting these benefits of participation is at best contradictory. In a study carried out by Jarvenpaa and Ives (1991) of 83 US firms, the CEO's perception of IT appeared to be a more powerful predictor of a firm's progressive use of IT rather than a CEO's personal participation. Newman and Robey (1992) report on episodes in which users rejected a system because participation had resulted in conflict between the users and the computer centre. As the development of information systems brings together people from different departments, Robey et al. (1989) suggest that the potential for conflict in systems development is great and potential disagreements are likely to become manifest under conditions of high interdependence among group members in project meetings. Further reasons for this contradiction have been attributed to reasons such as involving users in the design process may lead potential delays caused by having to deal with multiple user groups and possible sub-optimal system design because of the involvement of competing user groups (Land and Hirschheim, 1983). At the same organizational structures are changing to reflect more fluid interdependencies among functional areas. This suggests that role and relationships among key stakeholders affect the organizations function. Despite the existence of traditional reporting structures, organizational processes are becoming more interrelated. This is particularly apparent when organizations are undergoing change. When circumstances change these interdependencies continue to develop into new areas of collaboration thus giving rise to leaner organizational 1 Proceedings of the 40th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2007 1 © 1530-1605/07 $20.00 2007 IEEE Proceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'07) 0-7695-2755-8/07 $20.00 © 2007