Universal Journal of Educational Research 7(12): 2568-2572, 2019 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2019.071203 The Impact of Resistance to Change among Lecturers in Private University Mahiswaran Selvanathan 1,* , Mahadevan Supramaniam 2 , Yew Ter Shern 2 , Subaashnii Suppramaniam 3 , Ahmad Muzammir Muhammad 3 1 National Higher Education Research Institute (IPPTN), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia 2 SEGi University, Malaysia 3 Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU), Malaysia Received July 14, 2019; Revised October 9, 2019; Accepted November14, 2019 Copyright©2019 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract Resistance to change is important for the current working environment because universities are faced with constant amounts of changes in the environment, which would force the lecturers in the university to change as well. Therefore, the resistance to change needs to be focused on improving the lecturers’ well-being in order to boost the productivity and performance in the workplace. This research focuses on the impact of resistance to change among lecturers in SEGi University. A total of 114 respondents consist of different levels from the lower management, middle management to senior management involved in this study conveniently. Findings revealed that an individual’s resistance to change was determined by communication and normative commitment factor. This research would further discuss each of the factors and examine how the factors could impact the resistance to change among lecturers. This study has identified few predictors towards the resistance to change among lecturers in university context. Keywords Resistance to Change, SEGi University, Lecturer 1. Introduction Change defined as the alteration, modification, variation or transformation of the individual, self and the environment surrounding the person (Sharabi and Harpaz, 2013). Change comes in many forms, as there is always a need for the human being to bring improvement to benefit and add value to their lives and for future generations. It is important for a university to change and adapt to the current situation to maintain a competitive advantage in the industry compared with other university (Kuula, Putkiranta and Toivanen, 2014) and in order to achieve that, change is needed. Organizational policies are the guidelines the university has for the lecturers to follow in order for the university to achieve their goals and vision. Having said that, the university frequently established their goals and vision based on their shareholders expectation which is always demanding an improvement for the benefits of both parties (Vogel and Rowold, 2014). Therefore, the university would always change their policies in order to meet their demands. In connection with that, the lecturers in the university would have to follow the new organizational policies that is evolving at a fast pace in this age of globalization. This idea would cause the lecturers to always face changes in the university. Even the most successful university encounters the need to change. The capability of a university to change as soon as possible according to the environment will determine whether the university would be able to sustain in their competitive industry or not. Change could mean that the individual in the university is not doing things the way they are used to. This would cause the university to face some resistance to change from the lecturers working inside the university (Langstrand and Elg, 2012). The problem will arise when there is a process of implementing change. In general, people refuse to change due to status quo, lack of communication within the lecturers in the university, lack of commitment of lecturers and the fear of taking risk. Those barriers themselves could affect any university that wants to implement anything which would change the way the university functions. Although it is without a doubt that a university could not escape the need to change in today’s competitive environment, the failures or low rate of implementing change in an university leaves an university with a heavy task to continue with its drive to achieve their goals and vision. According to an article by Towers Watson in Forbes, it is discovered that only 25% of change management initiatives are successful in the end. For CITE THIS PAPER [1] Mahiswaran Selvanathan , Mahadevan Supramaniam , Yew Ter Shern , Subaashnii Suppramaniam , Ahmad Muzammir Muhammad , "The Impact of Resistance to Change among Lecturers in Private University," Universal Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 7, No. 12, pp. 2568 - 2572, 2019. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2019.071203.