Understanding Change Resistance and Sabotage Behaviors in Academic Librarians | Study Guides, Projects, Research Change Management

247

From Saboteurs to Change

Management:

Investigating the Correlation between

Workplace Behavior and Change

Resistance

Brian Young and Ashley Dees*

In 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) published the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a guide for workplace

saboteurs during World War II.1 The manual describes targets of sabotage as those in which persons have “nor-

mal and inconspicuous access in ever day life,” the workplace being an ideal location for such behavior.2 It also

mentions that the opportunity for sabotage is often found in “faulty decisions”, “non-cooperative attitudes,” and

by getting others to follow ones lead in such behaviors.3 It is further suggested that such behavior will “harass and

demoralize enemy administrators.”4 Galford, Frisch, & Greene used the Simple Sabotage Field Manual to map

the sabotage behaviors encouraged by the OSS manual to sabotage behaviors within the workplace in the book

Simple Sabotage.5 Many of the sabotage behaviors appear to be related to a resistance to change in employees.

Change is a word that for most invokes at minimum a feeling of uncertainty and at most abject fear par-

ticularly in relation to the workplace. Change is frequently seen as “threatening, too complicated, harmful, con-

fusing, painful, and unnecessary.”6 A few reasons for change resistance according to Dukic include protecting

the status quo, the fear, and no clear vision.7 As such change and resistance to change have been studied a great

deal and in numerous settings, however while there appears to be a great deal of assumed resistance to change

among academic librarians very little of this has been validated through research. The research that does exist in

relation of academic librarians and change mostly concentrates on changing technology and how libraries and

librarians have to adapt to said changes (Adeyoyin, Imam, & Bello 2012;8 Nelson & Irwin 2014;9 Weiner 200310).

The current study attempts to serve as a starting point for resistance to change research within the area of aca-

demic librarianship and to determine academic librarians’ real opinions or feelings about change or resistance

to change. Using Oreg’s Resistance to Change Scale, a scale that has been used and validated in studies such as

Oreg,11 Oreg, Nevo, Metzer, Leder, & Castro,12 the authors set out to determine academic librarians’ resistance to

change. Also of interest were some of the ways in which academic librarians might resist change or inadvertently

sabotage change in the workplace.

Reasons for Change Resistance

Stanislao and Stanislao suggest that the reasons for resisting change differ between those with veto power and

those without. For those with veto power, reasons for resistance included “inertia,” “fear of the unknown,” “inse-

* Brian Young is Research and Instruction Librarian and Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi, bwy-

oung@olemiss.edu; Ashley Dees is Research and Instruction Librarian and Assistant Professor at the University of

Mississippi, aesorey@olemiss.edu

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From Saboteurs to Change

Management:

Investigating the Correlation between

Workplace Behavior and Change

Resistance

Brian Young and Ashley Dees*

In 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) published the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a guide for workplace

saboteurs during World War II.^1 The manual describes targets of sabotage as those in which persons have “nor-

mal and inconspicuous access in ever day life,” the workplace being an ideal location for such behavior.^2 It also

mentions that the opportunity for sabotage is often found in “faulty decisions”, “non-cooperative attitudes,” and

by getting others to follow ones lead in such behaviors.^3 It is further suggested that such behavior will “harass and

demoralize enemy administrators.”^4 Galford, Frisch, & Greene used the Simple Sabotage Field Manual to map

the sabotage behaviors encouraged by the OSS manual to sabotage behaviors within the workplace in the book

Simple Sabotage.^5 Many of the sabotage behaviors appear to be related to a resistance to change in employees.

Change is a word that for most invokes at minimum a feeling of uncertainty and at most abject fear par-

ticularly in relation to the workplace. Change is frequently seen as “threatening, too complicated, harmful, con-

fusing, painful, and unnecessary.”^6 A few reasons for change resistance according to Dukic include protecting

the status quo, the fear, and no clear vision.^7 As such change and resistance to change have been studied a great

deal and in numerous settings, however while there appears to be a great deal of assumed resistance to change

among academic librarians very little of this has been validated through research. The research that does exist in

relation of academic librarians and change mostly concentrates on changing technology and how libraries and

librarians have to adapt to said changes (Adeyoyin, Imam, & Bello 2012;^8 Nelson & Irwin 2014;^9 Weiner 2003^10 ).

The current study attempts to serve as a starting point for resistance to change research within the area of aca-

demic librarianship and to determine academic librarians’ real opinions or feelings about change or resistance

to change. Using Oreg’s Resistance to Change Scale, a scale that has been used and validated in studies such as

Oreg,^11 Oreg, Nevo, Metzer, Leder, & Castro,^12 the authors set out to determine academic librarians’ resistance to

change. Also of interest were some of the ways in which academic librarians might resist change or inadvertently

sabotage change in the workplace.

Stanislao and Stanislao suggest that the reasons for resisting change differ between those with veto power and

those without. For those with veto power, reasons for resistance included “inertia,” “fear of the unknown,” “inse-

curity,” “ignorance,” “obsolescence,” “personality,” “resentment of criticism,” “participation,” “tact,” confidence,”

and “timing.”^13 For those without veto power, reasons for resistance included “surprise,” “limited information” on

how they would be affected by the change, “lack of training,” “lack of real understanding,” “loss of status,” “peer

pressure,” “loss of security,” “loss of known work group,” “personality conflicts,” and “timing.”^14 They suggest

however that management should work to facilitate participation, be tactful in their approach or in how they

introduce the change, attempt to plant the idea of the change, or make sure that they show support for the change

and the benefits of the change that it will help employees who are change resistant.^15

Kanter, in the article Ten reasons people resist change, suggests many of the same reasons employees resist

change as Stanislao and Stanislao: “uncertainty,” “surprise,” “concerns about competence or confidence,” and

“past resentments” or personality issues.^16 Kanter also lists additional lists “loss of control”, “everything seems

different”, and the fear of more work as additional employee concerns.^17

A survey of varying aged librarians found that librarians who were new to the profession were typically surprised by

the resistance to change they encountered in their colleagues and library administrators.^18 Some new librarians from the

survey related this fear of change to the ages of their co-workers while others put it down to lengthy process or red tape

that had compounded over time; other survey respondents felt resistance to change by colleagues was due to burn out.^19

The present study also surveys librarians with a wide variety of age, supervisory roles, and years of experi-

ence. By using a validated resistance to change scale, the authors aim to better understand librarians’ perceptions

of change. In addition, by also adding the sabotage dimension, the authors hope to explore connections between

change resistance and workplace sabotage. As mentioned earlier, sabotage in this context is not necessarily pur-

poseful but, instead, may come from seemingly benign behaviors.

The sample for this study was obtained by distributing a survey through multiple library listservs whose audi-

ences included academic librarians. Survey respondents were then limited to only academic librarians through

a recruitment e-mail and a self-identifying question at the beginning of the survey. Two hundred sixty-five par-

ticipants completed the entire survey. Partial survey responses were discarded.

Participants were asked to respond to three demographic questions: age, supervisory status, and years of expe-

rience. Age ranges were based on common views on generational identities (e.g., millennials are individuals born

in or after 1981). Supervisory status was defined as either non-manager, manager of librarians, or administrator.

The majority of the non-demographic questions were taken from Oreg’s resistance-to-change (RTC) scale,

which he validated through a series of studies and has been commonly used to measure participants’ disposi-

tional resistance to change.^20 The scale consists of seventeen Likert questions with six potential choices, ranging

from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (6). In this study, the scale’s Cronbach alpha was .873. The alphas

for each subscale were above the acceptable level of .7: .795 (routine seeking), .790 (emotional response),.

(short-term focus), and .741 (cognitive rigidity). Participants were coded as either being resistant to change

(RTC score ≤ 3.99) or not resistant to change (RTC score ≥ 4.00). Once coded, the two groups’ responses to the

second set of non-demographic questions (i.e., sabotage-based question set) could be compared. The remain-

ing non-demographic questions were taken directly or derived from actions identified as sabotage behaviors in

either the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, or from those identified in the book Simple Sabotage.

The primary emphasis of the study was whether any significant differences existed between how librarians re-

sponded to change based on age, supervisory status, and years of library experience. Results suggest that being

248 Brian Young and Ashley Dees

The finding that individuals in managerial positions tend to be more resistant to change appears to be at

odds with the findings of Dukic who found that those in “managerial positions” tended to have more positive

perceptions of change (186).^22 The questions from the Resistance to Change scale are all from the point of view

of change being enacted upon the respondent, which could account for managers and administrators seeming

resistant to change in this study while Dukic’s study showed a more positive perception of change.^23 Adminis-

trators, who are frequently the change agents within their libraries, may feel differently about change when the