Leadership Practices for Addressing Faculty Resistance Productively During Organizational Change

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: Engaging Educators in Equity-Focused Change (Table 17)

Abstract

Within organizational change processes, resistance is typically framed as an obstruction to meeting the goals of the change efforts (Rowley & Sherman, 2001), though some research suggests that resistance can productively shape change efforts (Kindred, 1999). This study draws on two years of qualitative data to explore how leaders in a university-based TEP responded to faculty resistance, including whether and how resistance was treated as a contribution to organizational change efforts. Guided by sociocultural accounts of agency and resistance in workplace learning and change, study findings illuminate strategies program leaders employed to listen to and address faculty resistance in ways that furthered the goals of change processes and productively shaped the development of workplace policies and practices.

Author

• Susannah Davis, University of New Mexico
  Presenting Author