Global Financial Crisis and Organizational Change

Resistance to change is inevitable as there are many parties who stand to lose from change and apart from the status quoists there are vested interests who would oppose change. The changes that the organizations and the companies introduced in the wake of the global financial crisis were systemic and fundamental in nature and hence there would be many reasons for people and employees in these organizations to resist change.

The primary reason why the people would resist change is that because of job losses and the associated risks of layoffs and restricting, they stand to lose and hence there is a strong element of resistance that enters the discussion.

Since the organizations in Australia undertook drastic changes to the way they worked, the people working in these organizations have every reason to resist the changes because they are at the losing end of the changes and hence have a stake in resisting change. This goes for the majority of people who were affected by the downturn and whose jobs and careers were at stake because of the global financial crisis.

The other reason for people or organizations to resist change is that the global financial crisis was systemic in nature and hence called for fundamental changes in which the system operated.

This meant that the people or organizations at the receiving end of these changes had to bear very drastic changes in the way they operated and hence those who gain by following the status quo had every reason to resist the change. This was especially the case with organizations that underwent restricting and cost cutting where though there were no drastic job losses, many of the perks and benefits for the employees were cut leading to widespread dissatisfaction and discontent with the kind of changes that were being proposed. Hence, this is the second most important reason for people or organizations to resist changes in the wake of the downturn caused by the global financial crisis.

The third reason why organizations resisted the changes in the aftermath of the global financial crisis is that many of the changes introduced led to regulatory and legal changes in the way organizations operated and hence there was every chance that these organizations had to implement rules and regulations that would curb excessive risk taking and speculation.

Given the enormous benefits that these methods of risk taking and speculation bring to the people and organizations concerned, it is indeed the case that they would not be willing to forego these benefits.

Hence, this is a very important reason for people and organizations to resist the changes introduced in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

In conclusion, change is something that is constant but given the inherent tendency of the bureaucratic structures in organizations to resist change, there is always an element of resistance to change. Particularly when the changes are drastic as seen in the case of the global financial crisis, there tends to be steadfast opposition to change by the organizations and hence this is a fact of life that the change makers and the change agents have to factor in their strategies.

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