ABSTRACT
A key assumption underpinning the Change Management literature is that managers will support endeavours to change organisations. It focuses on the literature that has attended to management resistance, which remains limited despite R. S. Brower and M. Y. Abolafia’s assertion that ‘little systematic examination of managerial resistance has been offered’ The bureaucratic form of organization is increasingly being replaced by more flexible structures that are flatter, more rectangular in shape, and with power and authority more diffused and vested in those who deal directly with customers and the external environment. The chapter considers senior-level management non-compliance, which the Change Agent (CA) sought to resist through persuasion, avoiding certain language or direct confrontation. It explores how managers may use bureaucratic structures, procedures and processes to maintain control and, in the process, evade or slow down change. Bureaucracy is simultaneously a medium of control and resistance for both the CAs and management.
