Qualitative study reveals tailored leadership responses overcome logic-based resistance in elite law firms, highlighting mechanisms to update institutional settlements.
Key Points
To examine how organizational change agents can effectively address employee resistance stemming from conflicts between incoming societal logics and existing workplace norms.
Conducted a field study of elite law firms introducing a new career track to enhance work–life balance alongside the traditional up-or-out partnership path.
Analyzed interactions between change agents and associates who resisted the initiative because prioritizing family obligations was viewed as illegitimate.
Identified three distinct forms of logic-based resistance among employees: irreconcilability, ambiguity, and contradiction.
Demonstrated that change agents successfully countered resistance via three tailored responses—redirecting, reinforcing, and reassuring—drawing on contextually legitimate logic elements.
Observed that aligning these concern-response pairs allowed organizations to harmonize competing logics and adapt existing institutional settlements to societal changes.