The nature and antecedents of middle manager resistance to change: evidence from an Italian context

Although widely regarded as central to the successful implementation of change in organisations, middle managers have been relatively neglected in the literature on resistance to change (RTC). Focusing on middle management, we investigated the relative impact on RTC of two key factors commonly identified in the literature as key potential antecedents of resistance, namely individuals' perceptions of the cost/benefits of change and their extent of participation in the change process, respectively. To this end, we first identified a number of alternative hypotheses about the impact of the two antecedents of interest on RTC. We then tested these hypotheses using structured survey data from a sample of over 300 middle managers in the Italian national electricity company (ENEL) which, in the second half of the 1990s, underwent a major programme of change in preparation for its eventual privatization. In line with dominant arguments in the literature, the results of the analysis provided clear support to the idea that both antecedents of interest have a significant impact on middle managers' propensity to engage in various forms of RTC. For the most part, though, resistance amongst middle managers was found to take the form of a failure to engage in various types of pro-change behaviour, rather than of a propensity to engage in more open and active forms of dissent.