Employee resistance is often seen as the major force against the enactment of change. The literature has privileged the view that resistance, for the most extent, is the resistors’ own fault. As Ford and Ford put it, “the assumption is that they resisted a perfectly logical move.” I build on the approach that resistance to change is a form of feedback, to argue that, if organizations and their agents examine the underlying reasons, they will be better equipped to deal with the challenges related to resistance. In light of Uncertainty Reduction Theory, I also suggest that we need to move beyond the viewpoint that examines change as a one-off phenomenon and interpret it as grounded in the broader organizational life. Finally, and building on recent empirical evidence, I put forth a framework on anticipating intentions to resist future change that integrates the organization’s history of change, individual characteristics, leadership factors, and organizational factors, alongside important boundary conditions that influence the sensemaking process underlying the development of intentions to resist future changes.

Organizational identification might become weaker when confronted with organizational changes, such as mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Identification change in M&As has received significant attention from scholars, but the extant theoretical evidence might not apply to employees involved in Chinese M&As. Indeed, cultural characteristics (e.g., dialectical thinking, collectivism, power distance) might make Chinese employees more tolerant of contradictions and ambivalence than employees in the Western hemisphere. To address this gap, we will refer to the social identity theory and the extant knowledge on identification change in cross-border M&As. We will present a framework of organizational identification change for Chinese employees after acquisition together with factors that contribute to the success of M&As. We illustrate it with the case of a Chinese acquisition in Europe: ChinaCorp and EuroMall. We theorize on the role of identity leadership wherein a leader’s behavior has a particularly strong impact on identification processes in high power distance and collectivist cultures. We will show how acts of identity leadership matter for the transfer from pre-merger to post-merger identification in the case of Chinese acquirers.

Frontline crisis teams are typically very cohesive, characterized by strong bonds between members. Cohesion ensures that team members look out for each other in dangerous work environments, operate resiliently in crisis contexts, and can rapidly coordinate in stressful situations. This explains why many crisis organizations are total institutions. Yet, cohesion may also produce dysfunctional group dynamics, as open debate about the crisis and the required response is avoided. Contestation in crisis teams is often deplored and might escalate into conflict, but it does ensure a thorough analysis of the situation from diverse viewpoints and thus facilitates the adoption of a well-considered, mindful response. The simultaneous need for cohesion and contestation creates a dilemma. To deal with this dilemma, it is important to note that team tensions are varied. Crisis organizations, particularly those with complex tasks, can pursue task-related contestation, while upholding relationship-related cohesion. This requires an investment in mutual trust and respect, so that team develops a safe space for open interactions without risking hostility or disintegration.

Here I comment on the chapters that have formed the contribution of this volume. I note that this second edition makes contributions considerably beyond those of the first edition, in particular by devoting attention to the dynamics of planned organizational change, not simply its instigators and outcomes. In particular, the chapters contribute to several important themes associated with dynamics of planned change. These include ways of classifying types of organizational change, the importance of change leaders and the development of change leadership, the importance of both affective and cognitive processes (especially sensemaking) in change, the roles of several types of identity processes in change, and the recognition of temporal processes in change. The chapters show the salience of these dynamics, whether they are recognized or not, to sensitize scholars to look for them. I conclude by suggesting some possible new directions for future investigations of change. These include the use of process as well as variance theorizing, attention to change emergence, and attention to changes that extend beyond individual organizations.

By integrating the fragmented research on emergency services, armed forces, and humanitarian organizations, this book identifies the components of a new theory on frontline crisis response. To begin with, the work of responders is characterized by persistent operational dilemmas. Since there are no universal solutions, they need to adapt their approaches and decisions to the situational contingencies of a crisis. These adaptations continue throughout the crisis response process as the situation evolves. Responders usually pragmatically act their way through operational dilemmas in the crisis response process. These experiences nevertheless have an existential effect on their identities and lives. Thus, the new theory comprises operational dilemmas, situational contingencies, response processes, pragmatic principles, and existentialist ideas. This theory offers a basis for crisis response improvements and contributes to the literature on strategic crisis management, frontline work in organizations, reliable organizing in risky contexts, and post-crisis operations. The chapter ends with a research agenda and a call for more academic engagement with frontline crisis response.

New technologies hold great promises of making crisis response better. These technologies may improve information positions and enable faster communication as well as produce more rapid and targeted responses in crises. As such, technological progress boosts effectiveness and efficiency, while reducing risks to frontline responders. Still, the reality does not always match these great expectations due to technical failures and implementation difficulties as well as persistent social problems that cannot be resolved by new tools or systems. There are often even undesirable side effects. The dilemma for frontline responders revolves around finding the right attitude toward new technologies. Technological progress is a historical inevitability, but new innovations should only be adopted if these match a recognized problem in the response and not just for their own sake. There are guiding principles, based on earlier experiences, that offer useful insights in how to best incorporate modern tools and systems. This requires a prudent approach that considers new technology with a mix of hesitation and curiosity.

We offer in this chapter an overview of the state of research on organization members’ responses to organizational change since the publication of the first edition of the book. We also review this edition’s structure and content.

Leadership in crisis response has traditionally been strongly centralized and hierarchical. Top-down command and control is popular, because a strict hierarchy and clear lines of command enable rapid decision-making and coordinated actions. Critics, however, have argued that centralization is both impossible and undesirable during crises, because leaders lack situational awareness and cannot control frontline responders from a distance. They argue that operational personnel should take charge to ensure an adaptive frontline response, potentially at the cost of efficiency and speed. The operational dilemma of crisis leadership revolves therefore around the tension between centralization and decentralization. To deal with this dilemma, it is useful to study how influence is exercised and power circulates during crises. Rather than a static authority structure, different types and phases of crises require different forms of leadership. Authority structures have to be tested and adjusted throughout the response, so they can be continuously co-constructed by frontline responders and operational leaders, as the complex and dynamic crisis situation evolves.

The emotions of frontline responders are traditionally viewed as problematic, because emotions are seen as distractive and impediments to an efficient pursuit of optimal crisis response outcomes. In addition, personal involvement in the situation might result in trauma since responders are often unable to prevent tragedy and suffering. Dissociation from the response, instead, might best enable responders to cope with traumatic experiences and avoid negative psychological consequences. Yet, compassion and altruism give meaning to their work for many responders and can improve their customized care to those in need. Detachment, moreover, is rarely fully effective. The emotional attitude of crisis responders, therefore, poses a dilemma. It is useful to note that emotions are diverse in nature and intensity. This means that there is room to explore how to manage emotions in such a way that feelings of empathy and involvement are enabled without responders succumbing to it. In any case, it requires unwavering organizational and team support.

Crisis research focuses primarily on how response structures should be organized. There are ongoing debates about the required degree of flexibility in the response structure and what role emergent groups should have. A shared assumption in this research is that organization and structure are synonymous with order in a crisis and enable a rapid, coordinated response. Disorganization, by extension, is criticized for crisis response failures. This view ignores the risk of over-organization and crisis response rigidity. In uncertain crises, disorganizing might produce a looser, less ordered structure that facilitates a novel, adaptive response. The dilemma for frontline responders revolves around the need for both organizing and disorganizing during crises. It is worthwhile noting that different types and phases of the crisis demand different forms of reorganizing. The reorganizing process, through disorganizing and organizing, needs to be ongoing throughout the duration of the crisis situation to ensure that crisis demands and organizational response structures evolve synchronously.

Using a social identity approach, this research program focuses on how Eastern and Western managers make sense of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Study 1 used online experiments to examine how people perceive intergroup criticism. We found that employees responded to criticism more negatively when it was made by an outgroup rather than by ingroup members. Building on the study 1 results, we further explored social identity processes and intergroup dynamics. We conducted interviews with European (Study 2) and Chinese managers (Study 3) involved in an acquisition of a European company by a Chinese holding. Study 2 shows that European managers’ organizational identity change is facilitated by alignment of a post-merger identity with their pre-merger historical identity, and over time, they engaged in collaboration and knowledge sharing with their Chinese counterparts. In Study 3, we found that Chinese managers leveraged an agile organizational identity to deal with status inferiority and rapid organizational changes. In summary, this research program addresses the need for a deeper understanding of social identity processes and change beyond M&A context, but also in other cross-cultural collaboration processes which involve employees who initially have various identities, practices, and cultural backgrounds.