Advocating against the grain: Exploring the dialectical process of issue-selling contentious ideas
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2024-08-29
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en
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This study delves into issue-selling, a process through which change agents can challenge the organisational status quo, which inherently triggers resistance and tensions. It uses a dialectical perspective to explore the process of raising contentious ideas through issue-selling.
An ethnographic was conducted, specifically focusing on efforts to denormalise alcohol consumption within organisations, by interviewing and observing change agents and recipients.
The findings revealed significant opposing views on the contentious topic, which led to confrontation and resistance, required coping and balancing dual roles, and required adapting strategies to persist. Four approaches were identified as adaptive strategies to facilitate change with less confrontation: non-confrontational communication, incremental steps, mapping and learning, and gradually building a supportive network.
A grounded model emerged of a dialectic change process, highlighting the relational and adaptive aspects of issue-selling contentious ideas.
This study contributes to theory by providing a nuanced understanding of how conflicting forces of changing and defending the status quo coexist in the process of issue-selling. It highlights the relational and adaptive aspects of issue-selling, with practical implications for change agents and organisational leaders to manage confrontation effectively in contentious change efforts
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen