IMPROVING CHANGE MANAGEMENT: HOW COMMUNICATION NATURE INFLUENCES RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Little has been studied yet in terms of how communication nature influenceschange process. This article explores a case studythat takes partin a broaderresearch project, aimed to contribute in this direction. It was applied a mix method approach to characterize resistance to change and communication nature within one organization under a radical change process. One main theoreticalcontribution is an instrumental grid to characterize dialogic communication nature.Findings of the case study indicate that resistance to change reduces under dialogic communication and by revealing how communication dimensions perform in time,practitioners may enhance guidelines to effective change communication management. It’s already a common sense that changes are no longer happening sparsely, but are the pattern for nowadays. As well as widely announced scenarios of broader, faster changes (Eisenhardt 1989; Burnes and James 1995) organizations are immersed in andthe high levels of uncertainty these contemporary challenges promote. Such is especially true when change impacts many units in an organization, thus amplifying the number of people and perspectives involved, and leading to higher business complexity, as Buono and Keeneth (2008) have identified. One could argue that changes have always had been the pattern, and we, as observers, are the ones that are more aware and conscious about it than before. Anyway, this perception of organizational environment is requiring constant development of management science to deal with change processes. Impact and frequency of change efforts are the most common classification, although not extensive criteria, to characterize organizational change. As a complex phenomenon, it can be examined from several dimensions. A possible organization of ha l-