Generative Resistance: The importance of enabling differences

Abstract

Within the organizational change literature, resistance is often treated in ways that tether it to change as its shadow side and, consequently, minimize its value. In contrast to prior approaches, we offer a generative approach to theorizing resistance to change—one that suggests important contributions it can make to change when considered in its own right. We discuss three such contributions: surfacing rather than covering deep-rooted societal conflicts, fostering the development of group and organizational identity, and sustaining important differences. We offer narrative vignettes that illustrate each of these: the differing responses of evangelical Christians and human rights groups to World Vision, a humanitarian aid organization, and its brief decision to allow the employment of individuals in same-sex marriages; United States Roman Catholic sisters’ response to a Vatican Apostolic Visitation; and the steps taken by attorneys in Texas to resist the death penalty in counter-intuitive, entirely legal, but rarely enacted ways. In doing so we demonstrate how resistance in and of itself can address both theoretical and practical tensions pertinent to change. Theoretically, it can add a “neither/nor” dimension to “both/and” approaches to paradox and dialectics. Practically, it suggests why many standard ways of dealing with major societal conflicts are unlikely to succeed and what can be done instead.

Resistance, as typically discussed with regard to organizational change, has become trapped into overly simplified dualisms that narrowly define it as a nemesis to change or control (cf. Burnes, 2015; Dent & Goldberg, 1999). When this is the case, the “solution” to resistance is to manage, overcome, or eliminate it.

However, if we liberate resistance from this trap by recognizing it as conceptually independent and important in and of itself, we can carve out a consequential role for resistance. In this paper, our intention is to demonstrate how resistance to change can challenge and expand contemporary approaches to dualistic and paradoxical thinking, as well as the practical consequences of such thinking. Reconceptualizing resistance can thus give it a generative role in theory and practice pertinent to change. It can be particularly generative for approaching major societal concerns, such as those “grand challenges” which require considerable change and about which considerable conflict exists (Smith et al., 2017).

Considering resistance in novel ways can help scholars and practitioners of organizational change “challenge some taken-for-granted assumptions of social life and furnish new ways of thinking about fundamental questions” (Bartunek & Lei, 2023; also see Gergen, 1994). Such a generative approach to resistance recognizes the crucial importance of narratives. It also draws on, yet challenges, some of the implicit understandings of paradoxical thinking in organizational studies. It expands the role of resistance to reveal fundamental societal conflicts, to construct, maintain, or change identities, and to sustain and preserve differences, among other potential contributions.

Below, we summarize how resistance and its related constructs of power and control have been approached from an organization development and change perspective within organization studies. We will argue that resistance has been “tethered” to these concepts and relegated to a minor role in organizational and societal change. Next, we will present an expanded view that values resistance in its own right, one more aligned with a sociology of radical change (Burrell & Morgan, 1979). We will then illustrate the importance of resistance in many important types of societal interaction. Its important role challenges some of the implicit boundaries of current understandings of dialectics and paradox.

Liberating resistance from stubborn dualities

What resistance means in relation to change and control

We recognize that the term “resistance” has a wide variety of meanings and connotations in different social science fields (Erwin & Garman, 2010; Hollander & Einwohner, 2004; Lilja, 2022) and that it is a multidimensional concept that incorporates variations in types of purpose and degree of intent, level (individual to societal), form (e.g., avoidance, breaking, destructive and constructive [cf. Rocheville & Bartunek, 2025]), and other characteristics. In our analysis, we will focus on some of the more common conceptualizations of resistance addressed by organizational scholars, especially concerning change and control related to change.

Resistance has been relegated to a minor role in studies of organizational change, typically as a response to others’ initiatives (i.e., change agents’ and managers’), and a negative one at that, existing in tension with more positively framed organizational change (e.g., Battilana & Casciaro, 2013; Hon et al., 2014; Mikel-Hong et al., 2024; Skov & Lê, 2025). That is, from the foundations of the field of organizational change (Cummings et al., 2016), resistance has been treated as a lesser dialectic to change. Within this legacy, it suffers from deeply engrained connotations of reactivity to change, consistent with thinking in terms of dualisms, “either/or” approaches that set two sides against the other, often by “splitting” elements, with the expectation that one is good and the other is bad (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2024; Putnam et al., 2016). However, resistance to change was not initially introduced as part of such a dualism.

Lewin (1947) introduced the notion of resistance as part of a larger discussion of social fields and the forces they exert on entities in terms of movement. His original illustration, for example, included the constancy of production rate in a group even if there are changes in the group. He claimed that “only by relating the actual degree of constancy to the strength of forces toward or away from the present state of affairs can one speak of degrees of ‘resistance or stability’ of group life in a given respect” (1947, pp. 13–14).

Lewin’s discussion of resistance did not include judgmental implications per se. Rather, his work on the topic was based to a considerable extent on experiments in which he had been involved that had to do with changing US housewives’ and their families’ eating habits during the Second World War. These experiments had focused on how group discussion and participative decision making had often changed group level judgments and, based on these, individual housewives’ decision making, which then affected family meals (Wansink, 2002). Lewin commented, for example, that some resistance to change may come from social habits, and “if the resistance to change depends partly on the value of the group standard for the individual, the resistance to change should be diminished if one uses a procedure which diminishes the strength of the value of the group standard or which changes the level that is perceived by the individual as having social value” (1947, p. 34). In other words, his focus had a pragmatic tone.

However, the term resistance has had negative connotations in organization studies since 1948, when the title of what became a very well-known paper by Coch and French, “Overcoming resistance to change,” led resistance to be treated as negative, a dissent to others’ change initiatives that is “dysfunctional,” “deviant,” and misguided (Mumby et al., 2017), and, perhaps, the term that has stuck most in organizational change—“a barrier” to be overcome (cf. Cable & Bartunek, 2024). Coch and French’s (1948) study was an action research project that explored how the context in which organizational change occurs can affect how individuals respond to change—in their case, maintaining the production rate of manufacturing when workers switch job duties. Their analysis used Lewin’s quasi-stationery equilibria approach, which assumed that all behavior took place within fields of forces that both fostered and impeded change in any particular direction. However, the title of their paper, which described overcoming resistance, was taken by many to mean something very different from their study’s original intent (cf. Burnes, 2015), including treating it as dysfunctional for change. By 1950, Zander (1950, p. 9) was describing resistance as “behavior which is intended to protect an individual from the effects of real or imagined change”, and by 1954, Lawrence (1954, p. 49) wrote that resistance is “one of the most baffling and recalcitrant of the problems which business executives face.” Burnes (2015) noted the widespread assumption across organizational change literature that organizational change is good—and resistance to it is bad. In this paper, we use an analytical vignettes approach to challenge that assumption.

Scholars and practitioners have occasionally argued that organizational employees often have good reasons for resisting change (Dent & Goldberg, 1999; Ford et al., 2008; Mikel-Hong et al., 2024). Nevertheless, this has not been enough to stop the connotation of change as good and resistance as bad, with the two having been persistently linked together. That is, change agents and scholars have linked resistance to change as its shadow side.

Additionally, even within the context of organizational change, resistance is also tied to power or control. Bristow et al. (2017, p. 1887) noted that “resistance suffers from a legacy that is deeply engrained with connotations of reactivity and responsiveness, a kind of lesser binary opposite of power.” Mumby et al. (2017, p. 1161) noted that Foucault (1980, p. 95) put it succinctly: “Where there is power, there is resistance.” Sahay and Goldthwaite (2024, p. 283) argued that “resistance is often understood as a taken-for-granted consequence of power relationships in organizations (Mumby et al., 2017).” They add that “in fact, resistance has almost always been seen as a bottom-up concept, where employees resist the change implemented by management” (p. 283). Demirović (2017, p. 34) argued that “resistance follows from power and deploys itself against power, and yet remains wholly tied to it.” Change and power are often concurrent because accomplishing organizational change depends on power to ensure it takes place. Thus, an underlying relationship between change and resistance is also often an underlying relationship between power and resistance.

In recent years, some scholars have recognized the importance and value of resistance associated with organizational change and related control issues. For example, Piderit (2000), Thomas et al. (2011), and Oreg et al. (2018), among others, have described how resistance to organizational change may have positive impacts that are more useful than unthinking acceptance. In 2017, Organization Studies published a special issue on Resistance, Resisting, and Resisters in and around Organizations (Mumby et al., 2017). This special issue featured studies that illustrated previously unrecognized variations in organizational resistance, such as individual versus collective and public versus private dimensions. It suggested ways that resistance, when practiced skillfully and strategically, can be productive (Courpasson et al., 2012), a notion that this paper furthers.

Resistance as the tethered shadow of change

Tinsley et al. (2024) speak of what it means to be tethered in terms of the good and its shadow. They noted that Carl Jung (1916) had described the shadow as housing “the unconscious mind’s reservoir of base instincts and primitive characteristics that, while inherent to us, are deemed inappropriate and undesirable by society’s standards” (p. 663). Their paper, foundationally based on Jung’s scholarship, explores the ways that we all hide our shadow sides behind laudable personal masks. However, our shadow sides are essentially tethered to our personas; these personas do not exist without them. Beyond a dialectical relationship, this is paradoxical. As Tinsley and colleagues suggest, “dealing with the shadow is not simply a matter of being ‘authentic’ or accepting and sharing vulnerabilities . . . because the shadow houses impulses that we do not want to accept as our own” (p. 663).

Tinsley et al.’s (2024) argument is invaluable in suggesting that many change agents and change scholars, in their approaches to organizational change, have essentially treated resistance as a shadow for change and control. The motive behind creating this shadow has been to legitimize change and control, creating a space to jettison aspects of change that change agents and leaders do not want to soil their initiatives. Resistance, then, has been relegated to serve as a trash heap, and we brush much into this space to keep change looking tidy.

Ketola (2008, p. 201) suggested a similar pattern with regard to corporate social responsibility that can help us understand what is meant by this relationship:

Whenever there is a (Corporate Responsibility) CR problem in a company, whether it is an environmental incident, a social issue concerning the staff or external stakeholders or something else, the instinctive reaction of the CEO and other company representatives is to either deny the problem or project it on others. This is the shadow working. Initial denial and projection are followed by many kinds of justification and excuse that the shadow invents with its boundless imagination. It is almost impossible for any individual to resist the luring shadow’s aggressive and defensive behaviour patterns . . . and try to respond in the ego’s rational way to CR challenges because the feelings of shame and guilt overwhelm us.

As with the corporate responsibility example, attributing resistance to change to others is an excellent way for change agents and leaders to avoid acknowledging problems hidden within a change itself.

Dialectical approaches to resistance and their limitations

Some recent scholarship addressing paradox has focused on resistance not as opposition to change or control, but as in a dialectical relationship with it. For example, Gagnon and Collison (2017, p. 1254) argue that “rather than treat control and resistance as separate binaries, scholars increasingly argue that this relationship is better viewed as inextricably interrelated, dialectical, and shaped by discourse.” Harding et al. (2017, p. 1210) argue that “earlier theories of resistance as the binary opposite of control have been challenged and to some extent superseded by dialectical and poststructural theories that understand control and resistance as co-productive, interdependent, multidirectional, and constitutive of identities and relationships.” But this, too, is problematic, as such an approach still gives little chance for resistance to mean more than the shadow side of change or power. Change can be discussed without discussing resistance, as can control and power. Thus, giving resistance its own recognition as a concept is important as well.

If we liberate resistance from its dichotomy with change and power, we can redirect scholarly attention to other tensions in the management literature and the roles resistance might play in relation to them. For example, resistance and change are each dichotomous with reproduction (Giddens, 1984), normativity (Gehman, 2020), practices (Seidl & Whittington, 2020), and institutions (Oliver, 1991, 1992), to name just a few theoretical contexts. Further, Curtice (2023, p. 23) highlights that resistance is not simply the rejection of things or a fight against something; rather, resistance can have its own identity as an intentional choice, as a way of being; “resistance cannot only be about what we are against. When we choose to resist something or someone, we are also choosing something else on the other side.” Resistance gives people an alternative to the status quo as a dangerous and exclusive force. In this vein, Curtice proposes that resistance is a “basic human calling” (p. 17).

Consistent with this perspective, Harding et al. (2017) describe resistance as an act of recognizing what it means to be human. Butler et al. (2017, p. 17) argue that we should stop thinking of resistance “as an obstacle, hindrance, obstruction, or barrier”; rather, we should think of resistance as a “normative stance,” one which is “proliferated, through the rhetoric and actions of social, emancipatory movements and through discourses about the universality of human rights.” That is, resistance is motivated not as a lesser dialectic contradiction but as a way to surface important tensions, recognize our unique identities, and sustain differences—instead of hiding them.

What resistance can help foster

Conceptual approaches have generative capacity (Dutton & Workman, 2011) to the extent that they open new directions instead of merely solving puzzles (Bartunek & Lei, 2023; Gergen, 1994; Kuhn, 1962). We will suggest that resistance has such generative capacity.

Resistance can be helpful in several organizational domains, especially in acknowledging alternative vantage points and their potential contributions. In the following pages, we present three areas that resistance can infuse with new meaning. That is, we consider ways resistance can be a signal of deep societal conflicts, a form of identity construction, and a means of sustaining differences. In other words, resistance can provide new ways of thinking about fundamental questions.

The importance of narrative vignettes for elaborating concepts in practice

In addition to presenting these topics, we will provide a vignette, a narrative example, for each one. Social scientists have long used vignettes in experimental studies in which varying versions of vignettes stand in for particular experimental conditions (e.g., Aguinis & Bradley, 2014; Buskens & Weesie, 2000). Further, inductive qualitative research literally builds on complex narratives of events for its theoretical contributions (e.g., Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Pentland, 1999). In our study, we used vignettes to exemplify particular concepts in theorizing resistance and its related constructs and showed how these might manifest in practice. The authors constructed each vignette, using raw and secondary data, to illustrate different components of resistance to change and provide some insights into the underlying mechanisms that affected processes and outcomes of resistance. Generating theory from vignettes builds theory through disciplined imagination (Weick, 1989) and thus offers new vistas for research.

Thus, below, we illustrate each of our conceptual contributions to resistance—as a means of signalling fundamental societal conflict, as identity construction, and as an important means of sustaining differences—with pertinent vignettes. These not only flesh out the concepts but also demonstrate an effective way that researchers can work with events and their related constructs by considering them from a narrative perspective.

Resistance as signalling fundamental societal conflict

The meaning of this understanding

In their 1979 book Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis, in addition to distinguishing between functionalist and interpretivist approaches to knowledge, Burrell and Morgan introduced an important distinction between what they called the sociology of regulation and the sociology of radical change:

We introduce the term “sociology of regulation” to refer to the writings of theorists who are primarily concerned to provide explanations of society in terms which emphasise its underlying unity and cohesiveness . . . The basic questions which it asks tend to focus upon the need to understand why society is maintained as an entity . . . The “sociology of radical change” stands in stark contrast to the “sociology of regulation”, in that its basic concern is to find explanations for the radical change, deep-seated structural conflict, modes of domination and structural contradiction which its theorists see as characterising modern society. (1979, p. 17)

While Burrell and Morgan’s categories, including some of the language they used, have been criticized (e.g., Cerin, 2003; Deetz, 1996), their distinction between the sociology of regulation and the sociology of radical change, by whatever name, plays an important role in highlighting that fundamental differences exist in how people view the world.

A paradoxical approach that focuses on “both/and” (cf. Smith & Lewis, 2022) often implicitly, if not explicitly, reflects a “sociology of regulation” perspective that assumes society’s underlying unity and cohesiveness. However, resistance may help surface issues about fundamental disagreement rather than unity. This disagreement may or may not be explicit, but it underlies how particular issues of concern are addressed.

A good number of societal concerns, including those typically labelled as grand challenges (George et al., 2016) or those that the United Nations has described as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UN General Assembly, 2015), are not at all agreed upon. What climate change actually “means,” what must be done to provide clean water, how to provide for aging societies, or how to deal with migration across borders, has awakened profound disagreements, sometimes between goals and sometimes between interests, values, and means. Such disagreements constitute fundamental societal conflicts, where resistance is likely to be much deeper and meaningful than the dualisms/dualities approaches addressed in most organization development and change literature (Bartunek et al., 2021; Putnam et al., 2016).

For example, Lee et al. (2020) have suggested how the popular concept of the blue economy, as a strategy for safeguarding the world’s waters, is in inherent conflict with another UN goal: growth and development. George et al. (2016, p. 1888) note how the “provision of employment in the natural resource-rich countries of Africa could also conflict with the exploitation of natural resources and protection of the local environment.” Further, there are often conflicts between organizations’ interests and such global aspirations, so that even when organizations espouse the goals, they do not really do much about them (Heras-Saizarbitoria et al., 2022). When this is the case, the conflicts are not opened up for scrutiny. However, that does not mean that conflicts are not present. Public resistance can make such conflicts salient, showing that some problems cannot be simply swept under the rug. Sometimes this is very important in itself.

An illustrative vignette of resistance evoking fundamental differences

In 2014, World Vision, an international evangelical Christian humanitarian aid, development, and advocacy organization (World Vision, 2024), and indeed one of the largest charities based in the United States, made what it described as a “very narrow policy change” in its internal employment policy, changing it from requiring employees to remain abstinent outside of heterosexual marriage to requiring employees to remain abstinent outside of marriage (Gracey & Weber, 2014a). World Vision announced the change in Christianity Today, saying:

We’re not caving to some kind of pressure. We’re not on some slippery slope. There is no lawsuit threatening ^us. There is no employee group lobbying us. This is not us compromising. It is us deferring to the authority of churches and denominations on theological issues. We’re an operational arm of the global church, we’re not a theological arm of the church. (Gracey & Weber, 2014a)

This switch did not evoke much internal response at World Vision. Yet several evangelical Christian organizations and individuals who were stakeholders of World Vision immediately spoke out publicly against the new policy. They argued that rather than a minor policy shift, the statement was an affront to Christian identity. For example, an evangelical Christian radio host broadcasted: “Let it be stated plainly to the leadership and board of directors of World Vision U.S.: The Lord Jesus is no longer central in the corporate life of your organization. You have denied his lordship by your actions” (Brown, 2014). Several complaints such as this, along with a call for supporters to revoke child sponsorships—a significant source of financial support—led World Vision to reverse the new policy within just two days (Gracey & Weber, 2014b). Subsequently, this reversal led to resistance from the Human Rights Campaign, which had cheered the policy shift (Joughin, 2014).

Concerning the original policy change, there was no external “control” or “power” that World Vision was resisting; their decision was not about an earlier change. However, as the situation played out, elements of control began to materialize, with opposing external organizations and individuals threatening to withhold the financial support World Vision needed to carry out its mission. In this way, an initial act of what might be viewed as low-level resistance against one social norm invoked a counter-resistance that expanded the meaning(s) of the norm, as outside agents characterized this particular change as having more meaning(s) than its initiators ever intended.

This may not seem like an obvious illustration of resistance as a way into paradoxical and dialectical thinking. However, it is potentially very important because, in practice, several approaches to “both/and” thinking do not acknowledge the possibilities of fundamental societal conflict, as Burrell and Morgan (1979) discussed. They thus have unrealistic expectations about the possibility of resolving tensions. In cases of deep-rooted societal conflict, resistance, and responses to it, may be more an indication of “neither/nor” than “both/and,” with the resulting situation for World Vision worse than it had been originally. What is important, however, is that through resistance, the conflict was surfaced, even though it clearly was not ready for a superficially easy resolution. The public surfacing of the conflict, if participants are able to hold the tensions such surfacing includes (rather than simply negate them), is crucial for potential later movement on such issues. While this vignette does not include such movement over time, the other two vignettes do.

Resistance as identity construction

The meaning of this understanding

Identity is a crucial dimension of any organization (Albert &Whetten, 1985; Gioia et al., 2000). Further, although this is not adequately recognized, resistance is a way to construct identity (Ybema et al., 2016), in the sense that is a way of sustaining or protecting autonomy in defining who we are (Mumby, 2005). Resistance as identity construction treats action and the agency within it as the ability to “act otherwise” with regard to the control/power of structures (Giddens, 1979). It is also a way of being that focuses on how we see ourselves, what actions we might take if we define ourselves in particular ways, and how our reflexive actions affect how we come to understand ourselves.

For example, Dutton et al.’s (2010) work on Pathways for Positive Identity Construction at Work initially received criticism that positive identities benefited managers by enabling them to exploit their workers. In response to this criticism, Dutton et al. (2011) highlighted the important relationship between positive identity construction and resistance. Rather than viewing positive identity construction as something that necessarily benefits an employer, they suggested resistance has a broader potential to benefit the employee. This points to the recursive nature of resistance and identity in that positive identity construction can empower people to “resist managerial or organizational interests” (Dutton et al., 2011, p. 428).

An illustrative vignette of resistance as identity construction ¹

In 2008, some years after the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal involving male priests erupted in the United States, the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life launched an Apostolic Visitation of religious institutes of Catholic sisters. The visitation was primarily driven by concerns about the perceived negative consequences of liberal and progressive understandings of faith and culture, particularly in areas such as human rights, espoused by many Catholic sisters. The purpose of the visitation was to assess their fidelity to Catholic church law and teaching. ² A sister who was head of a conservative religious congregation, Mother Mary Claire Millea, led this visitation.

The visitation spanned multiple phases and included interviews with several superiors of Catholic sisters in the United States, comprehensive questionnaires, and onsite visits to hundreds of religious institutes by apostolic visitors “who had been trained, authorized, and appointed in accord with Vatican directives, including making a profession of faith and taking an oath of loyalty” (Giorgi et al., 2014, p. 276). The visitation was, in large part, a public challenge to many sisters’ senses of their identity. This was followed by Mother Millea’s writing of a confidential report to the Vatican based on her observations and findings in all phases of the visitation process.

During this time, the leaders of the religious institutes thought, prayed, and anguished about how to respond to the visitation. The work of professed sisters also received considerable support from lay Catholics and US society at large. For example, on September 22, 2009, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution, by a unanimous vote, honouring and commending Catholic sisters for their service and sacrifice throughout US history.

As the sisters engaged in the visitation process, they took advantage of the visitation as a “moment” to teach others about the nature of their lives. This was shown, for example, in how they completed the questionnaires. Their efforts reflected a decisively “active engagement” with the visitation rather than passive or reactive resistance, as well as many “teachable moments” (Giorgi et al., 2014, p. 281) that included communicating the vitality of religious life and befriending the sisters who were visiting. What emerged from this process was a newly found—or, better, newly constructed—positive common identity among many sisters in the United States. That is, as the sisters shared deeply, on not only an intellectual level but also the level of emotions and shared prayer, something profoundly inspiring occurred; this emotional experience of a common spirit led to a new appreciation on the part of leaders of many of the religious institutes for the identity they shared as “gospel women.”

Fairhurst and Putnam (2024) described what the sisters were doing as “narrative identity work . . . in which individuals reflect on who they are and/or what they stand for, including how they are dealing with their own power and paradoxes” (2024, p. 174). This work upheld the conventional meaning of “Church” and the foundation of Church authority, while simultaneously asserting the right to self-determination. By the end of the visitation, the goals the Vatican apparently had held of returning to a more traditional model of Catholic sisters were at least partially subverted. Rather, the sisters institutes’ leaders developed a deeper sense of their identity and their own moral and spiritual authority. In other words, resistance, especially if it is expressed skillfully and reflexively, can lead a change attempt to take a new and unexpected path, one essentially created out of the combination of identity construction and change.

Resistance as sustaining differences

The meaning of this understanding

When we discuss sustaining differences, broadly speaking, we mean preserving or retaining an important (particular) viewpoint that differs from the viewpoint(s) of others. The World Vision example above showed a way to state a different viewpoint that led to shutting down conversation. The Apostolic Visitation suggested how to develop and share a viewpoint in ways that fostered conversation and recognition of apparent differences among many sisters that moved towards new understandings. Sometimes it is crucial to preserve a viewpoint over time, even if it is not commonly accepted.

To consider what is lost when a particular perspective cannot be sustained and is subsumed, thus disappearing in the integration process, we can look at what occurs when a language is lost. Anthropologists, sociologists, and linguists point out that when a language is lost, we lose not only cultures but also worldviews and unique ways of seeing and interpreting, which disappear forever, an “irretrievable loss” (Crystal, 2002; Dorian, 1992). The devastation is untold (literally and figuratively) because it is impossible to measure what we “might” have known if we had retained that way of seeing and/or knowing.

From a dialectical perspective, sustaining differences refers to preserving contradictions and avoiding a perspective being subsumed in efforts to resolve contradictions when they cannot truly be resolved simply. If a dialectical resolution of differences integrates opposing viewpoints (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2024; Putnam et al., 2016) in such a way that original viewpoints are lost, that is a problem.

Drawing on Courpasson and Dany (2009), Giorgi et al. (2014) apply this to organizations, pointing out that “resistance should not be thought of using an adversarial perspective; productive resistance allows less powerful members of an organization to voice alternative claims and interests that can improve management decision making and benefit the organization as a whole” (p. 264). This illustrates ways that differing voices are sustained. Somewhat consistently, Courpasson and Clegg (2012) suggested that organizational leaders in post-bureaucracies allow dissenters to demonstrate that they have the power not only to accept imperative commands but also to innovate and transform these, in a goal-oriented way, through cooperative resistance. They said that:

(C)ooperative resistance articulates the power-to do something other than that commanded, to build constituencies of interest and support for empowered strategies, and to deploy power-with others. Thus, dissent can be constituted as neither egotistically solitary nor defiant, a contest born neither from resentment nor alienation, and not a campaign of expropriation: in other words, cooperative resisters are not resisting per se but are using temporary power to promote alternative visions of managing in the post-bureaucracy. (2012, p. 57)

An illustrative vignette of resistance as sustaining differences

Unlike many countries that do not practice capital punishment for grave crimes, there is the possibility of a death penalty in many of the individual US states. The state of Texas, in particular, has historically had a very high rate of sentencing convicted murderers to death. For several years, one of our authors, Hans Hansen, has participated in legal efforts to fight the death penalty. He has used a narrative approach to accomplish this aim. His book (2020) includes multiple examples of a particular narrative approach that attorneys could use that was expected to fail at a local court level but had the potential for larger long-term effects.

A Catch-22 in the appellate process in the United States is that if attorneys do not object to something at an initial trial, they must “forever” hold their peace, meaning that they cannot object later at a subsequent trial. Therefore, Hans helped a newly formed death penalty defense team to develop a strategic narrative for attorneys to use when representing people charged with murder. This approach involved objecting to everything one may possibly conceive of and preserving these objections in the official court record. This approach to resistance is motivated by preserving, retaining, and sustaining differences to keep pathways and possibilities “alive” for future consideration.

Lawyers following this approach file motions and make objections early on at trials, expecting to get overruled by the judge at the trial level (within a culture where many do not carry out this step because they anticipate rejection), in a narrative called “preserving the record.” Despite their low likelihood of immediate success, these attempts by attorneys are nonetheless put into the official court record and remain available for review later at the Supreme Court if the verdict in a case is appealed. In one illustrative case, Hansen discussed several motions filed on behalf of a defendant named James Neely (a pseudonym). As Hansen described:

We filed a motion to at least take turns going first during jury selection so we would get straight answers at least half of the time. “Denied!” The judge shouted over his own chuckling and coughing. By this time, he was well back into the swing of saying no, stacking the deck against us. Toby, the lead defense attorney, kept going down our long list of motions . . .

Judge Hatch sighed and banged the gavel. “How many more of these have we got, anyways?” It was almost lunchtime. “Quite a few,” said Toby.

“They aren’t just more constitutional ones, are they?”

“I’m afraid so, Your Honor.” Toby wasn’t afraid at all. We would argue over eighty motions in pretrial hearings. Some were small, such as a motion for James to be able to wear a suit instead of the jail issued orange jumpsuit during trial, because seeing James in prison garb and chains would definitely bias jury perceptions about whether or not James was a future danger to society and needed to be killed. There were also dozens of motions to find the death penalty itself unconstitutional, on all kinds of grounds. We expected to be denied on all of them, but we still filed and argued them.

We were not really arguing the motions for this judge anyway. We were enacting our new narrative of perfect the record. Toby and Graham (the other attorney for the defendant) were looking way ahead, arguing to the Supreme Court, which might eventually review this death penalty case. Each motion to find the death penalty unconstitutional was a future lifeline for James Neely. (2020, pp. 95–96)

Over the long term, this resistance approach has been very successful. Perfecting the record has become institutionalized in death penalty defence practice in Texas, and the practice has contributed substantially to a steep decline in new death penalty sentences.

This example complements the prior two topics and their illustrative examples. In the World Vision example, while the protesting evangelical church members raised the conflictual dynamics of the issue they were concerned about, they did nothing positive to move the dynamics forward. In the Catholic sisters example, participants took a respectful approach that kept the sides of the dilemma highlighted within their settings in ways that led to dialectical processes that helped construct new and more shared understandings of identity, though it paid less attention to earlier understandings. In the illustration of sustaining differences, skilled, respectful resistance through narrative was crucial for preserving meaningful differences over the long run in ways that maintained momentum for change. Taken together, these examples suggest the potential for resistance to contribute generatively by paradoxical and dialectical means that are not always as recognized as they should be. They also make evident how the use of narrative, as reflected in vignettes, brings abstract concepts to life.

Resistance and paradox

Despite its potential contributions, resistance has not always been considered intrinsically valuable in paradox research, including paradoxes related to organizational change. For example, Seidemann (2024, p. 10) suggests that “resistance in management research is often negatively portrayed, characterized as an obstacle, hindrance, obstruction or barrier.” The term has not been mentioned at all in some well-cited papers on paradox published in the Academy of Management Annals by Schad et al. (2016) and Fairhurst et al. (2016). It is also not mentioned by Bartunek et al. (2021) in their discussion of dualities and tensions in organization development and change. In their 2022 book Both/And Thinking, Smith and Lewis rarely use the term resistance. When they do use it, resistance is not treated as of value in itself, but as a condition that may be eradicated, as indicated by a quote in that book from Pema Chödrön: “when the resistance is gone, the demons are gone” (2022, p. 163). But why, after all, should resistance be tethered to the demonic?

As our examples have suggested, resistance can be generative in surfacing major societal tensions that underlie even apparently small decisions. It can signal when conflicts cannot be easily addressed. It can help groups of people construct their own deep identities, based at least in part on their interactions. It can make differences salient and sustain and support them over time. In so doing, resistance may be uniquely qualified to contribute to paradox and, thus, a key to advancement in ways of seeing, organizing, and theorizing (Poole & Van de Ven, 1989). Below, we will discuss some ways resistance, as we have discussed it, can contribute to particular components of paradoxical and dialectical thinking.

Contradictory and interrelated elements

Paradox denotes “contradictory yet interrelated elements—elements that seem logical in isolation but absurd and irrational when appearing simultaneously” (Lewis, 2000, p. 760). The analysis of opposite yet interrelated elements has been well explored by scholars such as Quinn and Cameron (1988), Poole and Van de Ven (1989), Fairhurst and Putnam (2024), and Smith and Lewis (2011, 2022), among others. In many of these discussions, the contrast is between “either/or” thinking or “both/and” thinking to resolve contradiction (Lewis & Smith, 2014). In attending to paradox, scholars have been, perhaps, missing the irony, presented with an “either/or” choice of addressing differences, with the bulk of advice about ways to resolve paradox by “both/and” methods (Poole & Van de Ven, 1989; Smith & Lewis, 2011, 2022). Seidemann (2024, p. 11) suggests that this reflects the “hegemony” of “both/and” approaches. Such “hegemony” overlooks the possibility of a “neither/nor” stance as a way to extend the range of how tensions can be held, an approach that may be essential for addressing grand challenges involving multiple diverse actors.

Further, Seidemann (2024, p. 12) adds that ‘Approaching paradoxical tensions with the both/and approach hence implies a certain degree of social cohesiveness and underlying consensus regarding the tension at hand. However, complex societal or ecological tensions cut “across jurisdictional boundaries, implicating multiple criteria of worth’ (Ferraro et al., 2015, p. 364), oftentimes indicating deep societal divides and conflicting lines of thought,” more consistent with a sociology of radical change than one of regulation.

In this paper, we are arguing that it is important to recognize the value and challenge of preserving “both of the boths,” including the “neither/nor,” in an active dialectic that focuses on the importance of processes evolving over time (e.g., Fairhurst & Putnam, 2024; Panayiotou et al., 2019). A “neither-nor” strategy suggests that a generative path, at least in situations such as those we have discussed here, lies in the creation and sustaining of contradictions over time, holding differences in reflexive dialectic tension, or if that is not yet possible, making the differences publicly available.

The language of this generative path is important. Two of our topics and their constitutive examples highlight how conflictual processes may remain in tension for extended periods, and sustaining the tension means not expecting them to be easily resolved. In the World Vision example, in contrast, a quick attempt to resolve the tension only exacerbated it. Of course, sustaining tensions over time is not at all easy. Further, the conceptual issues demonstrated by the examples all represent forms of “neither/nor.” In the World Vision case, the policy change laid bare some tensions present underneath the surface among the groups with which World Vision works that it seemed to be attempting to skirt over in the way it presented its decision. The Catholic sisters in the second example did not accept the narrative proposed by Church leaders who initiated the Apostolic Visitation when it became public. However, in interaction with each other and with those who interviewed them, they constructed a new narrative of religious life as their sense of their identity grew from interactions with those visiting them. In the death sentence case, attorneys have made use of mechanisms that are already legal to sustain tensions and to create a new narrative about how to handle death penalty cases, even though doing so involves continuous rejection, at least in the short term. Our vignettes flesh out how the topics we are discussing may take shape in practice, and scholars and practitioners both can be more intentional and purposeful in creating dialectics and leveraging tension by using resistance to construct differences in ways that recognize the sociology of radical change (Ford et al., 2008). Both can then also use resistance to preserve dialectics by resisting premature resolution.

The ongoing importance of differences

Differences need someplace to live

Resistance begins in discursive constructions of difference (Gagnon & Collison, 2017), but we must resist resolution to sustain a dialectic to preserve and leverage alternative viewpoints. Adorno’s (1973) “negative dialectics” involves precisely this refusal to engage in grand synthesis and instead chooses the more difficult path of keeping tensions and contradictions in constant play, allowing participants to explore the possibilities that exist in so doing. Cunha et al. (2002, p. 29) point out that dialectics become paradoxes when “a thesis does not exist despite its anti-thesis, but because of it. Each pole of the dialectic needs the other to sustain its presence.”

Our extension to paradoxical thinking in this paper involves preserving tensions instead of resolving them to resist the subsummation of “the Other.” We do well to let differing perspectives have unique identities, creating distinction and highlighting opposition (Smith & Lewis, 2011). The World Vision case illustrates a situation in which each perspective does have its own identity, and considering it paradoxically requires respecting the differences but keeping them in interaction with each other, something that participants were unable to do.

Using resistance to create paradox causes discomfort and dissonance, but it is important to resist resolving the discomfort. The types of resistance we discuss here are often filled with emotion on both individual and group levels (Oreg et al., 2018). Thus, including ways of working with emotion within the recognition of differences is essential, as Smith and Lewis (2022) recognize. It is important that we appreciate discomfort as motivation to act, but not resolve; to live with tension or, perhaps better, to cooperate with tension (Courpasson & Clegg, 2012), recognizing that this is very difficult to do.

Generative resistance

We noted at the beginning of this paper that our aim was to create generative ways of considering resistance, challenge some taken-for-granted assumptions about it, and furnish some new ways of thinking about it and its importance. Emphasizing the importance of maintaining and sustaining differences as part of resistance as its own concept creates new ways of thinking about resistance and its role in organizational change.

Scholars have discussed what may make organizational norms and practices more vulnerable to rejection (Oliver, 1992) and have identified responses to institutional pressures that range from acquiescence and compliance to defiance and resistance (Oliver, 1991). However, this recognition has not adequately explored the generative potential of resistance for paradoxical theorizing that recognizes the value of “neither/nor” as well as of “both/and.” Resistance in and of itself has the power to prevent business as usual from continuing and, as a result, can create and/or highlight potentially paradoxical tensions that might otherwise go unnoticed. Moreover, in the process, it might keep underlying societal tensions from being buried, may help foster new identities, and highlight problems with legal systems.

Instead of resolution, Putnam et al. (2016, p. 96) describe “the interplay of control and resistance that simultaneously enables and constrains efforts to transform organizations.” Wenzel et al. (2019) suggest that the potential for paradox is often lived out in tensions between control and resistance that acknowledge that resistance is not tethered to control. For them, “‘control’ refers to imposing preferred understandings of social reality by marginalizing, or closing off, alternative views. In contrast, ‘resistance’ relates to defying dominant understandings of social reality by voicing, or opening up, alternative views” (2019, p. 56). Thus, their view treats control and resistance as mutually constitutive categories that exist in a dynamic interplay that should be sustained. Our approach is that resistance may be in tension with change and control, but must be recognized on its own merits as well. Our approach also highlights the importance of societal conflicts, identity construction, and the status quo, among other phenomena, and illustrates resistance can serve to make these salient.

In suggesting the value of ongoing tensions involving control and resistance, our approach contributes to a deeper understanding of the Burrell and Morgan (1979) typology we discussed above and how it may be in fruitful conversation with approaches to paradox and dialectics such as those discussed by Smith and Lewis (2022) and Fairhurst and Putnam (2024). As we have noted, standard approaches to paradox tend to fall implicitly into a sociology of regulation. They tend to assume that “both/and” approaches may hold differences somewhat peacefully, or at least not contentiously. However, our approach suggests ways that paradox may reflect the sociology of radical change perspective as well by skillfully sustaining differences in ways that remain contentious. It also means the importance of thinking much more broadly about differences and their importance.

This is particularly important for efforts to address grand challenges (George et al., 2016; Seidemann, 2024), the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and other major societal concerns that have conflict and tensions built into them by their nature. Recently, Mikel-Hong et al. (2024, p. 1985) suggested that “identifying and neutralizing sources of resistance are necessary for a successful change effort” to address grand challenges. We disagree. We believe it is crucial to recognize the importance of the deep differences reflected in such large aspirations. Operating on this level may help us recognize the potential of resistance to be transformative in addressing them, insofar as resistance refocuses attention and creates space for imaginative responses, such as how to both respectfully disagree with and sustain viewpoints that differ from a norm. This is a generative contribution of resistance.

Implications for generative practice

Our discussion has several implications for the practice of organizational (and, to some extent, societal) change. An obvious one is for organizational leaders and change agents to reflect on what resistance means in any particular change situation, to try to understand good reasons for it, and to consider what it might offer to a particular change, rather than solely what it takes away. This reflection can also consider whether a change situation involves fundamental societal conflict in which resolving disagreements too readily in a local situation is more harmful than helpful. However, finding ways to maintain awareness of tensions may help foster productive movement. When something like this is the case, change recipients can contribute by reflecting on the reasons that they are resisting a change (and what aspects of it they are resisting) and whether they are doing so in ways that are likely to be constructive or destructive (Rocheville & Bartunek, 2025) for achieving their aims in a way that is helpful for the larger society in the long run. This is particularly important with regard to many contemporary societal challenges.

As a recent example of one way of thinking consistent with this approach, Mintzberg (2024, p. 363) has argued that there are three flawed superpowers in the world, vying “with each other for global supremacy, all with a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons under the control of a single individual.” He suggests we must “think outside the superpower box” by focusing on other values. This means, in essence, resisting the standard ways of thinking taken by the opposing superpowers and not simply taking sides with one of them against the others. Rather, it involves taking an entirely different perspective that focuses on community. This is, potentially at least, an example of the importance of resistance in certain taken-for-granted understandings of current world affairs to sustain differing values, especially when acceptable resolutions cannot be reached. It therefore becomes important that political and organizational leaders approach such challenges with a paradox mindset, equipped to not simply navigate but behold tensions (Miron-Spektor et al., 2018).

Differences foster learning

One value of the approach to resistance we are advocating is that developing the ability to hold differences is a crucial element of learning, which may, in turn, lead to more productive approaches to tensions. Social constructivism argues that a key component of learning occurs when a learner interacts with others and that beyond a very basic level, new learning requires that a person’s prior way of thinking is revised and developed through exposure to these others’ different perspectives (Vygotsky & Cole, 1978). As an organizational illustration of this approach, Caza et al. (2018) described the value of struggles over time with multiple differing work roles that, with practice, lead to broader understandings of identities.

Such learning is, of course, fostered by some reflexivity and is linked to our self-identities (cf. Beech et al., 2021), as indicated in particular in the Apostolic Visitation and the sustaining differences cases. It will likely be very challenging (cf. Reynolds & Trehan, 2003), as indicated in all three illustrations. Nevertheless, resistance, holding appropriate differences, can be helpful to all who develop the capacity to recognize the value that can be expressed in differences and may help foster more profound responses to complex and serious organizational and societal challenges.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have claimed that it is important to recognize—and liberate—resistance as a generative driver of dialectics and paradox as a path to change and advancement, perhaps in unexpected ways. We have suggested a way of accomplishing this by recognizing resistance as a means of revealing underlying fundamental tensions, fostering identity construction, and sustaining differences. All of these contribute to a “neither/nor” approach that complements a “both/and” approach and, in doing so, helps keep contradictions alive and salient in potentially productive ways.

Indeed, once we begin to see resistance to change as having value in and of itself, we can also begin to see its potential to generate and expand dialectic and paradoxical thinking and action. Lewis (2000) illustrated how a narrative approach to paradox in organizational discourses creates and reveals theoretical tensions in organizational research. We have presented some narratives of resistance that recognize not only theoretical tensions but also tensions in practice.

Nothing in what we have written suggests that this type of approach is easy, theoretically and/or practically, and we have suggested some reasons for this. Hopefully, however, the narratives about resistance we have presented will stimulate new and productive ways of leading, managing, and responding to organizational change, even while the World Vision example reminds us how difficult this is likely to be. Paradoxically speaking, resistance may, at least sometimes, foster much deeper change than would be possible without it.