A case study of Organizational Behaviour and

Resistance to changes in Malaysia’s Commercial

Banking Industry

1. INTRODUCTION
The case study deals with employees’ relationship with managers and
how it affects the work culture in an organization. The low level of
manager’s attitude creates a negative impact on the employees’
performance and satisfaction level.
This case in particular deals with a bank X in Malaysia’s commercial
banking industry. They recruited Simon as the general manager of the
DSS unit, Simon showed high levels of energy and determination and
had qualities like punctuality and dedication which reflected in high
performance. But along with that, he had a habit of taking credit of
others work and claiming awards offered by top management without
acknowledging his team. He used to criticize and pin point the small
mistakes made by his subordinates. All these things accumulated to
cause dissatisfaction and distrust against him amongst the team.
Simon’s subordinate Alex was a well-educated man who preferred a
conflict-free environment. Simon’s negative attitude annoyed Alex
and caused dissatisfaction with his job which led to conflicts between
them.
The case further goes on to discover through the interviews about
the impact of manager’s negative attitude on employees’ satisfaction
level.
It explores the resistance to change in the organization and probes
why it should be implemented to resolve organizational behaviour
problems at individual, group and organizational level.
2.0 Background and Evaluation
The manager dissatisfaction with employee created several problems
within the organization:

Simon had negative feelings and thoughts toward his employees’

which was translated in his attitude toward them which in turn
decreased productivity and job satisfaction within the organization.
This further caused the communication gap between the manager
and his employees which hindered employees to give innovative
ideas and hence prevented knowledge sharing.
The dissatisfaction caused in employees deteriorated the working
ambiences, hampered creativity and resulted in loss of good
employees and lower morale of workers
It affected the Organization citizenship behaviour(OCB) and
consequently, the performance of firm.
Simon negative attitude resulted him in loss of a competent
employee Alex. He also lost the trust and respect of his subordinates.

2.1 Finding and discussions…..

In the case study, 15 employees were interviewed regarding Simon’ s
attitude and Alex’s job satisfaction and analysed.
Following were the findings of the interview:

60 percent responses were about the habit of Simon to criticize the

work of Alex reflecting the symptoms of dissatisfaction he had
toward the manager.
In Pie chart 2 we can see that 50 percent employee responded Alex
and Simon do not communicate well reflecting the communication
gap and lack of conflict resolution which supports our finding in Pie
chart 1.
In conclusion negative attitude and pre-conceived notion of manager
toward employees creates job dissatisfaction. Employees generally
seek working environment that’s supportive and nurturing.
To resolve these organizational behaviour issues, resistance to
change should be resolved in the organization.
3. SOLUTIONS
Thus, for the problems discussed above, we require effective
solutions to counter them. In order to counter the job dissatisfaction
caused by Simon among the employees, the following solutions can
be implemented to restore job satisfaction and morale –
1. Providing a two-way channel for interaction between the
employees and the senior management of the company.
2. Evaluating and measuring job satisfaction.
3. Giving employees appropriate leadership or motivation
training.
 4. Providing an employee feedback mechanism.
5. Giving satisfactory opportunities for growth and promotion.
Another problem the company faced was regarding the resistance to
change that the company was trying to implement. To counter such
resistance, we propose the following solutions –
1. Identifying and Overcoming the Opposition
2. Engaging with the employees effectively
3. Implementation of changes in several stages.
4. Communicating this change effectively.
There are several pros and cons related with the above solutions.
The pros include improved organizational culture, transparency and
increase in engagement. The cons though are that these solutions
cost money and are time consuming.
In order to implement the above solutions for resistance to change,
following strategies should be employed –
1. After the identification of the opposition, engagement with
them at the earliest and as often possible must be done.
2. An employee engagement survey can be used as tool to obtain
the necessary information the management requires regarding
the reasons for resistance among the employees.
3. Communication through both formal and informal channels
must be done to ensure that all employees receive the news
about the change in some way or another. Various other
communication outlets such as emails, company intranet and
face to face meetings should be used to get the message across
the organization.
These are a few strategies that can be employed in order for the
organization to execute the given solutions.
CONCLUSION
The way an organization handles the problems and issues directly
affects both the organization’s and the employees’ performances.
Thus, it is imperative for the management of an organization to
motivate and ensure job satisfaction amongst its employees to
ensure a better work environment. Emotional Intelligence is another
factor that should be considered - the organization should try its best
that the emotional intelligence of its employees is high. Higher
emotional intelligence leads to high Organization Citizenship
Behaviour(OCB), which in turns raises the overall organizational
performance. Training assessment and evaluation of employees is
also important as it guides them to learn and perform as well as help
in building better teamwork at the workplace. The employees should
be able to communicate easily with the management and the
training they underwent should be used improve the other team
members. An environment should be created in the organization to
bring out the best performance in the employees, while keeping job
dissatisfaction at low, high emotional intelligence and prevent
further demotivation amongst the employees.