There are several ways to visualize organizational resistance [to change]. Research on organizational resistance to innovation suggests that four factors are paramount: the nature of the IT innovation, the organization’s structure, the culture of people in the organization, and the tasks impacted by the innovation. Here, changes in technology are absorbed, interpreted, deflected, and defeated by organizational task arrangements, structures, and people. In this model, the only way to bring about change is to change the technology, tasks, structure, and people simultaneously. Other authors have spoken about the need to “unfreeze” organizations before introducing an innovation, quickly implementing it, and “refreezing” or institutionalizing the change.

Because organizational resistance to change is so powerful, many information technology investments flounder and do not increase productivity. Indeed, research on project implementation failures demonstrates that the most common reason for the failure of large projects to reach their objectives is not the failure of the technology, but organizational and political resistance to change.