Change Management After-Effects in IT Organizations
This paper reviews scholarly literature on the after-effects of change management within IT organizations. Drawing on sources from management and human resources literature, it examines both negative outcomes—such as employee resistance, fear, and stalled transformation—and positive outcomes, including employee buy-in and cultural alignment. The paper also outlines practical strategies for managing these after-effects, including a nine-step change management framework, the importance of stakeholder communication, and the necessity of clear, measurable metrics. The review concludes that thorough planning, transparent leadership, and active employee engagement are essential to ensuring that change initiatives produce favorable long-term results.
- Introduction to Change Management in IT: Defines change management and its relevance to IT
- Resistance and Fear as After-Effects: How resistance and fear emerge during IT change
- Stalled Transformation and Organizational Risk: Why change processes stall and damage organizations
- Positive After-Effects and Employee Buy-In: How employee ownership produces favorable change outcomes
- Managing Aftershocks and Planning for Disruption: Preparing for disruptions after change implementation
- A Framework for Effective Change Management: Nine-step model for guiding successful change
- Measuring Outcomes and Conclusion: Using metrics to evaluate change and summarizing findings
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper consistently grounds each claim in a cited source, giving every major after-effect a clear scholarly attribution and making the argument easy to follow and verify.
- It balances negative and positive after-effects, providing a nuanced view of change management rather than treating it as purely problematic or purely beneficial.
- The inclusion of a numbered, practical framework (Schantz's nine-step model) anchors the analysis in actionable guidance, strengthening the paper's applied value.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective thematic literature synthesis: rather than summarizing each source in isolation, the author groups findings by theme (resistance, fear, stalled transformation, buy-in) and weaves multiple sources together to build a cohesive argument. This approach models how to use a literature review structure to advance an analytical position rather than simply catalog readings.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief definition of organizational change and narrows to the IT context, then moves through a series of thematically organized body sections covering specific after-effects (negative, then positive), practical coping strategies, and measurement considerations. It closes with a conclusion that synthesizes the core lesson: that stakeholder communication and planning determine whether after-effects are harmful or beneficial. The structure is linear and clear, making it a strong model for undergraduate literature review papers.
Introduction to Change Management in IT
Change is an action that an organization conducts in order to alter the way it operates. These changes may be small and affect only some aspect of daily activity among workers, or they may be large and completely reshape the character of the company and its approach to business. For an IT firm, change management will produce after-effects just as it will in any other organization. This paper reviews what has been written on change management and its after-effects in IT.
Resistance and Fear as After-Effects
One of the after-effects of change management is a shift in workplace culture (Perkins, 2018). If employees are not ready for the alteration in workplace culture, they may demonstrate resistance. Resistance is a significant after-effect of change management, and in IT it can lead to workers deliberately opposing infrastructural plans for development and change, as well as some workers leaving the organization altogether in opposition to the change. Focusing on employee retention and the factors that compel workers to remain committed to their IT firm during the process of change management is essential in order to lessen the potential after-effect of resistance, which can lead to higher turnover and other negative consequences.
Part of managing after-effects is the "ability to manage fear," as Walker (2018) puts it (p. 30). Managing fear, according to Walker (2018), is "what change management is about" (p. 30). Fear plays a large role in how change impacts people: they fear what they do not know. For an IT firm engaged in a change management process, it is therefore necessary for managers to educate personnel on what the change is, why it is important, what outcome is desired, and why the change will benefit the company overall. The more that is explained about the change, the more willing personnel will be to embrace it. Education helps eliminate ignorance, which is the primary basis of fear.
In the process of managing fear, managers of an IT department or firm must be able to communicate the reason for the change clearly. The more logical and rational the change process can be made to appear, the less fear will result and the less likely resistance is to become a lasting after-effect. The main way to address the fear factor is for managers to "embrace employees' fear through team management planning" (Walker, 2018, p. 31). This involves making a careful evaluation of every aspect of the change: addressing what is expected of the IT team, identifying the goals and objectives so that everyone is on the same page, and monitoring the change process so that all parties are aware of how it is progressing and whether it is meeting resistance or encountering obstacles that must be addressed.
Stalled Transformation and Organizational Risk
Another after-effect of change management in the IT sector can be "stalled transformation," as Anand and Barsoux (2017) describe it. This means that instead of lasting change occurring, there is a hiccup in the change process after it has begun and the change has been enacted. Like a car that starts and runs for a short distance before stalling out, the change management process can at first appear to be running on all cylinders—but then something happens and the process stops working altogether. Workers revert to doing things the old way, and all the preparation, planning, and initiative invested in launching the change now seems wasted.
There are many different reasons the change process can stall, according to Anand and Barsoux (2017). Just as a car has multiple working parts, an organization has several interconnected aspects, and the change management process in IT must consider them all in order to succeed. For example, if the change management team does not take into account the finer points of the enterprise and focuses only on making deep cuts to facilitate a structural change, they risk deflating workplace stamina. Sometimes "cuts are so deep that they hollow out capabilities, sap morale, and remove the slack that could have fueled new endeavors" (Anand & Barsoux, 2017, p. 3). In situations where the change management team is unaware of the risks inherent in the changes being implemented, the after-effects can be particularly damaging.
References
Anand, N., & Barsoux, J. (2017). What everyone gets wrong about change management. Harvard Business Review, November, 1–15.
Cross, L. (2001). Managing change to manage results. Graphic Arts Monthly, 73(11), 49–51.
Perkins, B. (2018). What is change management? A guide to organizational transformation.
Schantz, J. (2018). How can leaders manage change successfully? HR.com, 8–9.
Walker, G. (2018). Change management: Organizational change. Training and Development, June, 30–31.
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