Cultural+Barriers

=Cultural Barriers to Change= Organizational culture, as defined by the managementhelp.org website, can be thought of as the personality of an organization. Just like every person has a distinct personality every corporate or educational organization also has its own distinct personality. As the website further explains "culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors."

The first category of resistance to change defined by Zaltman and Duncan is comprised of barriers that are woven into an organization's culture. These cultural barriers to change, as stated by Ellsworth in Surviving Change, "are rooted in the traditions and values of the client system." There are four specific barriers that make up this category: values and beliefs, cultural ethnocentrism, saving face, and trait incompatibility.