Moving Beyond Resistance and Readiness: Reframing Change Reactions as Change Related Subject Positioning

ABSTRACT In this paper, line managers’ experiences of, and discursive subject positioning in, a participatory work environment initiative in four nursing homes called ‘The Health Circle Project’ is examined. We focus on line managers’ change related subject positioning by interviewing the managers of the four workplaces before and after the initiative and conduct a comparative case study from a discursive psychology frame. The aim of this paper is to focus on change reactions from managers and move beyond a reductionistic dichotomy of change resistance/readiness. Instead, we focus our analysis on the change related subject positioning the managers engage in, and how they position both themselves and their subordinates. Hence, we examine how the line managers experienced the participatory Health Circle intervention, and how they reacted to potential loss of power to discursively construct and define work environment problems caused by the initiative. The study exemplifies how the line managers experienced the Health Circle intervention as both confirming and challenging their subject positions as capable managerial subjects. Finally, in the light of the analysis, the potential unintended consequences of engaging in participatory work environment intiatives and similar activities are discussed. MAD statement Resistance to change is one of the most frequently used explanations for why change processes fail. The current study presents a more nuanced theoretical concept, change-related subject positioning and explores how increasing employee participation, can elicit unintended reactions from managers. This study hence contributes to our understanding of how a, in principle, positive change process of empowering employees to improve working conditions leads to a multitude of change related subject positioning from managers. Some managers embrace the change and position themselves in line with the employee participants. Others feel threatened which in extreme cases leads to negative positioning of their subordinates.


Introduction
When change initiatives fail to meet the expected outcomes and implementation failures cannot fully explain the absence of positive findings, resistance to change or lack of change readiness are often considered as likely explanations (Dobson, 2001;Drzensky et al., 2012;Weiner, 2009).Resistance to change and readiness for change are in that sense core concepts regarding the psychological foundation underpinning organizational change success and failure.Substantial practitioner interest has been directed towards managing these two concepts in order to ensure that change processes lead to intended outcomes (Kotter, 1995;Maurer, 2010).There are numerous reasons for this interest.Studies show that on the one hand change resistance leads to both unsuccessful change processes (Lines, 2004;Pardo del Val & Martínez Fuentes, 2003) and poor wellbeing (De Jong et al., 2016), and on the other hand securing change readiness and support for novel initiatives makes success more likely (Lines, 2004).
The resistance and readiness literatures often focus on how employees hold and express change related attitudes, but the attitude of the line manager towards change initiatives is likewise of paramount importance for change success.For instance, studies of participatory initiatives to improve working conditions show how line managers' change readiness is linked to employees change readiness, which in turn is related to the outcome of the initiatives (Nielsen & Randall, 2012).These issues become especially relevant as there are debates as to the prevalence of line manager change readiness and resistance towards the change initiatives in their organizations.
Though it may seem paradoxical that managers are not supportive of the changes that they, either themselves initiate or are set to implement, not being ready to accept changes in positioning and power relations is unsurprising (Edwards & Potter, 1992;Thomas et al., 2010).In particular when changes incur redistribution of authority from managers to their subordinates.The present study contributes to nuance the understanding of line managers' change reactions during a particular type of change process, namely participatory work environment interventions.
This paper presents a qualitative comparative case study using interviews with line managers from four danish nursing homes.All four nursing homes took part in a work environment intervention which focussed on promoting employee involvement and empowerment.The differences in how line-managers experienced and reacted to the participatory intervention makes this study an interesting case for an exploration of line-managers reactions to participatory change initiatives.

Participatory Work Environment Interventions as a Particular Type of Change Process
Work environment interventions constitute a particular type of change processes.While they are largely comparable to other change events, they also have unique characteristics.First, work environment interventions are often initiated and conducted as a collaborative effort of both employees and managers.Second, though they are organizational initiatives they often build on the existing organization rather than change organizational structure.And third, whereas organizational change often entails a risk of negative impact on the work environment and psychological well-being of employees (De Jong et al., 2016), work environment interventions, obviously aim for improved well-being (Semmer, 2011).
One aspect both endorsed by practitioners (ETUC, 2004) and researchers (Abildgaard et al., 2018) as essential to achieving work environment intervention success is having employees participate in implementation of the intervention.When it comes to methods to improve psychosocial working conditions there are substantial arguments for why participatory methods would be ideal.Many interventions, including the one in the present paper, view the employees as experts in their own work environment, hence drawing on their expertise regarding the working conditions will likely produce action plans with a better fit to the organizational context (Nielsen & Randall, 2015).It has also been argued that being part of an initiative to improve the workplace will empower the employees and increase their collective efficacy (Abildgaard et al., 2020) and increase interest in further improving working conditions.
Line managers play a pivotal role in interventions as they are both the gatekeepers to upper level management and are managerially responsible for the employees participating in the activities.How important line managers are has been shown by studies with both positive and negative findings, i.e. studies that show the crucial role of supervisors for the successful implementation of initiatives (Lundmark et al., 2017) as well as studies that show how implementations fail when the support by line managers is missing (Aust et al., 2010;Karanika-Murray & Biron, 2015).A study by Abildgaard et al. (2020) likewise showed how the same initiative achieved different degrees of managerial support in the three participating organizations.
Although there is large agreement about the important role of line managers' support for the implementation of work environment initiatives, we are still lacking crucial knowledge about why some managers act more supportive than others.Why do some resist improvement initiatives that others engagingly are ready to support?In this article, we examine the change reactions of line managers more closely.

Reactions to Change: Empirical Findings and Theoretical Explanations
In this section, we will briefly review previous empirical findings and theoretical explanations for the commonly studied reactions in relation to change; change resistance and readiness, in particular focusing on line managers.Change resistance can happen due to a number of reasons.Guth and Macmillan (1986) argue that line managers may resist change because they feel they lack skills to successfully implement the suggested changes, due to doubts of the potential effectiveness or because they may perceive the goal of the change to be in conflict with their own goals.
It has further been suggested that managers can be reluctant to pass on the necessary skills and tasks to subordinate team members either because they fear that they may lose power or because they do not trust employees (Parker & Williams, 2001).
Theoretically, the phenomenon of resistance is contemporarily addressed from a variety of different perspectives.A widely employed theoretical frame is seeing resistance as intrinsic and dispositional.This entails a psychological approach in which resistance towards change is treated as a product of individual negative attitudes (Choi, 2011;Oreg, 2006), or as a dispositional trait related to personality factors (Oreg et al., 2011).Dent and Goldberg (1999) have demonstrated how pervasive it has been to explain resistance to change as being caused by individuals fear of change or resistant 'personalities'.Change resistance has hence often been seen as an individual level phenomenon, which interferes with change implementation.

Resistance and Readiness as Subject Positions
An alternative perspective on change resistance, which we build on in this study, can be found in the social psychology inspired by the 'process' (Weick, 1979) or 'discursive' (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) turns.In this paradigm, phenomena such as attitudes, identity and personality are predominantly seen as relational and situational.Resistance and readiness are not understood as stable attitudes but instead as temporary positions.Such positions are labelled subject positions, a concept defined by Davies and Harré (1990) in the following way: 'A subject position incorporates both a conceptual repertoire and a location for persons within the structure of rights for those that use that repertoire ' (p. 48).
Subject positions are hence articulated and inarticulate social positions related to, but not reducible to, formal positions and roles.Davies and Harré (1990) further emphasize that 'There can be interactive positioning in which what one person says positions another.And there can be reflexive positioning in which one positions oneself' (p.48).Which can be understood such that managers position both their subordinates and themselves, and vice versa.
Subject positioning is a constantly ongoing process.Such processes of positioning also take place during work environment initiatives, which entails that the participating employees and managers continuously position themselves and each other during the discussions.Subject positions likewise influence who has the informal rights to bring certain problems forward, who speaks for whom and with what authority (Wåhlin-Jacobsen, 2020).
Rather than treating statements of attitudes (e.g.expressing resistance or support towards a particular project) as direct reflections of a stable psychological trait, such claims are interpreted as discursive actions enacted to fulfil certain functions, and form the basis of subject positioning (Symon, 2005).As an example, change resistance has been argued to be partly motivated by threats to valued identities (Wåhlin-Jacobsen, 2019), suggesting identification with the existing organizational state can be a source of resistance (Ezzamel et al., 2001).Alvesson and Willmott (2003) have likewise emphasized an interlinked nature of management and identity.
From such a discursive position Thomas and Hardy (2011) further criticize how change resistance often has been polarized, viewing resistance to change as either pathological and undesired (as done by, for instance Kotter, 1995) or as adaptive and praise-worthy (as done by for instance Ford et al., 2008).They suggest seeing resistance as a practice rather than something that needs to be demonized or celebrated (Thomas et al., 2010).In their view the issues related to organizational change and resistance are processes of continuous negotiations of power-resistance relations in the processes of 'organizational becoming' (Thomas et al., 2010).Symon (2005) similarly criticizes the tendency to view line managers' lack of change-readiness, or resistance to change as a predictable and uniform attitude.The critique of resistance as a static concept has led to re-assessing the foundations of resistance, both in relation to employees as well as managers, viewing resistance more as a situational act of discursive subject positioning rather than being a stable intrinsic attitude (Symon, 2005;Thomas et al., 2010;Thomas & Hardy, 2011).

Change, Surprise and Enacted Subject Positions
In this paper, we aim to expand on the work of the discursive scholars of resistance to change and employ a wider subject positioning perspective to change reactions and behaviours.First, we emphasize that subject positioning is based on a repertoire of previous experiences, social relations, identity and positioning.Though it might seem like a banal observation it suggests that the specific acts of positioning of one-self and others in the social fabric are done based on a context and follows previous practices and events.Second, interpersonal positioning is based on a social structure of anticipation and expectation.In the sense that, as ethnomethodologist have proven (Garfinkel, 1967), unexpected situations produce challenges for our social practices.A surprise in social interaction leading to positioning conflicts is likely to cause both discomfort due to cognitive dissonance (Cooper, 2012), as well as escalating social conflict.In this sense subject positioning in relation to change processes is more than merely resisting or being change ready, it is an ongoing and reactive positioning process towards the context and actions of others that is enacted in an ongoing process.Vough et al. (2017) conversely find an absence of change related conflict in a case study where a company implemented proactive employee self-initiated change, based on that it was required to discuss changes early on with management, hence avoiding breaches in surprise and socially conflicting situations (Vough et al., 2017).
In a broad sense, a combination of change and surprise is potentially volatile (Louis, 1980).Also as there is a risk that, what Schein (2010), labels the core basic assumptions in the organization can be violated and a struggle of positioning will entail to establish a new social order.The reason for emphasizing surprise and positioning dilemmas is that when major change events are introduced by an organization, it is seldom on the line managers' initiative and even when it is, it is possible that the decision is motivated by (more or less direct) suggestions or decisions from higher organizational levels.Likewise, and more applicable to the present case, when changes imply the empowerment of employees, the workplace manager's privileged subject position of power might be threatened, which in turn can potentially lead managers to enact reactive and negative counter-positioning of their subordinates and themselves.The analysis in the present paper hence draws on the discursive psychology concept of subject positioning to study the processes of managerial change reactions in participatory initiatives.More specifically our research question is: What change related subject positioning do the managers engage in during the participatory work environment initiative.

Method
The present study is a qualitative multi-site case study and the empirical material is from an intervention study in the Danish elder care sector testing the applicability of a participative method to improve the working conditions.The intervention study was carried out over a two-year period in four public sector eldercare centres.

JOURNAL OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT: REFRAMING LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICE
The Participatory Workplace Intervention The intervention was based on the German Health Circle method (Aust & Ducki, 2004).The aim of the health circle method is to identify problems in the work environment that cause work strain and that might lead to negative health outcomes, develop proposals for work environment improvements and implement solutions.The method aims to involve employees as much as possible through all phases of the project and is supported by an external facilitator.
As part of a research project conducted by the National Research Centre for the Working Environment (including two of the authors of this paper (JSA & BA)), the intervention was conducted in four eldercare homes from four different municipalities in Denmark.All municipalities in Denmark were invited to participate in the research project and if they showed interest, they were asked to relay contact information for two eldercare homes that could participate.All the interested nursing home managers were invited to information meetings about the project and participation was based on an active interest from the managers.Four municipalities in different parts of the country were interested and chosen for the project.In each municipality, the research group randomly assigned the two interested eldercare homes to either be an intervention workplace or a control workplace.However, in all eight workplaces a questionnaire survey about their working environment was conducted and a short report about the results were provided to all workplaces.Thereafter, only the four intervention workplaces received the intervention.
The Health Circle intervention was supported by a facilitator who had participated in a three-day training course about the Health Circle method organized by the research group.The results of the questionnaire survey were presented to all employees during a two-hour seminar.The results were discussed among all employees and based on that, employees were asked to point out challenges in the working environment and how these could be solved.Also at the seminar, it was decided which 6-8 employees would be part of the Health Circle group, that would work with the suggestions for improvement during four to six meetings conducted over the next six months.Employees were asked to point out colleagues that would represent the whole group of employees as comprehensively as possible including for example younger and experienced employees, different departments, and different work shifts.
There are different versions of the Health Circle approach especially with regard to the participation of the line manager in the health circle meetings (Aust & Ducki, 2004).In this version of the Health Circle concept, the line-manager was only invited to participate in the first and the last Health Circle meeting.The idea behind this was to give employees the possibility to discuss the problems they experienced without feeling restricted.To keep employees who did not participate in the Health Circle meetings continuously informed about prioritized work environment problems and suggested solutions, a large pin board was prepared, continuously updated and shown in a staff room for everybody to see.

Case Descriptions
Here we briefly describe the four cases, i.e. the four nursing homes in which the health circle project was conducted.The descriptions are based on interviews with the manager and the shop steward before and after the intervention and were part of the preparatory visits aimed at gaining more knowledge about each workplace.The workplace and manager names have been pseudonymized.
Case 1: Sunflower House is a nursing home in a rural community with a long history of collaborative efforts to improve working conditions.Margaret, the manager of Sunflower House, was positive about participating in the project to the point that she took on the role of the Health Circle facilitator after the project ended.During the Health Circle project the procedure at Sunflower House was altered so that Margaret received a quick briefing at the end of every Health Circle meeting.
Case 2: Seaview Residential is a eldercare centre in a rural community.The manager, Ellen, had long tenure at Seaview Residential as had many employees.Prior to engaging in the Health Circle project Ellen had been engaged in a appreciative inquiry based project (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987).The name of this former project was 'The Good Story' and the project aimed at making eldercare workers share positive experiences about their work.Several topic days about appreciative inquiry had been held for all employees at Seaview Residential to equip staff with knowledge that in turn was expected to make their everyday work more aligned with the ideas of appreciative inquiry.
Case 3: Pinewood is a relatively newly founded nursing home in a larger city, hence both its manager, Lee Ann, and the employees had a short tenure at this facility.The new workplace did to some extent lack organizational structure (routine meetings, efficient and flexible shift planning practices) that some of the older eldercare centres had established.At Pinewood Nursing Home the Health Circle procedure was altered so that the line manager received a quick briefing at the end of every health circle meeting.
Case 4: Meadow Lodge is an eldercare centre in a smaller town that went through a number of organizational changes during the time of the Health Circle project.In the year prior to the project the nursing home was relocated.During the project the manager, Ivy, left the organization and the manager of another elder care institution in the municipality, Gabby, took over.Especially under Ivy's management there were conflicts between different groups of employees and some were dissatisfied with the management.
The line managers at the four nursing homes were all relatively experienced care centre managers and were all nurses by education as is common in Danish Nursing homes.Also with regard to employees, the four cases represent the typical Danish Nursing homes: The employees were mainly semi-skilled and unskilled nursing aids and almost all were women.

Data Sources
The analysis presented in this paper is based on interviews with nursing home managers after the series of health circle meetings had ended and after the health circle participants including the nursing home manager -had conducted an evaluation workshop at the eldercare centre.The interviews were carried out by an experienced researcher, and a research assistant who took notes during the interview.The purpose of the interviews was both to obtain factual information about contextual changes that had occurred during the health circle project and to ask the managers about their assessment of the approach and the changes it might have caused.Interviews followed a semistructured format (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015).The interviews lasted approximately one hour each.The interviews were conducted by two members of the research group, the second and third author participated in half of the interviews each.As a source of validation of the analysis it needs mention that either the second or third author in total participated in most Health Circle meetings and steering committee meetings providing substantial knowledge of the managers, their workplace and the Health Circle process.The observations also provided background knowledge for conducting the interviews, allowing the interviewers at times to challenge the interviewees if their accounts did not match the experiences of the researchers.The nursing home shop steward and managers were also interviewed at the onset of the project, though these interviews have only, in the present study, been used for context and to write the case descriptions listed above.

Data Analysis Strategy
The interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded.All excerpts in this article are translated by the authors from Danish.First to identify relevant pieces of the interviews for the study of change reactions, we used a bottom-up exploratory descriptive coding strategy (Saldaña, 2015).Codes were developed and addressed the following themes: (a) Perception of the intervention process, (b) its outcome, (c) perceived impact of the health circle activities on different levels of the organization during the project, (d) the perception of management obligations, (e) management identity and (f) the perception of the employees as a group as well as (g) the relationship with them.We recoded the material for these themes but, in addition, deliberately held the analysis open to extra information and perspectives, by having an open code for all the passages that were particularly interesting to the topic of managerial reactions to the Health Circle process, but were not covered by the other codes.By reading, re-reading and discussing the coded material we arrived at the theoretical position of subject positioning theory and enactment of change reactions.This led to a theory-based code development where we specifically developed a coding scheme focusing on (a) the enacted discursive subject positioning carried out by the interviewees (b) as well as their enacted discursive subject positioning of their subordinates.
Taking the empirical onset in the descriptively coded material, a second order analysis (Saldaña, 2015) was conducted based on the codes developed from the theoretical framework of this study, that is focusing on discursive subject positioning.To start with, themes that were represented in several cases were analysed.The iterative analytical process included reviewing the above mentioned identified themes, defining and naming the themes and selecting examples.The first author conducted the initial coding and analysis, and then discussed and refined the analysis together with the second author in an iterative process.This process produced five main themes (a) Managers perceptions of empowering employees, (b) Illigitimizing: Neutralizing employee complaints, (c) clash of perceptions -Confrontation with employees' problem constructs, (d) Changes in manager-employee relations and subject positions and (e) Experience of exclusion and betrayal.These themes are presented one at a time in the analysis where we, in a narrative fashion, present and juxtapose the experiences of the managers in relation to the themes to provide a nuanced account of the complexity of subject positioning during change processes.
The analysis is inspired by the theoretical approaches which explain attitudes towards change as a result of subject positions being affected (Davies & Harré, 1990;Potter & Wetherell, 1987).For instance, the line managers claiming specific and sometimes contradictory attitudes towards the health circle intervention were given interest rather than dismissed as incongruent.During the course of the analysis we became puzzled by, and interested in, what role surprise (Louis, 1980) plays in the analysis, especially with regard to the informants Ellen and Lee-Ann.

Managers Perceptions of Empowering Employees
The Health Circle method's focus on raising awareness of work environment issues among employees and the systematic empowering way of dealing with problems was perceived differently by the four line managers ranging from very positive perceptions to more negative perceptions.
In general terms Margaret, welcomed the changes that occurred during the Heath Circle project and credited the method for equipping not only the participating employeesbut also herself -with a new 'way of thinking' about problems which she found to be both meaningful and efficient.This collective awareness of the problems true nature was presented by Margaret as the foundation for change and ultimately for the solving of work environment problems.
Another aspect Margaret articulated as an effective part of the change initiative was that of verbalization.The act of actively giving voice to experiencesspecifically to what has been conceived as a problem.She provided a concrete example of this by sharing the story of how cooperation problems among teams were solved by addressing the issue within all work units: Margaret: It has improved a lot.They have become really good at it [cooperating].
Interviewer: How? Margaret: Well, we throw it out in the open![We] said: "This doesn't work!".Then we incidentally called out a few people by name but that's fine (…) But then I addressed it [the cooperation problem] again at our team development meetings and I asked them [the involved employees] "How good are you when it comes to looking above your own "dup" [pointing at her nose]?Because someone's saying that you are never willing to offer a helping hand.Is that really how it is?" and then something happened." This example shows how Margaret frames the verbalizing of problems as practiced in the health circle meetings as a powerful tool for changing behaviour and ultimately solving those work-related problems that contain a relational component.
Contrary to Margaret's subject position towards the Health Circle intervention as something she readily accepted and used to further her management agenda, Ellen, the manager in Seaview Residential expressed negative sentiments towards the Health Circle project arguing that bringing problems up for conversation would not help in JOURNAL OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT: REFRAMING LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICE solving them, but rather, make them 'grow'.In her opinion, the Health Circle method had too strong a focus on identifying problems, which she believed was one of the reasons why the project did not lead to any positive development at Seaview Residential.For her the ongoing municipal initiative called The Good Story was 'drowned' by the Health Circle intervention.She explained how the Health Circle method's focus on identifying and solving problems had made her a more firm proponent of the Appreciative Inquiry method: (…) it [the appreciative inquiry method] should be "the working method".Well, we actually have agreed in the work council, that [appreciative inquiry] should be the method of working at Seaview.That's what we stick to.This way we have something when "grouch, grouch, grouch" comes at us.(…) We can use it to help each other to formulate things more constructively.(Ellen) In the case of Seaview Residential, Ellen elaborates on her positioning of Appreciative Inquiry and the Health Circle as opposite poles.She explains how she wants to: (…) look into resources.Because I have really come to experience that when focusing on problems [i.e. the Health Circle method], they'll grow.Really this is what we got a hold of with "the good story".Taking a look at the dreams that we have.What do we already have that is good?And what it is that we want?(Ellen) Through this polarized framing Ellen positions Appreciative Inquiry as a method where verbalization of complains and concerns should be avoided and one should instead focus exclusively on the positive aspects of work, and the Health Circle method is counter positioned.In the interview Ellen's descriptions consistently divide the two methods (Appreciative Inquiry and the Health Circle method) into the good (which focuses on what we want and dream about) versus the bad one (which focuses on, and hence causes, problems); one that improved the workplace and one that did not.This positioning of herself, her workplace, and the two methods, in the retrospective interview, legitimizes her current choice of one method over the other, which in this case means a complete rejection of the Health Circle method.Such rejection in turn implies a rejection of the work done by the Health Circle group, i.e. a devaluation of the subject position of the employee participants in the health circle and their work on assessments of work environment problems and complaints.The three other managers positioned themselves in the continuum between Ellen and Margaret with Lee Ann being somewhat sceptical, Gabby being positive and Ivy as highly critical towards the Health Circle project.

Illigitimizing: A Way to Use Positioning to Neutralize Employee Complaints
Regarding the work environment issues identified by employees, Margaret expressed how the Health Circle method in principle offered the opportunity to treat the issues that were brought up at the Health Circle meetings systematically and efficiently.She further explained that she decided to continue having the Health Circle suggestion box permanently placed in the dining room, in which all employees were able to put in a written note of what work environment problem they might have encountered: … at this point we have really encouraged everybody to, you know, "if there's anythingput it in the box!".Don't worry if it's a proper issue for us.We'll deal with that judgement.'Cause we don't want to have all that nagging about this and that.This way it [the work environment issues] gets systematized, assessed, "Poof!".(Margaret) By offering this opportunity of getting problems assessed it is legitimized that she and the rest of the Health Circle members simply encourage employees to 'put it in the box!' whenever they express concerns about work environment-related issues.Simultaneously 'putting a note in the box' became a potential gateway mechanism to have problems treated as legitimate work environment issues, addressed by the Health Circle and not, in contrast, as illegitimate nagging.
The participatory element of the Health Circle method provided the employees with discursive power to affect what is considered a legitimate work environment issue: That is, if they put a note into the box, the Health Circle will assess their problem, and hopefully eventually solve it.The interview also sheds light on a weak link in the process between 'putting a note in the box' and the complexity involved in getting a problem legitimized and solved, namely the Health Circle members' recognition and understanding of the problem.Margaret, for instance, explains how it was handled, when a work environment screening survey in conjunction with Health Circle workshops revealed that four employees at Sunflower House had experienced being bullied at work.When they tried to investigate the problem further, they did not get a more concrete description of this problem and therefore decided to not use more time on it: … We brought it up in all the fora that we had decided on.And then, one has to say "okay, this does not exist at Sunflower House anymore".Because nobody had come forward, right?So we won't do any more about it.Shelve.So whenever a problem is brought up [for discussion] and is found to be, "what is this?, there's not really anything in it", then we say "throw it out!".Then we don't want to waste any more time on it.(Margaret) The quote illustrates the discursive nature of workplace reality.That, if a problem is not recognized, for instance by the Health Circle members, it risks being classified and enacted as non-existing.Consequently, there are no longer any legitimate excuses for complaining or legitimate subject positions claiming the reported problem to exist.If problems are not written down and placed in the box, they risk not being considered as real problems.In a sense Margaret's alignment of her own subject position with the Health Circle method and the involvement of employees in the process also had discursively repressive effects towards the perceptions and positions of employees who were not part of the Health Circle group.

Clash of Perceptions -Confrontation with Employees' Problem Constructs
A source for challenges related to subject positioning in the Health Circle project was that the employees in the Health Circle were to define what was to be considered a work environment problem.This is for example expressed in the following quote from Lee Ann, the manager of Pinewood: It's obvious that one cannot solve a problem, if one does not know it exists, right?This might be some of what I have come to experience.(…) Maybe there were things that weren't that important, I don't know.For instance, I have been asking questions about that communication thing several times: "just exactly, what information is it that you've talked about that you do not receive?"That one is still unsolved.(Lee Ann) JOURNAL OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT: REFRAMING LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICE As Lee Ann explains, the fact that when she was informed of some of the problems that the Health Circle had identified, she did not completely comprehend what the problems was, which hampered her participation in the problem-solving process.From the statement above it does not seem like this lack of shared understanding was experienced by her as particularly threatening.This is however in contrast with the impression Lee Ann gives when sharing her recollection about an early Health Circle meeting.Specifically, when the meeting was at its end, and she was invited in with the purpose of a quick briefing: I think that one of the first meetings was very unpleasant.It felt like it was kind of an ambush.That people had talked about all the aspects that were not working and then you just enter and 'get shot at'.That, I think, was very unpleasant.(…) But it was also the way you were called in by the end of the meeting and you just got..!!And well, that's not … that's not collaboration; I am tempted to say.(…) I wasn't the least prepared for what it was and maybe I thought the negative attitude had been allowed to rule the meeting before I entered.(Lee Ann) Lee Ann here provides a very vivid account of how she experienced the discursive constructions of work-related problems made and presented by the Health Circle participants.In this particular situation the facilitator noticed that Lee Ann felt overwhelmed by being called in to the Health Circle meeting and being confronted with her subordinates' opinions.Therefore, the facilitator consulted her afterwards, assuring her that this scenario had not been intended and took on the responsibility that this situation would not be repeated.This is a dramatic example of how a new process and method, the Health Circle method, that allows for novel social processes has the potential to cause surprise and breaches of pre-existing implicit social contracts.Specifically, the candid expression of employee subject positions regarding problems in the workplace fuelled a clash of subject positioning with Lee-Ann, both in relation to the project and the employees in question.The example demonstrates the challenge of maintaining congruent subject positions during a change process.
In the case of Seaview Residential, the manager Ellen not only framed the Health Circle method as a problem stimulating process, but also expressed a dismissive attitude towards the process facilitator.In the end, she came to blame both the facilitator and the Health Circle method itself for her negative experiences during the Health Circle intervention at Seaview Residential.
The clearest example of Ellen's negative response to the Health Circle intervention was when Ellen burst into tears in front of her employees.That happened after she read on the Health Circle pin board for everyone to see what the Health Circle members had discussed during their meetings.The information at the pin board covered a number of different aspects about the work environment that needed improvement, among them 'lack of influence' and a statement saying 'pseudo-democracy.Employees are not heard by management'.Ellen expresses how the note made her feel both personally responsible for the work environment issue as well as shut out of the discussion about work environment problems that took place at the Health Circle meetings: … I felt really bad about it … Not because I think that employees weren't able to handle this [discussing problems and finding solutions]they definitely can and I don't need to be involved in everything.But I felt that in this way it was legalized that "now we talk about how problematic she is without telling her".That, I felt bad about.… And I said from the start of the intervention that I think it is very wrong that I can't participate [in the Health Circle meetings].I am a part of this.I've felt bad, right?About not taking part.I think it has made … it has made me feel at least … there has been a kind of … there has been a polarization in some domains.That's it: That it is okay to talk about me and what problems I cause, instead of telling me.(Ellen) From this statement, it becomes clearer why Ellen felt uncomfortable being left out of the Health Circle meetings and enacted a subject position in opposition to the Health Circle intervention.It is not just a question of losing the power to negotiate which work environment problems to prioritize.The discussion that takes place in her absence -which she strongly opposes -is a negotiation of both the nature of the work environment at Seaview Residential as well as a subject positioning of her way of leading the nursing home.At that point, whether she was positioned as a capable manager or not was out of her reach.
Based on how Ellen felt like the Health Circle group had defined her as the problem, it is understandable why she opposes and challenges the whole idea of letting employees define problems.In contrast, Margaret, who did not express the experience of being framed as the problem, enacted a way more congruent subject positioning in relation to the Health Circle project.This was perhaps due to the Health Circle project at Sunflower House contributing to the subject positioning of her as a competent, dedicated and successful manager.It is also worth mentioning that Sunflower house, during the health circle project, won an award for their efforts to improve their working conditions and was presented as a success story in the eldercare sector.
Throughout the interviews, both Margaret and Ellen did, without any invitation from the interviewer, engage in a very direct positioning of their own managerial identity.Margaret did this by telling how everyone at Sunflower House cared about each other and showed mutual interest in each other's lives.She also stressed several times how she was one of those managers with a knack for organizational development, in contrast to those more comfortable with numbers.In addition, she was by far the respondent most frequently using the personal pronoun 'we' during the interview.A clear example of subject position herself and others as a collective.Sometimes using 'we' to refer to the entire group of staff at Sunflower House, to her and the members of the Health Circle group, and the bigger group of municipal managers she felt affiliated with.In contrast, Ellen engaged in incongruent subject positioning, at one time expressing how she might be perceived as a very strong individual, while a few minutes later tearing this construction down with statements such as this one: Ellen: But really, I'm becoming an old lady!Interviewer: No! (laughing) Ellen: Yes! Way too old.I can feel that … Interviewer: (still laughing) That's the way it's going for some of us.
Ellen: One doesn't need to become a grumpy old lady.I think that that's what I'm becoming.
Interviewer: No, one doesn't.That's the way it is … It's not a good thing if that's the way you feel anyway.
Ellen: Well at the time being it is … it is (laughing).

JOURNAL OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT: REFRAMING LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICE
In summary, the potential in the project of the employees assessing what is a problem, clearly has implications for the subject positions of their managers.Though the last quote might be extreme in its self-deprecating labelling as 'a grumpy old lady' it demonstrates vividly how employees in concert with a participatory work environment change initiative such as the Health Circle project could affect the subject positions of the manager and form new positions that are either collective or conflicting.

Changes in Manager-employee Relations and Subject Positions
Just as the Heath Circle project intertwined with the positioning of the managers themselves, so was the Health Circle project related to the managers' positioning of their subordinate employees.This goes both for the employees who participated in the Health Circle meetings as well as for those who did not.
Just like Ellen experienced being positioned in a less favourable way due to the employees' construction of problems, she herself conversely positioned her subordinates negatively in the interview.Noting them as 'below averagely' motivated to participate in the Health Circle project.In comparison she recalls her own attitude prior to the project as 'highly motivated'.Here she compares her remaining staff with a group of employees who left Seaview residential in the beginning of the Health Circle project due to a municipal reorganization of the eldercare sector.
(…) the home-care group has been better than the in-house group at telling the good story I suppose.And I have always thought managing the in-house group has been significantly more challenging (…) I think it comes down to individuals and culture.(…) When we launched the theme day [about] the good story, the home-care-group said "Yes!", the inhouse group said "Hmph!".(Ellen) Ellen is positioning her remaining employees as demotivated and sees them as comfortable with status quo, in contrast to the home-care group who left Seaview Residential, due to restructuring.Ivy, the manager of Meadow Lodge in the beginning of the Health Circle project, did the same when she compared the employees at Meadow Lodge to the staff at her new eldercare centre: 'I thought of the girls that were at Meadow Lodge, as leaden-footed and I had the same opinion back when I was still there', in contrast to her the employees at her new workplace who she generally described as progressive and engaged.
Both Lee Ann and Ivy also perform a rather classic positioning of employee as good or bad (mirroring McGregor (1957) motivational theories; theory X and theory Y), in the sense of: positioning employees as either intrinsically motivated by making a difference (theory Y) or being generally lazy and motivated by individual-goals, needing management to closely control and supervise them (theory X). Lee Ann clearly positions herself as adhering to theory Y, and her subordinates to theory X, during the interview: Despite Lee Ann's polarized positioning of strong versus weak individuals, she reports how she actually experienced those of her employees participating in the Health Circle, after a period with frustration, that reduced the group to what she labels the elite, became happier and took more initiative in general.They were taking on more responsibility and tried to solve tasks themselves that they would have passed on to her in the past and she admits feeling more comfortable seeing her subordinates happy and less stressed.
It is tempting to evaluate this shift towards a positive work climate as a result of the participatory work in the Health Circle project.Nevertheless, as Lee Ann explains, a major reason might be the change in staff that occurred during intervention: I do also think that there have been some colleagues here and there who were just negative about everything new (…) you maybe had to get some employees out who didn't really want to work the way we do.Where one is close to them [the elderly citizens living in the case home] all the time, right?(…) By replacing some [employees], more strong employees have come.(Lee Ann) The ultimate consequence of employees being positioned as weak or less strong, motivated or demotivate, seemed to be the risk of individuals positioned as 'weak' or 'demotivated' either leaving or losing their job.In this sense the change related positioning seems to have substantial impact on the workplace.

Experience of Exclusion and Betrayal
It is noteworthy that the managers of all four nursing homes report positive changes in the relationship among the employees: they have become a more tight-knit group, more caring etc.Even though it appears as if Margaret also felt left out, she does not articulate any discomfort by the way the employees' defined problems.Rather it seems as if she is curious and open-minded towards the problems that might be revealed in the investigation.
If I didn't do it [read the summaries from the Health Circle meetings], it was my own fault (I'm the one to blame).I did feel left out, but still it wasn't like it was kept secret.I only had to take a walk down to the Health Circle board, right, and so I did a couple of times![Then I thought] "Oh, have they discovered [such and such problems]?",right?(Margaret) Ellen surprisingly reports the same effect saying the employee group became more cohesive.But, as the only line manager, she questions this development.Ellen takes the stance that the Health Circle project has been 'very problematic', causing a closer connection, and more cohesive subject positions, among the employees, but at the same time weakening her relationship to them.When asked whether she has experienced any development in the employees' work relations that may be caused by the Health Circle project Ellen explains: … They are closer.In this way, you might say that the dialogue [between the employees] has gotten closer as well.(…) You see, I think that we have been very close in our work relation in the past and that we have had a positive tight co-operation.Like, we have been present in each other's work.That's how I have felt.(…) We made a promisewe did that several years ago actuallythat we do not say stuff about one another that we can't tell straight to each others face.But that's a thing that has to be worked on, on a continuous basis, I suppose.(Ellen) The experience of being left out or excluded from a strengthened work community seems to not only be linked to assuming a resistive position but also be connected to the feeling of betrayal in Ellen's case.Though she does not use this word herself, she emphasizes more than once, that she and the rest of the staff at Seaview Residential had an agreementa contractabout not talking about one another behind each other's backs, implicating that her employees broke this contract while engaging in the activities that took place at the Health Circle meetings.This subject positioning as 'the betrayed' can be seen as the vocalization of an extreme form of subject positioning of both the betrayed manager and the betraying employees.While Margaret and Lee Ann also mention how they felt left out during the discussions at the Health Circle meetings, Ellen is the only one who seems to perceive this as a painful disconnection from relations with her employees, who at the same time established closer relations between themselves.

Discussion
The aim of this paper was to extend the knowledge about how line managers' enact subject positioning in relation to change during implementation of a participatory work environment intervention.We examined how line managers experienced the Health Circle intervention, how they reacted to the employee-empowering intervention and how these reactions intertwined with the subject positioning of the line manager.Finally, the study shed light on a related phenomenon; how the line managers reciprocally engaged in the positioning of their subordinates and questioned some of the possible negative consequences that might have followed from conducting this particular participatory work environment intervention.

Resistance to Change as a Reaction to Losing Power?
It has previously been suggested that line managers resist changes because they feel they lack skills to successfully implement the change process, have doubts about the potential effectiveness of the changes or perceive the goal of the strategy in conflict with their own personal goals (Giangreco & Peccei, 2005;Oreg, 2006).The fear of losing power and the lack of trust in employees' competences have also been seen as explanations for line managers' attitude and actions, passively or actively obstructing implementation of change (Giangreco & Peccei, 2005;Thomas & Hardy, 2011).
The analyses presented in this paper offer an alternative perspective on the issues of resistance, readiness and support, by suggesting the use of concept of subject-positioning from post-structuralist inspired discursive psychology (Harré & Gillett, 1994;Potter & Wetherell, 1987).From this processual and discursive perspective resistance, support or readiness should be seen as momentary social positions that are highly dependent on the specific situation and context (Thomas et al., 2010).This is demonstrated in all four cases where attitudes towards the Health Circle project were situated and tightly connected to the line managers' direct confrontation with employees' discursive construction of problems and the managers' enactment of change reactions throughout the process.
The retrospective interviews constituting the main empirical source in this analysis is obviously no exception.Here social positioning is also being done by both line managers and researchers.In this specific context the interview is framed as an evaluation of a change initiative brought to the organization by the very same researchers that carried out the interviews (or at least they represent the same institution).A negative evaluation could thereby easily contribute to indirect negative positioning of the researchers.Likewise, the line managers were also being indirectly evaluated and positioned by the researchers, who inevitably also position themselves in this discursive negotiation.

The Line Managers' Role in Implementation
Researchers have suggested that line managers play a central role in participatory initiatives as change agents by exposing employees to the initiative or by obstructing such exposure (Nielsen et al., 2006).However, when dealing with implementation of complex projects relying on employee participation, the chain of commands is not clearly established which in turn makes the role of the line managers negotiable.The authority to initiate strategic initiatives might reside with management, but local decisions about how changes are implemented are made by employees at a workplace level.Depending on the specific design and approach this potentially leaves the line manager with little control over the process.Concurrently line managers often remain responsible for the performance of the workplace.In other words, they may be asked to manage implementation of a top-down decision to encourage bottom-up change (Kieselbach et al., 2009).Resistant reactions to reduced influence might hence be directed both upwards and downwards.If the line managers' resistance furthermore is to be considered as a discursive phenomenon, as a reaction to the experience of being positioned as an incapable manager, resistance might not only manifest as explicit obstruction of specific action plans, but also in the negative positioning of employees (maybe even those already most vulnerable).We saw this in varying degree and forms in the cases of Ivy, Lee Ann and Ellen, and argue that the varying forms of positioning of employees as incompetent or change-resistant should be considered when addressing change reactions from a perspective of enacted subject positioning.

Implications: Further Research and Practice
Within organizational psychology employees' and line managers' motivation is often addressed as a necessary precondition to do participatory initiatives (von Thiele Schwarz et al., 2016).Even though this might provide the best outset for change, there is no guarantee that the initial expressions of motivation and interest persist during the entire course of a project.As this study shows, by taking on the perspective of enacted subject positioning it becomes evident that the motivation to change and to engage in implementation may shift when individuals experience various aspects of the intervention.Consequently, we suggest developing practices that make it possible for both employees and line managers to negotiate change-positive subject positions throughout the intervention, and hence avoid surprises, dissonance, conflict and betrayal.If the line manager is not participating in the main intervention activities, one might keep in mind to closely evaluate if this position of being on the outside in any way leads to the manager positioning themselves counter to the project and if so, initiate actions that allow and invite the manager into change-congruent positioning to prevent conflict.For future research, Recording and analysing longitudinal data, for instance discussions during change initiatives, would enable analyses of positioning-in-the-making. This would be a logical next step in the study of managerial change related subject positioning.

Conclusion
Through an in-depth analysis of interview material, we have demonstrated how four different line managers reacted to the empowering of employees within a participatory work environment initiative.The results suggest that line managers' change reactions should be seen as situated and tightly connected to the direct confrontation with employees' discursive construction of problems and the changes in potential subject positions that were related to the Health Circle intervention.Our study suggests that the commonly used constructs of 'resistance to change' and 'readiness to change' paint a too static and over-simplified picture.We like to encourage organizational members, practitioners, and researchers to view their own context, and the subject positioning taking place, in a more reflexive manner and thereby provide a better chance of successfully conducting planned change, without surprises and perceived ambushes.We hope that in highlighting some of the possible pitfalls of change projects in general, and participatory work environment intervention projects in particular, change agents are slightly better equipped to identify, and address, potential problems arising from discursive struggles during change.