Abstract

Background. In the article we analysed the issue whether staff training can help business organisations to overcome resistance to innovations. Scientific literature highlights the need to deal with unwanted employee resistance from the beginning of introducing innovations or changes.

Research aims. To find the reason for resistance to innovations of business organisations’ employees.

Methodology. In order to examine the identified problem quantitative research was conducted - written survey of employees of a group of enterprises of public passenger transport. The instrument of the survey was a questionnaire. In order to process the data obtained during the research version 19.0 of the program of statistical analysis and data processing SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) was used. The credibility of the questionnaire was determined by calculating Cronbach's alfa coefficient (0.842). For the purpose of determining the statistical significance of respondents’ answers we applied the procedure of testing a non-parametric hypothesis; there were calculated correlation coefficients; factor analysis was applied as well.

Findings and Results. The research revealed that the higher the employee's education is, the more favourably the employee is inclined to value more organisational, but not personal, measures or actions of managers while reducing resistance to innovations. Meanwhile, those employees who possess lower education fear more to lose their jobs; they associate the introduction of innovations with increased requirements related to qualifications. It has been established that the higher the employees’ education, the lower their negative attitude with regard to innovation is.

The results of research partially confirmed the raised hypothesis - resistance to innovation is lower in those organisations, where more attention is paid to staff training.

Conclusions and Recommendations. The analysis of literature and the results of research lead to the conclusion that resistance to innovation can be overcome by the following general methods: education, training, communication, participation and involvement of employees, alleviation and support, negotiation and agreements, and manipulation or direct/indirect force. It is recommended while introducing in-novation in enterprises to apply the proposed model of negotiation of staff resistance to innovations.