DDBA 8521 Week 2 Rejected Change Diagnostic Example

What the Operators' Refusal Reveals: A Diagnostic Case Reading a Transit Agency's Rejected Bus Scheduling Program Back Into the Agency, Showing Who Really Controls Work Assignments and Which Contract Clause the Program Ignored

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Walden University

DDBA 8521: Seminar in Change Management

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Month Day, Year

What the Operators' Refusal Reveals: A Diagnostic Case Reading a Transit Agency's Rejected Bus Scheduling Program Back Into the Agency, Showing Who Really Controls Work Assignments and Which Contract Clause the Program Ignored

The Rejection

In 2025, a composite regional transit agency in the Midwest with about 380 bus operators introduced a software program that builds operators' weekly work assignments, called runs, by optimizing for fewer split shifts and lower overtime. Under the old process, operators chose runs four times a year in order of seniority, a process called the pick. The new program proposed assignments and allowed operators to swap within limits. After two months, operators had filed 61 grievances, the union local voted to refuse program-built assignments and management suspended the program. The agency's leadership described the outcome as resistance to change. This case reads the refusal back into the agency to ask what it reveals about how the agency actually runs.

Who Actually Controls Work Assignments

The agency's organization chart places scheduling under the director of operations, who reports to the general manager. On paper, management assigns work. In practice, the pick gave operators substantial control: a 20-year operator could choose a straight eight-hour daytime run on a single route, while newer operators took split shifts, nights and weekends. Seniority choice was the main reward for years of service. The program shifted control from operators' choices to an optimization the scheduling office ran. Operators did not object to software; they objected to losing a right they had earned. Ford et al. (2008) argued that what change agents call resistance often reflects legitimate concerns and the relationship between agents and recipients, and that labeling it resistance can hide useful information. Here the information was about where control over work really sat.

The Clause the Program Ignored

The union contract's article on work selection states that runs "shall be selected by operators in seniority order" at each pick. The program's swap feature allowed choice only among assignments the program had already built. The union's grievance argued that this replaced selection with assignment, contrary to the article. The agency's legal counsel had reviewed the program for compliance with federal rules on hours of service, but not against the contract's work selection article. The program was designed around the formal authority shown on the organization chart, not the contractual authority operators held.

What the Operators' Stated Objections Reveal

The grievances and a union newsletter named three objections: loss of seniority choice, unpredictable split shifts for senior operators and the sense that "the computer" now decided their lives. Piderit (2000) showed that people's reactions to a change can pull in several directions at once, in what they think, feel and intend, rather than amounting to plain opposition. Several operators wrote that the program's assignments reduced overtime for junior colleagues, which they supported, while objecting to losing their own choice. That ambivalence suggests a redesign that kept seniority choice among program-built runs, with the program constructing better runs for operators to pick from, might have been accepted.

What the Refusal Says About the Agency

The refusal reveals three things. Authority over work is shared between management and operators through the contract, not held by management alone. The seniority pick is a central part of the agency's reward system, and changing it changes what a long career at the agency is worth. And the agency's change process reviewed technical and regulatory compliance but not labor agreements, a gap that will matter for any future change touching work rules. Weick and Quinn (1999) observed that changes introduced as discrete episodes often collide with the continuous, embedded arrangements through which an organization actually works; the quarterly pick is one of those arrangements.

How the Diagnosis Was Built

The diagnosis draws on four sources. The first is the 61 grievances, read in full and coded by the objection each raised. The second is the union contract, especially its article on work selection and the side letters that interpret it. The third is the project file for the scheduling program, including the legal review memo and the vendor's configuration notes. The fourth is interviews with the director of operations, two dispatchers, the union local's vice president and five operators chosen across seniority levels. Each claim in the case rests on at least two of these sources. Where they disagreed, for example on whether operators had been consulted before launch, the case reports both accounts: management recalled two information sessions, while the union recalled being told of the program after the vendor was chosen.

Implications

Before reintroducing the program, the agency should negotiate with the union over how optimized runs could be offered within the pick. The diagnosis suggests that operators might accept a program that builds runs if they still choose among them.

References

Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W., & D'Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to change: The rest of the story. Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 362-377. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2008.31193235

Piderit, S. K. (2000). Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: A multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 783-794. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2000.3707722

Weick, K. E., & Quinn, R. E. (1999). Organizational change and development. Annual Review of Psychology, 50(1), 361-386. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.50.1.361