No abstract

No abstract

Corporate change initiatives trigger a series of activities aimed at implementing change. It is often assumed that successful implementation requires consistent action based on a shared understanding of the changes among employees. This article examines how implementation activities affect individual and organizational sensemaking processes and thereby contribute to a shared understanding and consistent change action. Based on inductive analyses of longitudinal data, the study suggests that many implementation activities focus predominantly on further planning and creating a cognitive understanding among change recipients prior to any action. Although participation in planning activities facilitates sensemaking at the individual level, it neither ensures organizational sensemaking nor necessarily leads to collective action. The limitations of cognitively focused implementation activities are discussed, followed by suggestions on how change agents can supplement these with activities aimed at sensemaking through action.

Organizations can respond to change in a number of ways such as by transforming the organization, by making symbolic changes, by customizing the change to better fit the context, or by corrupting the change and actually reinforcing status quo. In this article we compare how three business units respond to the same corporate change initiative.We traced organizational responses to change over time and found that responses to change initially varied across business units, but over time most organizational changes were customized to fit the business unit context. We argue that organizational-level responses and how these develop over time can be explained by examining individuals’ interpretative responses. Through inductive analysis we identify five interpretative responses at the individual level: convergent response, divergent response, unresolved sensemaking, creative response, and non-compliance, and show how these shape organizational-level responses.

No abstract