‘Playing back-spin balls’: narrating organizational change in construction

Abstract

What does change mean for organisational members? Although researchers have attempted to capture its intrinsic complexities, there remains uncertainty as to what change really is and how it happens. Drawing on a longitudinal interpretative case study of change in a large Swedish construction company, a narrative approach is used to elicit middle managers' stories of change episodes over the past two decades. These stories have then been compared with the narratives of the same episodes in governing documents. We found that the lived and the formal narratives, respectively, depicted two very different interpretations and enactments of change: the former described a discontinuous process of discrete contingencies demanding immediate short-term responses whereas the later described a proactive incremental strategic plan. A narrative approach to the study of organizational change contributes to deeper insights into the ramifications of an organization's sociocultural system by enabling the capture of significant variations, contradictions and tensions, both for organizational members and for the researchers who study change.

‘Taking off my glasses in order to see’: exploring practice on a building site using self-reflexive ethnography

“…This could, from an observer perspective, be interpreted as relating to the rather chaotic environment on the site (a causal relation), and would also support one of the preconceptions I had before entering the site regarding an underlying socially embedded aversion towards formalized planning practices (e.g. Styhre et al 2004;Knauseder 2007;Löwstedt and Räisänen 2012;Löwstedt and Räisänen 2014).…”

“…I expected (to name a few things), the building site to be chaotic (e.g.Cicmil and Marhall 2005), unpredictable (e.g Groák, 1994),. relatively disorganized, adhering to a culture of ad---hoc problem---solving (e.g Styhre et al 2004;Knauseder 2007;Löwstedt and Räisänen 2012;. Räisänen 2014).…”

Historical narratives as strategic resources: analysis of the Turkish international contracting sector

“…Barry and Elmes, 1997). Löwstedt and Räisänen (2012) notably applied narrative analysis to 20 years of change processes in a Swedish construction company. They sought to compare the 'formal narratives' as stated in company documents with the individual spoken 'lived narratives' of middle managers.…”

Social identity in construction: enactments and outcomes

“…A dominant organizational narrative becomes self-reinforcing and exerts governance through ignoring and blocking alternative narratives (often informal narrative), and consequently tends to remain largely the same over time (e.g. Löwstedt and Räisänen 2012). Compared to the adaptive expectation effects described above, this self--reinforcement is not sustained by pulling or pushing forces actively exerted in relation to "what is outside", but rather by an inner centripetal force that eventually results in purposeful "blindness" (Geiger and Antonacopoulou, 2009).…”