Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This inductive study explores how place influences collective sensemaking and employee responses during organizational change. The empirical setting of our study is an offshore oil platform undergoing changes that involve standardizing operational practices and relocating personnel as two organizations merge. We analyze the narratives of two employee groups and show how employees located onshore construct progressive change narratives, enabling them to adapt to change, while employees located on the offshore oil platform construct regressive narratives leaving them romanticizing the past and struggling to accept change. Our findings illustrate how the manipulation, reconfiguration, and exploitation of place has implications for employees’ capacities to accept and adapt to change.

Keywords

employee responses to change collective sensemaking change narratives organizational change strategic change implementation process study

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abolafia

M. Y.

(2010). Narrative construction as sensemaking: How a central bank thinks. Organization Studies, 31(3), 349-367. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840609357380

Balogun

Bartunek

J. M.

(2015). Senior managers’ sensemaking and responses to strategic change. Organization Science, 26(4), 960-979. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2015.0985

Balogun

Johnson

(2004). Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 47(4), 523-549. https://doi.org/10.2307/20159600

Balogun

Johnson

(2005). From intended strategies to unintended outcomes: The impact of change recipient sensemaking, Organization Studies, 26(11), 1573-1601. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840605054624

Bartunek

J. M.

Huang

Walsh

I. J.

(2008). The development of a process model of collective turnover. Human Relations, 61(1), 5-38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726707085944

Bartunek

J. M.

Moch

M. K.

(1987). First-order, second-order, and third-order change and organization development interventions: A cognitive approach. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 23(4), 483-500. https://doi.org/10.1177/002188638702300404

Bartunek

J. M.

Rousseau

D. M.

Rudoplh

J. W.

DePalma

J. A.

(2006). On the receiving end: Sensemaking, emotion, and assessments of an organizational change initiated by others. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 42(2), 182-206. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886305285455

Brown

A. D.

(2006). A narrative approach to collective identities. Journal of Management Studies, 43(4), 731-753. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00609.x

Brown

A. D.

Humphreys

(2006). Organizational identity and place: A discursive exploration of hegemony and resistance. Journal of Management Studies, 43(2), 231-257. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00589.x

10.

Bruner

(1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1086/448619

11.

Bryant

Cox

J. W.

(2004). Conversion stories as shifting narratives of organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 17(6), 578-592. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810410564569

12.

Courpasson

Dany

Delbridge

(2017). Politics of place: The meaningfulness of resisting places. Human Relations, 70(2), 237-259. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810410564569

13.

Dale

Burrell

(2008). The spaces of organisation and the organisation of space: Power, identity and materiality at work. Geografiska Annaler, 92(2), 182-184. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0467.2010.00345.x

14.

Dawson

Buchanan

(2005). The way it really happened: Competing narratives in the political process of technological change. Human Relations, 58(7), 845-865. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726705057807

15.

Dawson

McLean

(2013). Miners’ tales: Stories and the storying process for understanding the collective sensemaking of employees during contested change. Group & Organization Management, 38(2), 198-229. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601112472367

16.

Ely

R. J.

Meyerson

D. E.

(2010). An organizational approach to undoing gender: The unlikely case of offshore oil platforms. Research in Organization Behavior, 30, 3-34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2010.09.002

17.

Fisher

(1984). Narration as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communications Monograph, 51(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637758409390180

18.

Garcia

Hardy

(2007). Positioning, similarity and difference: Narratives of individual and organizational identities in an Australian university. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 23(4), 363-383. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2007.09.002

19.

Gastelaars

(2010). What do buildings do? How buildings-in-use affect organizations. In van Marrewijk

Yanow

(Eds.), Organizational spaces. Rematerializing the workaday world (pp. 77-95). Edward Elgar.

20.

Gergen

K. J.

Gergen

M. M.

(1997). Narratives of the self. In Hinchman

L. P.

Hinchman

S. K.

(Eds.) Memory, identity, community: The idea of narrative in the human sciences (pp. 161-184). State University of New York Press.

21.

Gioia

D. A.

Chittipeddi

(1991). Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management Journal, 12(6), 433-448. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250120604

22.

Hailey

V. H.

Balogun

(2002). Devising context sensitive approaches to change: The example of Glaxo Wellcome. Long Range Planning, 35(2), 153-178. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0024-6301(02)00035-3

23.

Halford

Leonard

(2006). Place, space and time: Contextualizing workplace subjectivities. Organization Studies, 27(5), 657-676. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840605059453

24.

Hope

(2010). The politics of middle management sensemaking and sensegiving. Journal of Change Management, 10(2), 195-215. https://doi.org/10.1080/14697011003795669

25.

Huy

Q. N.

(2011). How middle managers’ group-focus emotions and social identities influence strategy implementation. Strategic Management Journal, 32(13), 1387-1410. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.961

26.

Ibarra

Barbulescu

(2010). Identity as narrative: Prevalence, effectiveness, and consequences of narrative identity work in Macro work role transitions. Academy of Management Review, 35(1), 135-154. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.35.1.zok135

27.

Ibarra

Lineback

(2005, January). What’s your story? Harvard Business Review, 83(1), 65-71.

28.

Kellogg

K. C.

(2009). Operating room: Relational spaces and micro-institutional change in surgery. American Journal of Sociology, 115(3), 657-711. https://doi.org/10.1086/603535

29.

Langley

Golden-Biddle

Reay

Denis

J. L.

Hebert

Lamothe

Gervaise

(2012). Identity struggles in merging organizations: Renegotiating the sameness-difference dialectic. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 48(2), 135-167. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886312438857

30.

Larson

G. S.

Pearson

A. R.

(2012). Placing identity: Place as a discursive resource for occupational identity work among high-tech entrepreneurs. Management Communication Quarterly, 26(2), 241-266. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318911435319

31.

Lincoln

Y. S.

Guba

E. G.

(1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Sage.

32.

Louis

M. R.

Bartunek

J. M.

(1982). Insider/outsider research teams: Collaboration across diverse perspectives. Journal of Management Inquiry, 1(2), 101-110. https://doi.org/10.1177/105649269212002

33.

Maitlis

(2005). The social processes of organizational sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 48(1), 21-49. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2005.15993111

34.

Maitlis

Christianson

(2014). Sensemaking in organizations: Taking stock and moving forward. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 57-125. https://doi.org/10.5465/19416520.2014.873177

35.

Maitlis

Lawrence

T. B.

(2007). Triggers and enablers of sensegiving in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 50(1), 57-84. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2007.24160971

36.

Morgan

Frost

P. J.

Pondy

L. R.

(1983). Organizational symbolism. JAI Press.

37.

Pentland

B. T.

(1999). Building process theory with narrative: From description to explanation. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 711-724. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1999.2553249

38.

Reissner

S. C.

(2008). Narratives of organisational change and learning. Making sense of testing times. Edward Elgar.

39.

Rogers

K. M.

Corley

K. G.

Ashforth

B. E.

(2017). Seeing more than orange: Organizational respect and positive identity transformation in a prison context. Administrative Science Quarterly, 62(2), 219-269. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839216678842

40.

Rooney

Paulsen

Callan

V. J.

Brabant

Gallois

Jones

(2010). A new role for place identity in managing organizational change. Management Communication Quarterly, 24(1), 44-73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318909351434

41.

Sandberg

Tsoukas

(2015). Making sense of the sensemaking perspective: Its constituents, limitations, and opportunities for further development. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(Suppl. 1), S6-S32. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1937

42.

Sonenshein

(2010). We’re changing: Or are we? Untangling the role of progressive, regressive, and stability narratives during strategic change implementation. Academy of Management Journal, 53(3), 477-512. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2010.51467638

43.

Sonenshein

Dholakia

(2012). Explaining employee engagement with strategic change implementation: A meaning-making approach. Organization Science, 23(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1110.0651

44.

Stensaker

Falkenberg

Grønhaug

(2008). Implementation activities and organizational sensemaking. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44(2), 162-185. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886307313794

45.

Stensaker

Langley

(2010). Change management choices and trajectories in a multidivisional firm. British Journal of Management, 21, 7-27.

46.

Stigliani

Ravasi

(2012). Organizing thoughts and connecting brains: Material practices and the transition from individual to group-level prospective sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 55(5), 1232-1259. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2010.0890

47.

Van Maanen

. (1998). Identity work: Notes on the personal identity of police officers (Working Paper). MIT. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/69852

48.

Watson

T. J.

Watson

D. H.

(2012). Narratives in society, organizations and individual identities: An ethnographic study of pubs, identity work and the pursuit of “the real.” Human Relations, 65(6), 683-704. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726712440586

49.

Weick

K. E.

(1987). Organizational culture as a source of high reliability. California Management Review, 29(2), 112-127. https://doi.org/10.2307/41165243

50.

Weick

K. E.

(1993). The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(4), 628-652. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393339

51.

Weick

K. E.

(1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Sage.

52.

Weick

K. E.

Sutcliffe

K. M.

Obstfeld

(2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409-421. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0133

53.

Weinfurtner

Seidl

. (2019). Towards a spatial perspective: An integrative review of research on organizational space. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 35(2), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2018.02.003

54.

Whyte

W. F.

(1943). Street corner society: The social structure of an Italian slum. University of Chicago Press.

55.

Zott

Huy

Q. N.

(2007). How entrepreneurs use symbolic management to acquire resources. Administrative Science Quarterly, 52(1), 70-105. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.52.1.70

The Power of the Platform: Place and Employee Responses to Organizational Change

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References