Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore and theorize the process of managerial feedback in relation to change in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach This research embraces a qualitative methodology in the context of manufacturing SMEs. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews, and observations conducted with various managers in six SMEs operating in three countries, it is argued that managers benefit more by using daily, ongoing, feedback as a trigger of change in their organizations. Findings The findings suggest that there is an overall view that managers appear to be reluctant to change existing processes using formalized feedback mechanisms, which runs counter-intuitive to the literature. In contrast, informal methods of feedback work better in enhancing organizational change. Moreover, another two features of feedback enhance this process, namely, benefits oriented and confidence oriented. As such, this study contributes to existing knowledge and practice by proposing a three-fold form of feedback through which managers expand their perspectives of feedback from feeding-back to feeding-forward thereby enhancing the opportunities of triggering change. Research limitations/implications Feedback should merely be considered as a dynamic and socially constructed managerial practice. A practice where actors not only exchange information and share knowledge, but also act, react and interact with each other as they constantly rethinking the change process. The proposed aspect of feedback emphasizes knowledge therapeutically and in combination with the dialogical discourse (practical illustration) that increases the odds for capturing change as a natural, rather than exceptional. Practical implications Practitioners, as such, may wish to consider the terminology used when it comes to studying change and its implementation in a crisis context. Using deformalized managerial feedback mechanisms to tackle a formal phenomenon like “change” could help avoid employees perceiving a negative connotation, causing resistance or confusion and feeling threatened. Therefore, the authors suggest that practitioners, during development initiatives on modernizing or altering organizational processes, consider replacing the term “change” as a formal concept. Originality/value It is an investigation from an exploratory perspective in studying and understanding the causes, factors and modalities that trigger managerial feedback toward organizational change in manufacturing SMEs.

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At the core of sense-making is its fundamental function of creating discursive order to equivocal occurrences. Although researchers have emphasized the organizational and managerial factors that trigger sense-making in settings, fewer things are known on how middle managers' discursive sensemaking is constructed during the process of change in the public sector. In this empirical study, we explore middle managers' sense-making in public organizations, that constrain the flow of change in reforming public governance. The research draws on qualitative data garnered from 31 interviews with middle managers in three public organizations in two periods of time (2016 and 2017). We illustrate managing divergences and strategizing sensemaking of the change process as intricate and multidimensional means of middle managers' sense-making framework of ensuring change in the public sector. We argue that middle managers intensify their commitment to learning from change and therefore live the organizational life that sometimes demands commiserating the lack of exerting structural power by highlighting the contextual myopic circumstances of institutional dependence. Theoretical and practical implications are also elaborated.

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