Reflexive sensegiving: An open-ended process of influencing the sensemaking of others during organizational change

Kihlberg, Robert; Lindberg, Ola

doi:10.1016/j.emj.2020.10.007

Cited by 20 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The employees were at no point involved or engaged in discussions of how the social features of the new intranet and the whole idea of participatory communication could make sense to them. This was rather paradoxical, as employee involvement in decision-making has been found to promote trust, reduce uncertainty and improve acceptance of decisions (Lewis, 2019) and gatherings facilitating “reflective multivocal sensegiving” (Robert and Ola, 2021) could have supported employee sensemaking and empowered employees to actually make use of the new opportunities to voice their opinions. The seven different sensemaking enactments found in the study provide insights into employee sensemaking processes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During change processes, sensemaking happens in interactions between organizational members, and employee participation has been found to reduce uncertainty (Lewis, 2019). Robert and Ola (2021) introduce the concept of “reflective sensegiving” which they define as “a multivocal process aiming to influence how the sensemaking and construction of meaning evolves”. Based on a study of the Swedish police, they explore how employees can be empowered during change processes where traditional sensegiving/sensemaking dichotomies are transcended in favor of a conceptual approach which sees leadership sensegiving and employee sensemaking as related.…”

Section: Change Communication and Sensemakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Theories about PSOs, change communication and sensemaking underline the complexity of a change process in a PSO due to the many conflicting interests and cues employees need to make sense of. It is a multivocal process (Robert and Ola, 2021) happening in communication (Johansson and Heide, 2008), meaning that, when a PSO introduces a new social intranet and new communication roles for employees and managers, employee sensemaking will enact the future life of the social intranet. However, little is known about the employee perspective in such a change process (Simonsson and Heide, 2020), how their sensemaking enactment moves and shifts over time (Lewis and Sahay, 2019), or how their sensemaking enactment influences the change process.…”

Section: Employee Sensemakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Making sense of internal social media and participatory communication: exploring the employee perspective in a change process in a public sector organization

Madsen

2022

JCOM

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PurposeThis article explores how employees in a public sector organization (PSO) make sense of the introduction of a social intranet and new employee communication roles. The aim is to understand employee sensemaking and how sensemaking influences the change process within the organization.Design/methodology/approachThe article is based on a case study in a Danish PSO with 30,000 employees. The empirical material includes strategic documents, online observations and seven focus groups with employees conducted before, during and after the introduction of a new social intranet.FindingsThe employees found that making sense of the purpose with the social intranet is difficult. A managerial approach to change communication could easily result in employees' frustrations and concerns being dismissed as signs of resistance to change. From a communication perspective, the findings reveal that the employees engaged in seven different sensemaking enactments.Research limitations/implicationsChange cannot be understood simply as something that employees are for or against. Instead, a change process should be perceived as a set of communication processes or sensemaking enactments happening in interactions between employees that can act in favor of, against or neutrally toward change.Practical implicationsManagers and communication professionals can interact with the seven sensemaking enactments, and some tentative initiatives are suggested in the article.Originality/valueThe article explores the employee perspective in a change process in a PSO and identifies seven employee sensemaking enactments highlighting that change happens in communication processes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Change Communication and Sensemakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Employee Sensemakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Making sense of internal social media and participatory communication: exploring the employee perspective in a change process in a public sector organization

Madsen

2022

JCOM

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“…Sense giving is an interpretative process of constructing a new reality and actively influencing other actors in order to steer the sense making of other agents in a preferred direction [26][27][28][29][30][31]. The organisational reality and therefore the prevailing meanings in internal corporate discourse are decisively influenced via the framing produced by management [32].…”

Section: Theoretical Basis and Research Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Framing of Sustainable Finance in Charitable Foundations—Findings from a Qualitative Study

Wiener

2021

Sustainability

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In the face of decreasing returns on investments and the growing influence of sustainability requirements, foundations have had to adjust the way they invest their assets. Sustainable investments have shown themselves to be as robust in terms of their returns as conventional investments and—more than that—they can support foundations’ goals much more effectively. But only very few foundations implement sustainable investment strategies. The present study analyses the reasons for this, by means of interviews with personnel responsible for assets. The interviewees operate as ‘sense givers’ who have to kickstart a process of strategic readjustment. The reference framework for their ways of thinking and acting has been investigated using framing analysis. So-called sense givers’ isolated position in their foundations is the rather disturbing finding of this study. Familiar strategies of action seem to be of little help in their endeavours. This is frequently expressed in sometimes poignant calls for external guidelines and role models, while specific ideas about courses of action remain relatively vague. This applies particularly to large foundations where strategic readjustments are hindered by complex structures and hierarchies, whereas in small-scale entities, decisions follow shorter, face-to-face pathways. The imperative of carving out a complex sustainability discourse in their foundations drives sense givers to activities like networking inside and outside their foundations in order to exchange ideas and build alliances, for example within the German Association of Charitable Foundations. Investment managers need first of all to develop new strategies to convince the range of stakeholders in their foundations.

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“…emphasized the role of reflexive feedback cycles [8]. Scientific works [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] are grounded on the principles of reflexivity. However, reflexivity is closely connected with inaccuracy.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Factorial-Reflexive Approach to Diagnosing the Executors’ and Contractors’ Attitude to Achieving the Objectives by Energy Supplying Companies

2021

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The article aims to enhance understanding of how relations, behavior and attitude of the executives and contractors to achieving the objectives by energy supplying companies affect the efficiency of the latter’s overall development. There is offered a factor-reflexive approach to diagnosing the executives’ and contractors’ attitude to realizing the tasks of developing the energy supplying companies. This approach includes models to identify and analyze the factors that influenced the change in contractors’ behavior based on the combination of expert techniques, correlation and regression analysis and evaluation of the personnel response to organizational, resource and staffing projects development, through accumulating sufficient statistical information based on the enterprise’s features, relations and environment. This approach to diagnosing executives’ and contractors’ response to the implementation of tasks and the resulting changes takes into account the subjective component of their response. Practical implementation of this approach in monitoring the conformity of the development tasks has proven the ability to identify problems from the viewpoint of the task executives.

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Reflexive sensegiving: An open-ended process of influencing the sensemaking of others during organizational change

Cited by 20 publications

References 35 publications

Making sense of internal social media and participatory communication: exploring the employee perspective in a change process in a public sector organization

Making sense of internal social media and participatory communication: exploring the employee perspective in a change process in a public sector organization

The Framing of Sustainable Finance in Charitable Foundations—Findings from a Qualitative Study

The Factorial-Reflexive Approach to Diagnosing the Executors’ and Contractors’ Attitude to Achieving the Objectives by Energy Supplying Companies

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