Art. 10 Soneshein

Question 1

Two related lenses are especially useful for examining meaning constructions during change. Which two lenses?

Answer 1

• Narrative lens
• Sensemaking lens

Question 2

What is the narrative lens?

Answer 2

A narrative lens focuses on discourse, often containing a sequential structure, that gives meaning to events.

Narratives exist at both the individual and collective levels.

Question 3

What is the sensemaking lens?

Answer 3

A sensemaking lens is closely related to a narrative one. For Weick (1995), sensemaking involves individuals engaging in retrospective and prospective thinking in order to construct an interpretation of reality. “Sensegiving” is a related process by which individuals attempt to influence the sensemaking of others.

Question 4

How does the author see a narrative?

Answer 4

I view a narrative as a discursive construction that actors use as a tool to shape their own understanding (sensemaking), as a tool to influence others’ understandings (sensegiving), and as an outcome of the collective construction of meaning.

Question 5

Which dimensions are used by employees?

Answer 5

I found that employees similarly used the significant-insignificant dimension to construct the meaning of the change, but also added another dimension: positive-negative. These two dimensions (positive-negative; significant-insignificant) are illustrated using four different narratives.

Question 6

Which dimension is used by change managers?

Answer 6

Significant-insignificant

Question 7

Which types of narratives are there during strategic change?

Answer 7

Progressive narratives link experiences or events in a way that moves toward the “good” evaluative dimension.

A regressive narrative links experiences in a way that moves toward the “bad” evaluative dimension.

Their stability narrative links experiences in a way that keeps the evaluative dimension the same.

Question 8

What is the difference between the progressive and regressive narrative?

Answer 8

Both progressive and regressive narratives construct change as leading to a significantly new organization, but they differ as to whether this change is good or bad.

Question 9

How are the three types linked with the managers?

Answer 9

The progressive, regressive, and stability typology captures how managers use discourse to portray both change and continuity and how employees subsequently respond to this discourse in very different ways.

Question 10

The model shows that meanings attributed to change vary along two theoretical dimensions. Which ones? and what do they entail?

Answer 10

**Preservational or transformational: **accounts for the change-as-insignificant theme in the data, whereby change can be constructed as preservational, characterized by small and minor adjustments that preserve existing meanings about an organization. The first dimension also accounts for the change-as-significant theme, whereby meanings can present change as transformational, characterized by phenomena that are wide in scope and involve new organizational meanings.

Supportive - Subversive: Supportive is consistent with managerial intentions. Subversive is undermining mana- gerial views of a change. Managerial discourse about change is supportive, but it can be preservational (a stability narrative) or transformational (a progressive narrative).

Question 11

What do the dimensions entail for employees?

Answer 11

Employees’ narratives also vary by being transformational or preservational, but they additionally vary on whether they are supportive or subversive, leading to pro- gressive, regressive, or stability narratives.

Question 12

Why do managers both use preservational as transformational narratives?

Answer 12

Strategic ambiguity.

According to this concept, managers are intentionally equivocal about meanings to promote “unified diversity”, a condition that allows employees and managers to have multiple interpretations of a change while believing that they agree on meanings.

Equivocal discourse could be another mechanism to instill a sense of continuity for some employees and a sense of change for others.

The managerial narrative during strategic change is neither the strategic change narrative of transformation, nor the uncertainty-reducing narrative that conveys stability, but rather a set of interwoven narratives that affirm both themes. In conveying these narratives, managers are proactively equivocal in their attempt to exercise greater control over employees’ interpretations.

Question 13

Employees also tell two types of stability narratives:

Answer 13

The supportive stability narrative latches onto managers’ construction of the change as a negligible modification, with the organization maintaining its positive state. These employees more likely narrate supporting the change, as they accept the status quo.

Conversely, the subversive stability narrative constructs the organization as remaining the same, but in a state that is not acceptable. These employees more likely narrate resisting the change for its insignificance. Although both stability narratives (supportive and subversive) construct the organization as only minimally changing, they differ in their construction of the status quo as either positive or negative, which can lead to very different responses.

Question 14

Employees also narrate in a progressive way and on an extra dimension. Explain?

Answer 14

Extra dimension is Supportive-Subversive.

More specifically, employees’ progressive narratives capture meanings similar to those of managers narrating how the organization is undergoing a beneficial transformation. I find these narratives are patterned with prochange responses, such as championing or accepting. On the other hand, the regressive narratives, although also constructing the change as involving a key transformation, instead attach a subversive meaning to this transformation, thereby constructing the change as leading to an organizational decline. These employees more likely narrate resistance to the change.

Question 15

What is the central funnel/triangle in the model?

Answer 15

The funnel (central triangle) signifies employees’ sensemaking. It shows that although managers simultaneously present preservational and trans- formational constructions supportive of the change to employees, employees do not always adopt these meanings in their entirety, they select part of the interwoven narrative (e.g., significant/insignificant) and then may embellish it with a valence. The outcome of this process is four possible employee narratives.

Question 16

Two mechanisms are mentioned in the funnel/triangle. What do they entail?

Answer 16

• **Time period **(when was the change implemented?)
• Local context (was a given store centrally involved in the change?)

I found that transformational meanings were more common later in the change (period) and in converting stores (context), that insignificant meanings were more common earlier in the change for converting stores (period), and that more subversive meanings were constructed at nonconverting stores (context) and later in the change (period).

Question 17

Two narrative pathways to strategic change implementation.

Answer 17

• Transformational pathway
• Preservational pathway

Question 18

What entails the transformational pathway?

Answer 18

In the transformational pathway, managers unfreeze employees by constructing a new, better organization for them (using a progressive narrative), and employees then construct transformational meanings.

The transformational meanings employees produce can take two forms: the new organization as a better replacement for the old (progressive narrative) or as a worse replacement (regressive narrative).

Question 19

What entails the preservational pathway?

Answer 19

In the preservational pathway, the managers’ stability narrative constructs the change as consistent with the status quo, thereby freezing employees’ existing meaning constructions. Consequently, employees do not construct new meanings for the organization and instead construct the change as consistent with the status quo. However, employees add an interpretive dimension to the existing meanings they endorse: if employees are satisfied with the status quo, they tell supportive stability narratives that suggest that the change preserves what they value about their organization. However, if employees are dissatisfied with the status quo, managers’ freezing it and employees’ construction of the organization as remaining the same lead to a subversive stability narrative.

The broader theoretical process for the preservational pathway is that managers attempt to freeze employees’ meanings and that these meanings freeze either a positively or negatively constructed status quo.