Keep the Flame Alive! The Role of Middle Managers' Sensemaking in Organizational Change
(2020) BUSN49 20201Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Purpose: The main purpose of our study is to gain a deeper understanding of middle managers' sensemaking in organizational change initiatives. This involves the exploration of how middle managers interpret their role in the course of the initiative and act accordingly. Beyond that, we aim to discover how top management can influence middle managers' sensemaking, but also which other factors might support or obstruct middle managers in fulfilling their role.
Theoretical Perspective: In our study, we follow a micro-oriented process perspective on organizational change. Therefore, we build on Weick's central concept of sensemaking and its theoretical extensions, such as sensegiving. Furthermore, a model of Balogun provides an essential... (More) - Purpose: The main purpose of our study is to gain a deeper understanding of middle managers' sensemaking in organizational change initiatives. This involves the exploration of how middle managers interpret their role in the course of the initiative and act accordingly. Beyond that, we aim to discover how top management can influence middle managers' sensemaking, but also which other factors might support or obstruct middle managers in fulfilling their role.
Theoretical Perspective: In our study, we follow a micro-oriented process perspective on organizational change. Therefore, we build on Weick's central concept of sensemaking and its theoretical extensions, such as sensegiving. Furthermore, a model of Balogun provides an essential basis for our understanding of middle managers' sensemaking, which we can expand with the help of our own empirical findings.
Conclusion: Our findings reveal that middle managers' sensemaking decisively determines organizational change. Although top management can provide a direction, middle managers as change intermediaries shape the initiative according to their interpretations and thus pursue it with different activities. Moreover, our findings suggest that middle managers might encounter various obstacles, causing effects that may influence not only the present but also future change initiatives in their realization. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9021169
- author
- Neveling, Ricarda LU and Martini, Juliana LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- BUSN49 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Organizational Change, Sensemaking, Sensegiving, Middle Manager
- language
- English
- id
- 9021169
- date added to LUP
- 2020-06-25 11:38:53
- date last changed
- 2020-06-25 11:38:53
@misc{9021169,
abstract = {{Purpose: The main purpose of our study is to gain a deeper understanding of middle managers' sensemaking in organizational change initiatives. This involves the exploration of how middle managers interpret their role in the course of the initiative and act accordingly. Beyond that, we aim to discover how top management can influence middle managers' sensemaking, but also which other factors might support or obstruct middle managers in fulfilling their role.
Theoretical Perspective: In our study, we follow a micro-oriented process perspective on organizational change. Therefore, we build on Weick's central concept of sensemaking and its theoretical extensions, such as sensegiving. Furthermore, a model of Balogun provides an essential basis for our understanding of middle managers' sensemaking, which we can expand with the help of our own empirical findings.
Conclusion: Our findings reveal that middle managers' sensemaking decisively determines organizational change. Although top management can provide a direction, middle managers as change intermediaries shape the initiative according to their interpretations and thus pursue it with different activities. Moreover, our findings suggest that middle managers might encounter various obstacles, causing effects that may influence not only the present but also future change initiatives in their realization.}},
author = {{Neveling, Ricarda and Martini, Juliana}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Keep the Flame Alive! The Role of Middle Managers' Sensemaking in Organizational Change}},
year = {{2020}},
}