Let's get virtual: Sensemaking of employee engagement practices in a remote work environment
(2022) BUSN49 20221Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- The purpose of this study is to understand how employees make sense of employee engagement activities in a remote work environment. Since the sudden shift to remote work represents a disruption of routine in the employees’ working life, we draw on Weick’s (1995) sensemaking theory to gain the best possible insight into the employees’ interpretation of remote engagement activities. Based on the tradition of interpretivism and following an inductive research approach, qualitative research has been conducted in the form of 12 semi-structured interviews. To ensure a fundamental basis for this research purpose, the study has been conducted in cooperation with a case company, a knowledge-intensive firm that was primarily affected by the shift to... (More)
- The purpose of this study is to understand how employees make sense of employee engagement activities in a remote work environment. Since the sudden shift to remote work represents a disruption of routine in the employees’ working life, we draw on Weick’s (1995) sensemaking theory to gain the best possible insight into the employees’ interpretation of remote engagement activities. Based on the tradition of interpretivism and following an inductive research approach, qualitative research has been conducted in the form of 12 semi-structured interviews. To ensure a fundamental basis for this research purpose, the study has been conducted in cooperation with a case company, a knowledge-intensive firm that was primarily affected by the shift to remote work. The results show that employees share a common understanding regarding the fundamental necessity of engagement measures, but this does not automatically result in higher levels of engagement. Instead, employees refer strongly to their personality when as- sessing employee engagement activities in a remote work environment. While striving for self-fulfilment, the employees show different needs regarding the intensity of engagement activities. Hence, based on their personality and the intensity of the engagement activities initiated by management, employees either show forms of belief-driven or action-driven sensemaking. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9087963
- author
- Fichtinger, Pia-Luise LU and Averbeck, Alina Marie LU
- supervisor
-
- Tony Huzzard LU
- organization
- course
- BUSN49 20221
- year
- 2022
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Employee Engagement, Sensemaking, Remote Work
- language
- English
- id
- 9087963
- date added to LUP
- 2022-06-21 09:19:37
- date last changed
- 2022-06-21 09:19:37
@misc{9087963,
abstract = {{The purpose of this study is to understand how employees make sense of employee engagement activities in a remote work environment. Since the sudden shift to remote work represents a disruption of routine in the employees’ working life, we draw on Weick’s (1995) sensemaking theory to gain the best possible insight into the employees’ interpretation of remote engagement activities. Based on the tradition of interpretivism and following an inductive research approach, qualitative research has been conducted in the form of 12 semi-structured interviews. To ensure a fundamental basis for this research purpose, the study has been conducted in cooperation with a case company, a knowledge-intensive firm that was primarily affected by the shift to remote work. The results show that employees share a common understanding regarding the fundamental necessity of engagement measures, but this does not automatically result in higher levels of engagement. Instead, employees refer strongly to their personality when as- sessing employee engagement activities in a remote work environment. While striving for self-fulfilment, the employees show different needs regarding the intensity of engagement activities. Hence, based on their personality and the intensity of the engagement activities initiated by management, employees either show forms of belief-driven or action-driven sensemaking.}},
author = {{Fichtinger, Pia-Luise and Averbeck, Alina Marie}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Let's get virtual: Sensemaking of employee engagement practices in a remote work environment}},
year = {{2022}},
}