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No Clear Maps: How Managers Navigate the Fog of Disruption

Ardö, Erik LU and Yildiz, Burak LU (2025) MGTN59 20251
Department of Business Administration
Abstract (Swedish)
In a VUCA world, characterized by complex, unpredictable, ambiguous and rapidly changing
conditions, organizations and their managers are constantly faced with interpreting and
responding to disruption. While research has investigated how disruption can be navigated,
the perspective of how individual managers more concretely navigate disruption remains
comparatively underexplored. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how
managers make sense of and respond to disruption, and identify facilitating and limiting
factors and conditions of these processes. Sensemaking and strategic thinking were chosen as
the conceptual lenses to support interpretation and analysis of the empirical findings. A
qualitative approach... (More)
In a VUCA world, characterized by complex, unpredictable, ambiguous and rapidly changing
conditions, organizations and their managers are constantly faced with interpreting and
responding to disruption. While research has investigated how disruption can be navigated,
the perspective of how individual managers more concretely navigate disruption remains
comparatively underexplored. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how
managers make sense of and respond to disruption, and identify facilitating and limiting
factors and conditions of these processes. Sensemaking and strategic thinking were chosen as
the conceptual lenses to support interpretation and analysis of the empirical findings. A
qualitative approach was adopted, utilizing semi-structured interview design with six
managers operating in roles with involvement in strategic decision making. Purposive
sampling was used to recruit interviewee respondents.
The empirical data show managerial sensemaking and response to disruption heavily relies on
communication, a combination of experimentative action-focus, analysis and future-oriented
thinking. Managers were found to actively pause and step back when faced with disruption
and utilize task themselves question to make sense of disruption and enable response. Both
individual factors and team and organizational condition were identified as facilitating and
limiting factors. Conclusively, the study’s empirical data align with ideas from both
sensemaking and strategic thinking literature and suggest a closely intertwined and
overlapping relationship. The findings of the study raises question regarding whether these
concepts of sensemaking and strategic, in the context of managerial navigation of disruption,
can be considered to be separate. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Ardö, Erik LU and Yildiz, Burak LU
supervisor
organization
alternative title
An Interview Study of How Managers Make Sense of and Respond to Disruption
course
MGTN59 20251
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
VUCA, Disruption, Managers, Sensemaking, Strategic Thinking
language
English
id
9207580
date added to LUP
2025-07-02 15:11:46
date last changed
2025-07-02 15:11:46
@misc{9207580,
  abstract     = {{In a VUCA world, characterized by complex, unpredictable, ambiguous and rapidly changing 
conditions, organizations and their managers are constantly faced with interpreting and 
responding to disruption. While research has investigated how disruption can be navigated, 
the perspective of how individual managers more concretely navigate disruption remains 
comparatively underexplored. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how 
managers make sense of and respond to disruption, and identify facilitating and limiting 
factors and conditions of these processes. Sensemaking and strategic thinking were chosen as 
the conceptual lenses to support interpretation and analysis of the empirical findings. A 
qualitative approach was adopted, utilizing semi-structured interview design with six 
managers operating in roles with involvement in strategic decision making. Purposive 
sampling was used to recruit interviewee respondents. 
The empirical data show managerial sensemaking and response to disruption heavily relies on 
communication, a combination of experimentative action-focus, analysis and future-oriented 
thinking. Managers were found to actively pause and step back when faced with disruption 
and utilize task themselves question to make sense of disruption and enable response. Both 
individual factors and team and organizational condition were identified as facilitating and 
limiting factors. Conclusively, the study’s empirical data align with ideas from both 
sensemaking and strategic thinking literature and suggest a closely intertwined and 
overlapping relationship. The findings of the study raises question regarding whether these 
concepts of sensemaking and strategic, in the context of managerial navigation of disruption, 
can be considered to be separate.}},
  author       = {{Ardö, Erik and Yildiz, Burak}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{No Clear Maps: How Managers Navigate the Fog of Disruption}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}