Managers and organizational stakeholders are confronted by a range of stimuli, emotions, events, data, paradoxes and ambiguities in endeavouring to understand and make sense of change and the performance of their organizations. However, there is virtually no literature available on sensemaking within organizational performance. Historically sensemaking literature has focused on unusual events, disasters and high reliability settings but there is now a sizeable body addressing sensemaking in strategic organizational change. This literature has been systematically reviewed because of its proximity to organizational performance and in order to assess how sensemaking in organizational performance could be in investigated. Sensemaking in individuals is triggered by the unusual and confounding and is concerned with how people construct meaning from this. While sensegiving is about the role played by leaders, or stakeholders, in generating, articulating and “selling” a construction or interpretation of events emerging from their own sensemaking process. “Mindfulness” can be thought of as how sensemaking is realised and is about responding rather than reacting while using information, attentiveness and clues to make sense of what is happening. The sensemaking studies reviewed are dominated by work with middle managers who are seen by the authors as key organizational change agents. Organizational actors come to sensemaking through mental maps, or schemata that can be re-configured through the sensemaking process often as a way of addressing paradox or equivocation. The view of sensemaking as inter-subjective, discursive and narrative dominates giving scope to managers to facilitate the process. Sensegiving and sensemaking intertwine dialectically in a process which sees sensemaking informing sensegiving and vice versa. There is insufficient information on mindfulness and change to be able to assess it. In conclusion there are sufficient similarities between the processes of organizational change and organizational performance management to warrant its investigation from an inter-subjective, discursive and narrative sensemaking perspective.

La responsabilité sociale des entreprises (RSE) fait l’objet d’un intérêt croissant au sein de la recherche en management des organisations sportives. Il apparaît de plus en plus évident qu’elle y revêt des caractéristiques spécifiques faisant écho aux nombreuses particularités déjà soulignées du secteur sportif. Cette thèse aborde plus précisément la responsabilité sociale dans le cadre des évènements sportifs. Celle-ci semble être influencée, à l’instar de celle d’autres organisations sportives (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009), par deux ensembles de déterminants, les premiers renvoyant aux « ressources internes uniques » dont ils disposent, les seconds aux « fortes pressions externes » dont ils font l’objet. Ce travail envisage donc la responsabilité sociale des évènements sportifs comme une « boîte noire » qu’il s’agit d’ouvrir pour comprendre comment chaque acteur lui donne du sens. Dans cette perspective, il vise deux objectifs : (1) analyser, à travers un modèle de sensemaking stratégique ou prospectif (Thomas, Clark & Gioia, 1993; Selsky & Parker, 2010), les processus de construction de sens de deux parties prenantes principales des évènements sportifs ; (2) rendre compte, en nous appuyant sur les concepts du sensegiving (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991 ; Maitlis, 2005), de la manière dont ces différents acteurs influencent la construction de sens collective qui aboutit à la stratégie de responsabilité sociale d’un évènement sportif. Ce travail s’articule autour de trois études. Les deux premières sont constituées d’entretiens semi-directifs (personnes-ressources) auprès d’entreprises sponsors (N=23) et de collectivités locales (N=23). La troisième est composée de quatre études de cas combinant des entretiens semi-directifs auprès des organisateurs et des principales parties prenantes concernées (N=27), d’observations sur site ainsi que d’une analyse documentaire. Les résultats permettent d’identifier, pour chaque catégorie d’acteur, plusieurs niveaux d’ambigüité qui balisent le processus de sensemaking. Pour les entreprises sponsors, il s’agit de leurs perceptions (positives ou négatives) du degré de proximité de l’évènement (ou des différentes entités sportives dont ils sont partenaires) vis-à-vis de la responsabilité sociale, des liens perçus entre la responsabilité sociale de l’évènement et leur propre RSE, du focus de leurs initiatives responsables (liées à la responsabilité sociale de l’évènement, à celle d’une entité sportive particulière ou à la leur) ainsi que des liens entre les objectifs spécifiques des initiatives responsables et leur stratégie globale sur l’évènement. Pour les collectivités locales, il s’agit de leurs perceptions (positives ou négatives) des impacts de l’évènement, de la contrôlabilité perçue de ces impacts ainsi que du lien entre leur politique évènementielle, leur politique sportive globale (en particulier ses aspects sociaux) et leur politique environnementale. Pour chacun de ces acteurs, la combinaison de ces niveaux d’ambigüité aboutit à une pluralité de stratégies et d’actions de responsabilité sociale. Les études de cas montrent quant à elles que les évènements sportifs étudiés prennent place au sein d’un continuum allant d’un sensemaking contraint à un sensemaking non-contraint en fonction de l’origine et de la force du sensegiving. Le sensemaking contraint résulte d’une situation où les organisateurs se conforment au sens que leurs parties prenantes donnent à la responsabilité sociale de l’évènement. Il semble associé à une légitimité de type morale, à un faible degré stratégique de la responsabilité sociale du point de vue de l’organisateur ainsi qu’à une praxis de type « réduction des effets négatifs ». Le sensemaking non-contraint résulte d’une situation où les organisateurs contrôlent le processus de sensegiving. Il semble lié à une légitimité de type pragmatique ou cognitive, à un degré stratégique plus élevé et à une praxis de type « propagation d’effets positifs ». / Since the early 2000’s, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained a growing interest in the sport management literature. It seems clear that CSR takes very particular forms in this field. This doctoral research more specifically deals with sporting events. Sporting events appear to be influenced, like other sport organizations, by two sets of determinants (Babiak & Wolfe, 2009), namely “unique internal resources” and “strong external pressures”. This work views sporting event’s social responsibility as a “black box” which the researcher has to open in order to understand how the different stakeholders make sense of it. It therefore aims two objectives: (1) to analyze the strategic sensemaking process (Thomas, Clark & Gioia, 1993; Selsky & Parker, 2010) of two main sporting events’ stakeholders – corporate sponsors and local governments; (2) to account on how the various stakeholders influence the collective sensegiving process (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Maitlis, 2005) resulting in social responsibility actions. This research is structured around three studies. The first-two are based on semi-structured interviews with corporate sponsors (N=23) and local governments (N=23). The third is composed of four case studies combining semi-structured interviews with sporting events organizers and their main stakeholders (N=27), on-site observation and document analysis. The results identify several levels of ambiguity which mark the sensemaking processes of both stakeholder categories. Concerning corporate sponsors, these levels include positive and negative perceptions about the link between sporting events and social responsibility, perceived links between sporting events’ social responsibility and their own CSR, perceived focus of social responsibility actions as well as perceived links bewtween these actions and their strategic objectives on the event. Concerning local governments, these levels include positive and negative perceptions about sporting events’ social impacts, perceived controllability of these impacts and perceived links between sporting events, the social aspects of global sport policies as well as environmental policies. For each of these actors, combinations of the various levels of ambiguity lead to the development of social responsibility strategies during the events. Case studies show that sporting events can be placed on a continuum between “constained” and “not-constrained” sensemaking depending on the origin and intensity of sensegiving activities. Constained sensemaking occurs when organizers conform to the sense imposed by stakeholders. It seems to be associated with moral legitimacy, a low strategic level and a “do no harm” praxis. Not-constrained sensemaking occurs when organizers keep the control of the sensemaking process. It seems to be associated with pragmatic and cognitive legitimacy, a strong strategic level and a “do good” praxis.

Syfte: Tidigare forskning har konstaterat att det finns svårigheter att verkställa organisationens styrning. Vår studie belyser de bakomliggande processerna i hur mellanchefer förmedlar och skapar förståelse för organisationens styrning. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur mellanchefer genom meningsskapande aktiviteter konstruerar förståelse bland medarbetarna för organisationens styrning. Metod: Studien utgår från ontologisk konstruktionism och har en hermeneutisk kunskapssyn. Kvalitativ metod har använts och datainsamlingen har skett genom tio semistrukturerade intervjuer med mellanchefer i varierande branscher. Studien har ett induktivt synsätt i förhållande mellan teori och forskning och grundas i de två huvudsakliga teoretiska dimensionerna konversera och konceptualisera. Resultat & slutsats: Vi har identifierat sex teman vilka ger en bild av hur mellancheferna konstruerar förståelse bland medarbetarna. Temana identifierade under dimensionen konversera är:  kontextskapare, verksamhetens nav och ständigt pågående interaktioner. Temana under dimensionen konceptualisera är: systematisk uppföljning, gemensam riktning och framtidsblickande. Slutsatsen är att mellancheferna genom dessa teman utövar meningsskapande aktiviteter vilka har till syfte att konstruera förståelse bland medarbetarna för organisationens styrning. Examensarbetets bidrag: Vår studie har kartlagt de bakomliggande processerna i hur mellanchefer förmedlar och skapar förståelse för organisationens styrning. Studien har bidragit till en djupare inblick i mellanchefens vitala arbete som förståelse- och meningsskapare inom organisationen. Vi ger både bidrag till de teoretiska ämnena verksamhetsstyrning och sensemakingteorin. Studien bidrar även till de praktiskt utövande mellancheferna i den mening att de kan ta tillvara på slutsatserna och applicera i sin vardag. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Vi ser med fördel att vidare forskning utifrån våra resultat fokuserar på att undersöka skillnader i meningsskapande i förhållande till vilken nivå inom ledningssystemet som mellanchefen verkar. En ytterligare potentiell aspekt att forska vidare på är att undersöka hur effektiva metoderna som belysts i denna studie fungerar.

Denna studie undersöker hur samförstånd skapas genom kommunikation i en organisationsförändring. Detta är intressant då tidigare studier visat på att kommunikation är en avgörande faktor för att en organisationsförändring ska bli lyckad. Det är också intressant då forskning kring den interna kommunikationen vid organisationsförändringar är sparsam. Speciellt då vi även valt att se kommunikationen utifrån en mottagares perspektiv, ett område som var särskilt outforskat. Vi har hämtat vårt empiriska material från en organisation som stod inför en organisationsförändring. Denna förändring grundade sig i två underliggande problem; organisationen behövde omstruktureras för att kunna växa, organisationen ville bli oberoende av en annan organisation som varit en långvarig samarbetspartner.Syftet med studien var att ur ett kommunikationsperspektiv undersöka huruvida samförstånd skapas mellan ledningen och de anställda i en organisationsförändring. Det teoretiska ramverket bestod huvudsakligen av teorier om framing och dess tre ”Core framing tasks”, samt teorin om Sensegiving/Sensemaking. Studien beskriver hur ledningen i förberedelsefasen kommunicerade information om förändringen till de anställda. Dessutom undersöks personalens uppfattning av denna kommunikation. Studien bygger på intervjuer med ledningen och de anställda samt deltagande observationer av ett informationsmöte och ett nyhetsbrev. Resultatet av studien tydde på att ledningen har varit bristfällig i delar av sin kommunikation, men de anställda uppvisade trots detta en vilja att genomföra förändringen på grund av ett starkt förtroende för ledningen.

abstract: Municipal courtrooms are brimming with a variety of positive and negative emotions from defendants who are primarily encountering the criminal justice system for the first time. Municipal court judges and bailiffs must work together and find ways to communicate important information about courtroom processes to up to 70-120 defendants a day. This dissertation investigates how municipal court judges and bailiffs from two municipal courthouses respond to three organizational challenges associated with emotion--defendant confusion about courtroom processes, handling high caseloads while treating defendants as customers of the court, and managing the serious and tedious emotional moods of the courtroom environment. Using qualitative methods of observation and informal and formal interviews, this dissertation analyzes how emotion cycles between judges and bailiffs help give sense to and break sense of defendants while simultaneously helping them navigate the challenges of their work. Findings detail the nature of work in municipal court--explaining the challenges associated with emotion that judges and bailiffs face on a daily basis. The data also describes the emotional roles that judges and bailiffs employ in the courtroom. The judges' emotional roles include tension relievers, order enforcers, and care takers. Bailiffs' emotional roles comprise rule enforcers, toxin handlers, and do gooders. The heart of the analysis explores how judges and bailiffs give sense to defendants when unexpected situations manifest in the courtroom and break sense of defendants who hold incorrect or less favored beliefs about courtroom procedures. The emotional displays and responses of judges, bailiffs, primary defendants (defendants before the judge), and third party defendants (those watching in the audience) enable sensegiving and sensebreaking to occur. The emotion cycles allow courtroom staff to impact the sensemaking process of defendants in a fast and efficient manner. Theoretical implications include extensions of emotion cycle research through a consideration of the displays and responses of primary agents, intermediate agents, and primary recipients of emotional displays. Practical implications describe how specific training practices and space for employee discussion could enhance the workplace wellness of judges and bailiffs. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Communication 2012

Thesis advisor: Martin Scanlan / This qualitative case study of a medium-sized Massachusetts school district was part of a larger study exploring how educators throughout a school district make sense of and enact culturally responsive practice (CRP). This individual study focused on how school leaders and teachers incorporated their understanding of CRP into the supervision and evaluation process. Despite a growing body of literature on the effectiveness of educator evaluation standards on teacher practice, there is little on how these tools increase teachers’ capacity to support the learning of historically marginalized students. Specifically, this research asks two questions: (1) How do teachers and school leaders understand CRP? (2) How does the supervision and evaluation process contribute to a shared understanding of CRP for teachers and school leaders? Data were collected from 22 semi-structured interviews of school leaders and teachers, document review, and an online survey. Incorporating a cognitive framework for policy implementation, findings revealed that school leaders and teachers understand CRP through their own identities and life experiences and through their interpretation of the district’s professional environment. Findings further noted that the lack of a shared definition of CRP in the district contributed to inconsistent application and prioritization of CRP in the supervision and evaluation process. Without a shared understanding, educators often pivoted to other district initiatives to describe CRP. Implications include the need to establish a system of reflection and practice for educators to explore the beliefs they hold about historically marginalized students and how those beliefs inform practice. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Yes / As multinational enterprises (MNEs) increasingly disaggregate and disperse corporate headquarters (CHQ) activities, the allocation of regional management mandates (RMMs) to local operating subsidiaries is becoming more common. RMMs explicitly break with the traditional assumption of a clear separation between centralised and local decision-making. Yet we know little of how RMMs are enacted by the units involved, or how they evolve over time. Based on a case study of Unilever, we find that RMMs are inherently ambiguous, and identify circumstances under which ambiguity manifests and triggers cycles of sensemaking and sensegiving about the meaning of the mandate. These cycles result in the co-construction of the mandate by multiple units, with changes in RMM scope and governance over time. We also find that sensemaking and sensegiving are most intense among boundary-spanning middle managers. Our work challenges prevailing assumptions that mandates are largely unambiguous when assigned and are unilateral or dyadic accomplishments; demonstrates the importance of sub-unit level analysis in MNEs; and highlights the potential of structuration theory to enrich our understanding of sensemaking and sensegiving in organisations. / Funding from the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS)

<p>As a result of organizational restructuring, the role of the middle managers has changed over time. Studies of change processes have increasingly placed focus on middle managers. According to researchers, middle managers play a key role in implementing the change. When putting the change into practice, there are factors affecting the middle managers. However, further research is needed regarding what constrains and enables the middle manager in these change processes.</p><p>Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore the sensemaking and sensegiving process during organizational change, with focus on middle managers. To answer to the purpose, a theoretical model combining Balogun and Johnson’s (2005), Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) models and theories of middle management is developed. By using the model we analyze the centralization of the accounting departments at the Swedish energy company Vattenfall. This change process constitutes the case of this thesis.</p><p>The empirical findings are based on ten interviews and two group discussions with top management, middle managers, co-workers as well as other key actors in the project providing trustworthiness to our study. A qualitative method using an abductive approach is used in the thesis to explore the actors’ interpretation of the change and capture the complexity of the case.</p><p>The conclusion includes enablers and constraints during the sensemaking and sensegiving process for the middle managers during the centralization of Vattenfall’s accounting departments. The identified enablers are the communication channels, a middle manager’s awareness of employees’ approach of making sense, the provided tools used to adjust working processes, some Business Units’ initial negative attitude towards the change, as well as the rejuvenated spirit. Finally, the middle managers themselves enabled the change as a result of their unique role in the organization.</p><p>On the other hand, the recognized constraints in the sensemaking and sensegiving process of the middle managers are; concerns regarding middle managers’ future employment, their ‘stuck in the middle’ position, limited resources, new working processes not adopted by some co-workers, and positive attitudes that resulted to flaws in the planning at some Business Units.</p>

As a result of organizational restructuring, the role of the middle managers has changed over time. Studies of change processes have increasingly placed focus on middle managers. According to researchers, middle managers play a key role in implementing the change. When putting the change into practice, there are factors affecting the middle managers. However, further research is needed regarding what constrains and enables the middle manager in these change processes. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore the sensemaking and sensegiving process during organizational change, with focus on middle managers. To answer to the purpose, a theoretical model combining Balogun and Johnson’s (2005), Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) models and theories of middle management is developed. By using the model we analyze the centralization of the accounting departments at the Swedish energy company Vattenfall. This change process constitutes the case of this thesis. The empirical findings are based on ten interviews and two group discussions with top management, middle managers, co-workers as well as other key actors in the project providing trustworthiness to our study. A qualitative method using an abductive approach is used in the thesis to explore the actors’ interpretation of the change and capture the complexity of the case. The conclusion includes enablers and constraints during the sensemaking and sensegiving process for the middle managers during the centralization of Vattenfall’s accounting departments. The identified enablers are the communication channels, a middle manager’s awareness of employees’ approach of making sense, the provided tools used to adjust working processes, some Business Units’ initial negative attitude towards the change, as well as the rejuvenated spirit. Finally, the middle managers themselves enabled the change as a result of their unique role in the organization. On the other hand, the recognized constraints in the sensemaking and sensegiving process of the middle managers are; concerns regarding middle managers’ future employment, their ‘stuck in the middle’ position, limited resources, new working processes not adopted by some co-workers, and positive attitudes that resulted to flaws in the planning at some Business Units.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la construction de sens au travail, favorisant la poursuite, ou la reprise, de l’activité en cours dans les organisations (Weick, 1969-2009). Plus précisément, elle cherche à relier la perspective du Sensemaking à l’éthique. Elle s’appuie essentiellement sur l’analyse d’entretiens semi-structurés réalisés auprès de trois équipes d’un CHU. Après avoir constaté la quasi-absence de travaux prenant en compte la dimension éthique du Sensemaking (Maitlis et Christianson, 2014), elle s’est intéressée aux philosophies éthiques permettant de rendre compte des comportements organisationnels décrits lors des entretiens et de conceptualiser les données empiriques. Sur le plan théorique, le principal apport de cette thèse est d’incarner le Sensemaking en montrant la dimension éthique de ce processus à chacune de ses étapes clefs : situations empreintes d’enjeux éthiques interrompant ou entravant l’action ; mobilisation de ressources éthiques (sélection d’histoires en lien avec la vulnérabilité, compétences éthiques, production d’un récit éthique). Secondairement, elle prend en compte des aspects peu développés dans les travaux sur le Sensemaking : le rôle des émotions, la structuration de l’espace social, le rôle des acteurs de terrain dans les processus de sensegiving (création et transmission de sens). Sur le plan managérial, elle incite le leader à favoriser le Sensemaking, en général, et la narration éthique dans ce processus, en particulier, afin de prévenir et de gérer les crises. Elle l’invite à faire appel à la capacité réflexive des acteurs de terrain et à favoriser un climat éthique dans les organisations. / This thesis deals with the construction of meaning in the workplace, favoring the continuation, or the resumption, of the ongoing activity within organizations (Weick, 1969-2009). More specifically, it seeks to link the perspective of sensemaking to ethics. It is mainly based on the analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with three hospital teams. After discussing the near-absence of analyses of the ethical dimension of sensemaking (Maitlis and Christianson, 2014), we focused on ethical philosophies in order to account for the organizational behaviors described during the interviews and to conceptualize the empirical data. On the theoretical level, the main contribution of this thesis is to embody Sensemaking demonstraing the ethical dimension of this process at each of its key stages: situations involving ethical issues, interrupting or hindering action; mobilization of ethical resources (selection of stories related to vulnerability, mobilization of ethical competencies, production of an ethical narrative), in order to reconstruct meaning. Second, it takes into account the less developed aspects in sensemaking’s research: the role of emotions, structuring of social space, the role of actors involved individuals in sensegiving (creating and assignment of meaning). On the managerial level, this dissertation encourages leaders to promote Sensemaking in general, and the ethical narration in this process; in particular, in order to prevent and manage crises. It invites them to use the reflective capacity of involved individuals and to encourage an ethical climate.