Thesis advisor: Martin Scanlan / This qualitative single-site case study examined how district administrators in one racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse Massachusetts school district supported and strengthened principals’ culturally responsive leadership practice. Building coherent culture and structures that provide space to critically self-reflect and collaboratively learn are essential. Data collection included interviews with district administrators and principals, observations of leadership meetings, document review, and a survey. Findings revealed district administrators established collaborative relationships with principals by employing a coherent service-oriented approach. Participants perceived the intentionality of the superintendent’s efforts as foundational to building trust, however prior experiences with district leadership impeded these efforts. The superintendent controlled sensemaking to signal equity as a district priority, yet the lack of a shared understanding of culturally responsive practice led participants to conflate culturally responsive practice with other district endorsed equity practices. Attempts were made to align structures and tools to equity priorities, however culturally responsive practices were subsumed within other equity initiatives creating variance in the perception of the effectiveness of how structures and tools support principals’ culturally responsive leadership practice. Implications include developing a district definition of culturally responsive practice and using equity practices as a scaffold to support principals’ understanding and enactment of culturally responsive practices that bring critical self-reflection and conversations about racial and cultural bias to the forefront. Future research may extend this study to analyze sensegiving interactions and examine the impact of these interactions on principals’ culturally responsive leadership practice / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Martin Scanlan / While the U.S. student body is increasingly racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse, the teaching population itself, however, does not mirror this same diversity. As such, there is an urgent need for teachers who can adequately meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population (Sleeter, 2001). Some teachers are undeniably more successful at the task of educating diverse student populations than others. How then - are these teachers in particular - successfully able to effectively teach students across various lines of difference? The purpose of this qualitative individual study is to explore teachers’ views on how they have developed their cultural proficiency. How do teachers who have been identified by school leaders as particularly effective at teaching diverse student populations develop their culturally responsive practice, and more pointedly - their capacity to effectively teach students from historically marginalized groups (i.e. students from racially minoritized groups or socio-economically disadvantaged groups)? Utilizing a sense-making framework, and gathering information using methods including semi-structured interviews, teacher questionnaires, and reflective journaling, this study uncovers emergent themes and trends in how individual teachers within a diverse Massachusetts school district make sense of the process by which they developed their culturally responsive teaching capacities and practice. If educational leaders form a better understanding of how teachers effectively develop their cultural competencies, then principals and district leaders will be able to use this information to more effectively design professional development programs that sustain teachers’ cultural proficiency and better equip them to successfully serve the increasingly diverse student population. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Martin Scanlan / Culturally responsive practice (CRP) by educators is an essential tool to serve increasingly diverse public-school populations. This study examines the sensemaking and sensegiving that district central office administrators undertake regarding what it means for educators to be culturally responsive practitioners. This dissertation used a case study of a mid-sized urban district which has not yet undertaken systematic effort on CRP to explore three research questions: (1) How do district administrators understand what it means for educators to be culturally responsive practitioners? (2) How do district administrators seek to influence the cultural responsiveness of educators? (3) What does evidence suggest about the efficacy of these efforts to influence the cultural responsiveness of educators? Data included interviews with seven district administrators and nineteen teachers, a survey of 33 educators in the district, and a review of internal district documents. Findings included that administrators had limited understanding of CRP, though they believe it to be important. They connected CRP to methodologies and practices in which they were more fluent. Sensegiving by district administrators was more effective at conveying the importance of CRP than its meaning or how to implement it. Absent a shared definition of CRP, but with heavy signaling of its importance, educators developed varying conceptions through their sensemaking. This case study suggests several implications for research, policy, and practice, including for the study of sensemaking in multi-layered organizations grappling with multiple changes and for implementation by school districts of CRP, as well as barriers to such implementation. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Background: Succession is not only a significant moment but also a major challenge for a family business’s life. The new CEO’s performances can play a critical role in the post-succession process, which consists of a series of strategic changes. Although the new CEO and various stakeholders can influence the post-succession process to different extents, previous literature has shown a lack of focus on the interactions between the new CEO and multiple other stakeholders in the post-succession process. To understand both the context filled with organizational changes and the interactions between individuals, the lens of sensemaking can be applied for the research.  Purpose: This study attempts to explore the perspectives of the new CEO and multiple other stakeholders regarding the strategic changes happening in the post-succession process in a family business through the lens of sensemaking.  Methodology: This thesis is based on a case study. Data was collected from previous literature, semi-structured interviews with 10 interviewees and public information. NVivo and manual coding were applied in data analysis.  Findings: The sensemaking map as the main finding shows that strategic changes in the case include two stages, the formulation stage and the implementation stage. Sensehiding conducted by the new CEO at the beginning of implementation classifies strategic changes into covert and overt type. The new CEO was the only one actively involved in the formulation stage. The managers and grassroot employees performed actively in the implementation stage instead, where the new CEO was rarely involved. The findings also analyzed the new CEO’s characteristics to illustrate the formulation of strategic changes centered on the new CEO.

It has become the norm for organisations in many industrial sectors to constantly operate in dynamic, uncertain and challenging business environments. Technology, regulations, global economy, changing political actions and international conditions are all changing rapidly, creating dynamic business conditions for organisations to understand, react to and thus survive. The Oil and Gas (O&G) sector which is the backbone of the economic growth for many countries in the Middle East region is not an exception to the real world of business filled with uncertainties. The construction of meaning or sensemaking is a prerequisite management skill for complex problem solving and decision-making for survival in today’s increasingly dynamic business environments. Current literature on sensemaking tends to focus on senior management’s role in the process, overlooking the critical role middle management teams play in the construction of meaning. Further, although sensemaking literature illustrates the influence of sensegiving and sensebreaking on sensemaking, there is limited empirical research in existing literature on how middle management teams apply sensegiving and sensebreaking to influence the process. Finally, this research fills a gap in sensemaking research in developing countries to decolonise Western-based research and ensure that local culture and ideologies are taken into account. In particular, it provides important data for the O&G sector in Bahrain, which is important for the Middle East region. Therefore, this research investigates how middle management teams use sensemaking to understand complex problems and how they apply sensegiving and sensebreaking to influence the sensemaking process in Bahrain’s O&G sector. The data was gathered using a qualitative approach using in-depth semi-structured interviews, middle management team meeting observations and operational documents review. The findings include seven themes and 26 sub-themes are visualised in a four-step sensemaking process framework. This framework also illustrates the sensemaking triggers and properties, as well as the influences and sources of information middle management teams adopt to construct meaning in dynamic O&G environments. Further, the four-step sensemaking process framework incorporates the different sensegiving and sensebreaking techniques embraced. This research extends the existing sensemaking literature by providing a descriptive empirical framework to better understand middle management team sensemaking, sensegiving and sensebreaking in dynamic O&G environments. This four-step sensemaking process framework gives middle management teams a way to organise information related to events in an objective manner, enabling them to develop effective reactions to a fast-changing environment. The framework also offers human resource practitioners a platform to assess and develop middle management sensemaking skills.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka medarbetares upplevelser av arbetsrelaterad stress inom en organisation i byggbranschen. Studien utförs genom att studera åtta medarbetare inom en organisation som tillhör byggbranschen. Denna studie baseras på en kvalitativ intervjustudie där materialet samlas in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Därefter tillämpas en tematisk analys som utgör en grund för analysmetoden. Resultaten baseras på respondenternas svar tillsammans med en tillämpning av teorierna, krav-, kontroll- och stödmodellen samt meningsskapande och meningsgivande. Dessa visar att den upplevda stressen inom organisationen är hög och kan tolkas som ett resultat av höga krav och låg kontroll. Det visar även att organisationens strategier kan utvecklas genom planering av bygget i projekteringsstadiet, ökad personalsstyrka, främjande av öppen dialog om stress, reflektion efter stressmoment och utbildning i stresshantering samt en mer anpassad återgång till arbetet efter stressrelaterad sjukdomsfrånvaro. Slutsatserna resulterade i en utläsning av stressymptom hos deltagarna inom organisationen med referens till krav-, kontroll- och stödmodellen. Vidare kunde bristande kunskaper om strategier för stress tolkas. Slutligen konstaterades potential till utveckling av strategierna ur ett medarbetarperspektiv samt i förhållande till meningsskapande och meningsgivande.

Studien syftar till att utforska hur erfarenheter skapas under upprättandet av ett nytt regemente och hur de påverkar projektet.Studien är kvalitativ och induktiv där empirin inhämtats genom intervjuer och observationer. Studien fokuserar på tillkomsten av Bergslagens Artilleriregemente, A 9, men studier har även skett av Gotlands Regemente och Skaraborgs Regemente för att skapa en förståelse för det historiska arv som A 9 verkar i. Sprunget ur organisationsteori har meningsskapande, i studien benämnt som sensemaking, utvecklats som ett perspektiv för att förstå och navigera i komplexa system. Sensemaking är en process där individer och grupper söker, använder och tolkar information för att skapa en förståelse av sin omgivning och de situationer de befinner sig i. Sensemaking innebär att individen integrerar sina egna erfarenheter, satt i aktuell kontext och tolkar därigenom informationen. Detta gör det möjligt för organisationer att skapa mening av komplexa situationer och att fatta mer underbyggda beslut. Dessa beslut förankras sedan genom att individer försöker påverka andra att anta en gemensam tolkning av situationens mening, i studien benämnt som sensegiving. Resultatet av insamlade data visar att etableringen av Bergslagens artilleriregemente både innehåller utmaningar och problem men också framåtanda, problemlösande och en stark inneboende vilja att lösa uppgiften på ett förstklassigt sätt. Den innehåller också något djupare, något som är lite mer abstrakt. Under intervjuerna har vi upplevt att när vi ställer frågor om erfarenhetshantering, som i sig är ett relativt byråkratiskt och processinriktat frågeområde, så handlar svaren allt som ofta om det som upplevs svårt eller som inte fått möjlighet att processas i individens reflektioner eller tillsammans i gruppen på ett bra sätt. Många händelser som redan ägt rum har inte är blivit omhändertagna då reflektioner kring dessa händelser inte varit tillräckligt eller uteblivit. När data och upplevelser som vi fått under intervjuerna läggs samman såg vi ett mönster där erfarenhetshanteringen som vi kan se framgå av empirin i första hand inte är formbar i skrift eller ord utan istället som en pågående process i de individer och grupper som vi studerat. Studiens övergripande slutsatser är att för att sensemaking som koncept ska vara applicerbart i en organisation som Försvarsmakten så behövs en gemensam målbild och identitet skapas, utrymme för att reflektera retrospektivt över händelser i verksamheten, mandat som stärks och delegeras till rätt nivå, en flexibel syn på lednings- och arbetsmetoder och en förståelse för att nätverk mellan människor är den motor som driver sensemaking i organisationen. / The purpose of this study is to explore how experiences are formed during the establishment of a new regiment and how they impact the project. The study is a qualitative, inductive study where data was collected through interviews and observations. The study focuses on the creation of the Bergslagen Artillery Regiment, A 9, but studies have also been conducted on the Gotland Regiment and the Skaraborg Regiment to create an understanding of the historical legacy in which A 9 operates. Derived from organizational theory, sensemaking has developed as a perspective for understanding and navigating complex systems. Sensemaking is a process where individuals and groups seek, use and interpret information to create an understanding of their surroundings and the situations they are in. Sensemaking involves the individual integrating their own experiences, placed in the current context and thereby interpreting the information. This enables organizations to make sense of complex situations and make more informed decisions. These decisions are then anchored by individuals trying to influence others to adopt a common interpretation of the meaning of the situation, in the study referred to as sensegiving. The results of the collected data show that the establishment of the Bergslagen Artillery Regiment contains both challenges and problems but also forward momentum, problem-solving, and a strong inherent desire to solve the task in a first-class manner. It also contains something deeper, something that is a little more abstract. During the interviews, we have experienced that when we ask questions about lessons learned, which in itself is a relatively bureaucratic and process-oriented area of questioning, the answers often focus on what is perceived as difficult or what has not been given the opportunity to be processed in the individual's reflections or in the group in a good way. Many events that have already taken place have not been taken care of because reflections on these events have not been sufficient or have been lacking. When the data and experiences we have obtained during the interviews are combined, we see a pattern where lessons learned, as we can see from the empirical data, is primarily not formable in writing or words, but instead as an ongoing process in the individuals and groups we have studied. The overall conclusions of the study are that in order for sensemaking as a concept to be applicable in an organization like the Swedish Armed Forces, there is a need to create a shared vision and identity, space for retrospective reflection on operational events, strengthened and delegated mandates at the appropriate level, a flexible approach to leadership and work methods, and an understanding that networks among individuals are the engine that drives sensemaking in the organization.

In recent years, institutional theorists have been increasingly interested in institutional change, seeking to understand the contextual factors and agents responsible for alterations to existing institutional arrangements. Institutional theory’s historical focus on isomorphism has made it challenging to account for actors’ motivations to pursue change projects. It is generally believed, though, that agents are mobilized through exposure to multiple institutional logics. Recently, scholars have begun to recognize that competition among multiple logics may not quickly produce a ‘winning logic’; rather, such logics may co-exist for prolonged periods in a context of ‘institutional complexity’. The turn toward institutional complexity reveals that preoccupation with the ‘paradox of embedded agency’ has left the development of change projects themselves under-theorized: What happens when organizational actors must interpret puzzling institutional contexts and generate alternatives? In seeking to understand organizational actors’ efforts to cope with conflicting logics in a context of scientific uncertainty, this study aligns with this growing interest in institutional complexity. Drawing on concepts from sensemaking theory, this research illuminates how actors with divergent interests, enacting their organizational roles, cope with competing logics and interact around a change project that emerges as a result of their efforts at coping. It thus contributes to institutionalist understandings of institutional complexity and change and adds to an emerging body of research linking institutional theory and sensemaking. The empirical setting for this single-case study is the ‘sustainable seafood’ discourse that began in the early 1990s when the cod collapsed off North America’s eastern seaboard. Prolonged scientific uncertainty regarding the collapse made generation of preferred alternatives problematic; this resulted in lengthy sensemaking efforts by multiple stakeholder groups, drawing on different institutional logics to produce divergent and competing interpretations and action scripts. Tracing the evolution of this discourse through documents, observations, and interviews empirically reveals processes of interrelated sensemaking, and further, exposes sensegivers as bricoleurs who use institutional elements creatively to affect the sensemaking of others.

Studien har undersökt hur ett förändringsarbete i en organisation förmedlats och tagits emot genom de hierarkiska nivåerna. Frågeställningarna har därför undersökt hur ledning förmedlat och motiverat ett förändringsinitiativ, hur mellanchefer tolkat detta och förmedlat det vidare till medarbetare och slutligen vilken form av meningsskapande och lärande som skett hos medarbetare. Tidigare forskning har bland annat visat att kommunikationen mellan över- och underordnad haft en stark koppling till hur en förändring tagits emot. Medarbetares meningsskapande har även haft en tydlig koppling till deras relation till organisationen och sina chefer där medarbetare bör känna en trygghet för att kunna ställa sig positiva till en förändring. Det forskningen inte visat är hur dessa meningsskapande processer praktiskt sker i de hierarkiska nivåerna samt hur dessa kan ses i relation till andra typer av organisationer i olika branscher. Metoden som har använts för att belysa dessa luckor är kvalitativa intervjuer då detta gett en bredare och djupare bild av medlemmarnas upplevelser kring förändring. Studiens resultat har visat att ledning måste skapa sig en tydlig bild av organisationens tillstånd samt ge utrymme för bland annat mellanchefer att anta en meningsgivande roll och därmed främja ett lärande med utgångspunkt i reflektion för att förändringen ska få ett lyckat utfall. Studien har även synliggjort hur en tydlig kommunikation är avgörande för att kunna skapa en samsyn och främja ett lärande kring förändring genom organisationers olika nivåer. Studiens främsta bidrag till forskningsfältet har varit att framhäva samtliga nivåers roll i det meningsgivande arbete som krävs för att nå en lyckad förändring. / The study has examined how change management is carried out and received through various hierarchical levels in an organization. The questions of this study has therefore examined how topmanagement communicated and motivated a change initiative, how the middle managers interpreted this and communicated it to the employees and finally what form of sensegiving and learning has taken place among the employees. Previous research has partially focused on how communication between the superior and subordinate has had a strong connection to how a change is received. The employees’ sensemaking has also had a clear connection to their relationship with the organization and its managers, where employees should feel a safe connection to the organization in order to experience the change in a positive way. What is less clear in earlier research is how these processes practically take place across hierarchical levels and how these can be seen in relation to other types of organizations in different industries. To contribute to this research field, the method used in this study is qualitative interviews as this method gives a broader and deeper picture of the organizational members’ experiences about change. The study's results have shown that the management must create a clear picture of the organization's conditions and that they give room for the middle managers to adopt a meaningful role, thus promoting learning based on reflection. The study has also highlighted how clear communication is crucial in order to create a consensus through the levels and to be able to promote learning within the change. The main contribution of this study to the field of research has been to highlight the importance of the role of different levels within an organization in sensegiving work, which is required to achieve successful change.

La thèse intitulée dans sa version originale ‘Strengthening weak organizations’ a pour équivalent ‘La force du faible : Une perspective organisationnelle’ en français. Elle a pour objet d’élucider comment une organisation faible et vulnérable peut se transformer en une organisation forte et pérenne. En intégrant l’environnement interne à l’environnement externe, la question telle qu’elle est formulée n’a jamais été traitée à ce jour dans la littérature en management. Cette recherche vise à explorer ce vide selon différentes perspectives afin de renforcer la robustesse et la pertinence des résultats proposés. L’étude se compose précisément de quatre parties dont la particularité est de répondre à la même question via trois designs de recherche. La partie #1 analyse le sujet de recherche selon une posture d’extériorité. La partie #2 et la partie #3 l’étudient selon une posture d’intériorité. La partie #4 combine les deux postures antérieures par l’intermédiaire d’une métatriangulation. L’ensemble de la thèse gravite autour du terme underdog qui signifie sommairement, dans le cas présent, une organisation faible et vulnérable. Il est essentiel de noter que chaque partie est distincte des autres au niveau du rendu final mais qu’aucune partie n’aurait pu voir le jour en l’état sans l’apport des autres. / This thesis entitled ‘Strengthening weak organizations’ translates to ‘La force du faible: Une perspective organisationnelle’ in French. It is intended to elucidate how a weak and vulnerable organization can transform into a strong and secure organization. By integrating the internal environment with the external environment, the question as formulated has never been investigated in the management literature before. This research aims to explore this void from different perspectives in order to beef up the robustness and relevance of the proposed findings. Specifically, the study consists of four parts whose distinctiveness lies in the examination of the same question using three research designs. Part #1 analyzes the topic from an outside perspective. Part #2 and Part #3 study the topic from an inside perspective. Part #4 combines the two previous stances by using metatriangulation. The whole thesis revolves around the term underdog which summarily equates herein to a weak and vulnerable organization. It is essential to note that each part is written as a standalone paper, but no part would have been possible without the contribution of the others.