Since 2016 the external communication of the Swedish international development cooperation agencys (Sida) has been governed by the ‘Strategi för informations- och kommunikationsverksamhet, inklusive genom organisationer i det civila samhället, 2016–2022’. Government investigations have shown that the strategy leaves room for divergent interpretation due to abstract formulations and ambiguous objectives. Several researchers have studied How ambiguous strategy is interpreted by organizational members. However, there are no studies that, beyond the scope of profession-related factors, examine Why the interpretationsappear in any given way. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze the interpretation process of an ambiguous strategy, by examining how cognitive, social and structural factors affect how employees at the communication units of Sida and Sida Partnership Forum interpret, and (consequently) enact the 'Strategy for information and communication activities 2016-2022 '. Based on the idea of accumulative understanding, the thesis theoretical framework consisted of Eric Eisenberg's Strategic Ambiguity, Abdallah & Langley's dimensions of the strategy process, and Hall's encoding/decoding model for communication. We used a combination of strategy documents and semi-structured interviews to answer the research questions through an interpretive discourse analysis. Ascertained organizational discourses were linked back to the theories of Strategic ambiguity and encoding/decoding to draw conclusions from chosen theoretical perspective. We found that organizational socialization, governing signals and actors as well as formal structures for strategy planning caused divergent interpretations and perceptions of the InfoCom-strategy. We also found that how the employees interpreted the InfoCom strategy affects how it was enacted in their work. Since the strategy does not offer clear directives, the enactment seems to differ depending on the employee's position at Sida or SPF.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-469098 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Edman, Joseph, Söderberg, Lisa |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Medier och kommunikation |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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