To work in an unpredictable work environment requires communication that functions well. In every organization it’s important that employees receive information that is relevant yet not confusing. Due to that, our ambition with this study is to understand how rescue effort organizations communicate in meetings; and whether their communication is clear or not. Our subject for this case study is the Emergency Services in the region of Karlstad. It is important to understand how the co-workers in one of the shift teams at the fire department evaluate the communication that takes place during routine staff meetings. To help understand this we have examined how the meetings at the fire department are structured, and how the co-workers interpret the communication in both formal and informal meetings. We have also examined the importance of sensemaking communication in meetings at the fire department. Karl E. Weicks’ theories about sensemaking serve as a foundation to the theoretical framework of our study. We focus on sensemaking for both formal and informal meetings and our study was conducted by eight qualitative interviews with co-workers at the fire department at the Emergency services in the region of Karlstad. The conclusions of the study show that informal meetings contribute to communion at the work place, this because the co-workers get to know each other. In addition informal meetings serve as a scene for interpreting information. When the co-workers discuss the information in informal meetings they exchange experiences and opinions, and information that might have lacked context instead makes sense. Good information is that kind of information that is associated with the co-workers’ everyday reality. The study also shows that the information given in formal meetings relatively often is perceived as meaningless, and that the opportunity to raise questions and additional dialogue is often ignored. Key words: sensemaking, internal communication, formal, informal, meetings, Emergency services, fire department
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kau-9617 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Röjeskog, Emelie, Berglund, Felicia |
| Publisher | Karlstads universitet, Fakulteten för ekonomi, kommunikation och IT, Karlstads universitet, Fakulteten för ekonomi, kommunikation och IT |
| 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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