The Role of Substantive Actions in Sensemaking During Strategic Change

Ann‐Kristin Weiser

Journal of Management Studies, 2021, vol. 58, issue 3, 815-848

Abstract: While prior research has provided rich insights into how strategic change unfolds through sensemaking and sensegiving, the existing literature conceptualizes these activities largely as cognitive and discursive accomplishments. Although leaders commonly also modify organizational structures, processes, and practices, prior research has paid little attention to how these substantive actions shape the interpretive change process. Based on a qualitative case study of a top‐management‐led change initiative, I identify four ways in which substantive actions can support strategic change beyond the influence of discursive sensegiving: actualizing, concretizing, formalizing, and materializing. I incorporate my findings into an integrative model that relates my observations of the distinct influence of different types of sensemaking cues to differences in the sensemaking content and describes sensemaking during strategic change not just as an intellectual but as a multimodal process.

Date: 2021
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