Telling tales out of school: Sensemaking and narratives of legitimacy in an organizational change process

Amy Thurlow and Jean Helms Mills

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2015, vol. 31, issue 2, 246-254

Abstract: In this study we take a critical sensemaking approach to investigate organizational narratives of change at a Canadian community college to show how individuals make sense of the change process. In particular, we draw upon the property of plausibility to show how the president and CEO of the college legitimized the change narratives by drawing on rhetorical strategies of legitimation, which resonated with sensemakers in the organization. As plausibility is enhanced through legitimation, individuals in the organization become engaged in a sensemaking process, which resonates with their experiences and organizational identity. We contend that the organizational narratives constructed through this sensemaking process reflect a legitimation of plausible meaning. Plausibility emerges in this case study as a critical element in the sensemaking process, and highlights the importance of narrative practices of legitimation in sensemaking around organizational change.

Keywords: Organizational narratives; Critical sensemaking; Organizational change; Legitimacy; Plausibility; Discourses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956522114001043
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:scaman:v:31:y:2015:i:2:p:246-254

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/872/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/872/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.scaman.2014.10.002

Access Statistics for this article

Scandinavian Journal of Management is currently edited by Janne Tienari

More articles in Scandinavian Journal of Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().