Change managerialism and micro-processes of sensemaking during change implementation

Alain Guiette and Koen Vandenbempt

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2017, vol. 33, issue 2, 65-81

Abstract: In this article we critically analyze micro-processes of sensemaking during change implementation under a macro-level discourse of top-down planned change management, which we coin ‘change managerialism’. We demonstrate how taken-for-granted enactments of managing change interweave with organizational change discourses and how this subsequently inhibits sensemaking micro-processes. Adopting a reflexive research methodology, this article contributes to the sensemaking of change literature by illustrating how change managerialism infiltrates an organization’s managerial change discourse and sensemaking micro-processes, causing a disruption in sensemaking. Empirical material of a case study conducted at a professional services firm suggests these dynamics unintentionally inhibit sensemaking micro-processes and bracket off direct experience of the organization’s change recipients through lifeworld colonization, detachment, discursive closure and constrained reflexivity.

Keywords: Sensemaking; Organizational change; Managerialism; Reflexivity; Performativity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:scaman:v:33:y:2017:i:2:p:65-81

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DOI: 10.1016/j.scaman.2017.02.002

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