Nineteenth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

“The only thing that is constant is change” is a common expression, both in the academic and business world. However, within a classical Weickian sensemaking perspective, change has most often been studied as an exceptional episode shaped by change agents as sense makers. This paper draws on literature from a Post Weickian sensemaking perspective to unfold sensemaking of mundane changes. The data applied is collected via a longitudinal study of a Nordic bank and by analyzing the stories of the organizational members the paper has two theoretically contributions. First, by exploring the role of disruption, interruption and influence in sensemaking processes of change the paper unfolds three empirically differences between a classical Weickian and a Post Weickian sensemaking perspective on change. Second, by exploring the relatively unknown field of sensemaking of mundane changes, the paper contributes with an extension of a Post Weickian sensemaking perspective on change.