Browsing by Author "Junninen, Mikko"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Scaffolding ja oppimisen kognitiivinen tukeminen
(2016-09-20) Junninen, Mikko
Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Bachelor's thesis
A void is filled with assumptions: Change recipient sensemaking in the early phase of organizational change
(2021-01-27) Junninen, Mikko
Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
Change is an inevitable and inextricable part of organizational life, originating from global megatrends as well as from the everyday actions of organization members as they go about their life. As such, organizational change has been a subject of much academic interest, and there has been a multitude of studies exploring, for example, how organizational change occurs, what shapes and forms it takes, and what different roles different members of the organization have in developing, implementing, and enacting the change. One topic within the organizational change literature is sensemaking. Sensemaking refers to an interpretive process through which individuals and groups assign meaning to their experiences, and through which an account of what is going on is created (Klein, Moon & Hoffman, 2006; Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010). Sensemaking is an important part of organizational life and central to organizational change; differences in in understandings and interpretations between change agents and change recipients may lead to challenges and unintended consequences in change implementation (Balogun, 2006; Bartunek et al., 2006; Bartunek et al., 2011). However, there is a gap in existing literature in understanding about the factors that influence change recipient sensemaking about planned organizational change. This gap is addressed in this thesis. In this thesis, an inductive case study is presented to explore change recipient sensemaking about planned organizational change in its early phase. The phenomenon is investigated in the empirical context of a large technology company beginning to pursue a planned organizational change initiative. A grounded theory model is proposed to explain change recipient sensemaking outcomes about planned organizational change. The results of this study suggest that there are six factors that affect change recipient sensemaking about planned organizational change in its early phase: Personal values, experiences, and preferences of the change recipients; Sensegiving efforts by change agents, Organizational context, External context, Adoption of precursory practices, and Cognitive effects of other change initiatives. These factors, as well as the second order concepts they consist of are discussed, and the model is to be found to be consistent and compatible with a framework of sensemaking synthesized from existing literature. In addition to this, the implications the results of this study present to both theory as well as practice are discussed.