Purpose – Appropriation of information communication technology (ICT) drags tools and actors into a sociotechnical process. ICT, practices, and organizations are strongly modified. Only an interplay approach can reveal the complexity of relations between technology and work practices. The...

Purpose – To show the reader that storytelling can be seen as a form of seduction based on emotional response and thereby preventing a change process within the organisation. Design/methodology/approach – Case study in relation to a psychoanalytic approach to text as a place for emotional...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to give an account of a self‐evaluation process in a change programme within the US Coast Guard. Design/methodology/approach – This is an autoethnographical account as form of reflection on a leadership in position facilitating change within the...

Purpose – Imposed change at work can present individuals with ambiguous events about which they experience ambivalence in their interpretation of meaning. This paper seeks to examine the dimensions of ambivalence as defined by Piderit among a group of managers in the public sector....

Purpose – While conventional wisdom suggests that sensemaking is targeted towards consensual understanding of the organization's intent and action, the objective of this study is to explore a different angle of sensemaking, namely, a situation of change and crisis in which the sensemaking...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a practical conceptual tool for analysing the dynamics of cultural change in organizations. In so doing it seeks to address two concerns in the organization culture literature: issues of time and perspective which underlie the contested...

Purpose – Hiring management consultants as external support in organizational change is in the literature described as a socially and emotionally stressful activity for managers. Management consultants need to deal with these threatening aspects of their service. This paper aims to explore the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the development of the biotechnology industry at the industry and firm level when the financing environment becomes hostile and assess the reasons for this development. Design/methodology/approach – An organizational evolution perspective to...

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how organizational actors make reference to history and how they use historical reference purposefully in order to affect strategy‐making. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on in‐depth case studies on two Swedish MNCs. Data have been...

Purpose – This paper aims to look at the role of the top and middle management of the Philips organization during the transition from one type of organizational change to another in the 1990s and the role the history of the organisation played in this process. Design/methodology/approach –...