Amalie Martinus Hauge, Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen, Anne Reff Pedersen and Anja Svejgaard Pors
Signe Bruskin and Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether there is a link between retrospective and prospective sensemaking by analyzing metaphors of past and potential future changes.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether there is a link between retrospective and prospective sensemaking by analyzing metaphors of past and potential future changes.
Design/methodology/approach
The article draws on interview data from employees, team managers and middle managers at an IT department of a Nordic bank.
Findings
The study found that organizational members' sensemaking of changes in the past were characterized by trivializing metaphors. In contrast, future-oriented sensemaking of potential changes were characterized by emotionally charged metaphors of uncertainty, war and the End, indicating that the organizational members anticipating a gloomier future.
Research limitations/implications
These findings might be limited to the organizational context of an IT department of a bank with IT professionals having an urge for control and sharing a history of a financial sector changing dramatically the last decade.
Originality/value
This article contributes to the emerging field of future-oriented sensemaking by showing what characterize past and future-oriented sensemaking of changes at a bank. Further, the paper contributes with an empirical study unpacking how organizational members anticipate an undesired future which might not be grounded in retrospective sensemaking.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to display and critically reflect upon how field experiences in the research process interacted with the author's subjectivity and shaped her…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to display and critically reflect upon how field experiences in the research process interacted with the author's subjectivity and shaped her construction of knowledge about organisational conflict.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on Weick's theoretical framework of sensemaking and the notion of reflexivity as a resource for dealing with research experiences, the paper presents empirical narratives that explore how research experiences of negotiating access to information and emic categories of conflict in the field, analysing events and morally deciding which stories from the field are conflict stories, and dealing with ethical dilemmas in the process of doing research about conflict constitute common factors that influenced the author's construction of knowledge about organisational conflict.
Findings
The paper shows that the way we organise and make sense of research experiences shapes our process of theorising and the actual production of knowledge in a research field.
Research limitations/implications
We should document and display the process of theorising in our research and thoroughly pursue what we experienced in the field, because this will create thoroughness to our research and add to, not devalue, the knowledge we produce.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the process of theorising in organisational research. The empirical narratives presented in the paper contribute to the narrow display within the field of how we, as organisational researchers, mobilise our theorising and construct knowledge.
Details
Keywords
Amanda J. Lubit and Devon Gidley
This paper explores the consequences of researching temporary protest organizations through embodied ethnography, paying attention to how, when and why a researcher takes sides.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the consequences of researching temporary protest organizations through embodied ethnography, paying attention to how, when and why a researcher takes sides.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employed embodied walking ethnography to study Lyra's Walk, a three-day, 68-mile protest walk held in May 2019 to advocate for peace in Northern Ireland. Data were primarily ethnographic, complemented by an analysis of social media, photos, videos and media coverage.
Findings
First the authors argue that embodied walking ethnography can provide an inhabited understanding of organizing. The social, physical and emotional experiences of walking encourage researchers to identify more closely with participants and obtain a greater understanding of the phenomena studied. Second, the authors identify that methodological choice can have a greater impact on side-taking than either the conflict setting or organization researched.
Research limitations/implications
This paper demonstrates the promise and consequences of using embodied walking ethnography to study a mobile organization. It further illustrates the nuances and challenges of conducting ethnography in a temporary protest organization.
Originality/value
The paper makes two contributions. The novel use of embodied walking ethnography to study temporary protest organizations can lead the research to become intertwined with the temporary organization during its process of organizational becoming. With the researcher's body acting as a research tool, their sensations and emotions impact data collection, interpretation and findings.