2018-02, Kraft, Anna, Sparr, Jennifer L., Peus, Claudia

Purpose
Leader sensegiving—the attempt to affect employees’ sensemaking—is a crucial leadership activity during organizational change. Yet, it is unclear how employee sensemaking and leader sensegiving vary across different change phases: Although addressing employee needs is key for successful sensegiving, current literature remains vague about how leaders account for different employee needs over the course of a change process.

Design/Methodology/Approach
Data were obtained from an interview study with organizational members who underwent episodic change. To integrate both perspectives, interviews were conducted with leaders (n = 26) and employees (n = 29). Data were analyzed using template analysis.

Findings
Our analysis revealed and confirmed different sensemaking needs and respective sensegiving foci in each change phase. During exploration, leaders respond to employees’ need for reassurance with receptive sensegiving. During preparation, leaders show participative sensegiving to answer employees’ need for orientation. During implementation, leaders’ compensating sensegiving responds to employees’ need for balance. During evaluation, leaders’ evaluative sensegiving accounts for employees’ need for acknowledgment. Each sensegiving mode is associated with a specific set of discursive and symbolic strategies in each phase.

Implications
This study provides a systematic framework on how leaders can respond successfully to employee sensemaking needs in each change phase using different discursive and symbolic sensegiving strategies.

Originality/Value
The study enhances our understanding of development in sensemaking and sensegiving by outlining the specific interlocking between both processes within the different change phases. Furthermore, it outlines how the relevant sensegiving modes can be obtained through particular symbolic and discursive strategies.

2015, Kraft, Anna, Sparr, Jennifer L., Peus, Claudia

Change initiatives entail a high risk of failure if leaders cannot convey the underlying sense to employees. However, the effectiveness of leader sensegiving depends on external as well as internal factors. Moderators of the leader sensegiving process represent a critical but underexplored factor of sensegiving during organizational change. We derive a theoretical model of contextual factors by reviewing existing sensegiving literature. Drawing on information-processing theory, we highlight the influence of crucial moderators at the organizational and individual levels during two phases of the sensegiving process: in the first phase, moderators affect how leaders set up sensegiving; in the second phase, moderators affect how employees engage in sensemaking. The moderators in the first phase are (a) schema consistency at the organizational level and (b) legitimate power at the individual level. During the second phase, the moderating effect of (c) schema consistency at the organizational level and (d) employee emotions at the individual level is explored. We contribute to literature by demonstrating how moderators affect sensegiving during organizational change at two phases of the process and providing a multi-level perspective by distinguishing between moderators at the organizational and individual levels.