Agreeing on What? Creating Joint Accounts of Strategic Change

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Spee, Paul; Jarzabkowski, Paula
• 署名单位: University of Queensland; City St Georges, University of London
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2016.1105
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 152-176
• 关键词: meaning making; plurivocal contents; STRATEGIC CHANGE; STRATEGY-AS-PRACTICE; strategic planning

摘要

This paper addresses a fundamental conundrum at the heart of meaning making: How is agreement to change achieved amid multiple, coexisting meanings? This challenge is particularly salient when proposing a new strategic initiative as it introduces new meanings that must coexist with multiple prevailing meanings. Yet, prior literature on meaning-making processes places different emphases on the extent to which agreement to a new initiative requires shared meaning across diverse organizational members. We propose the concept of a joint account as the means through which an agreement to change may be achieved that accommodates multiple, coexisting meanings that satisfy diverse constituents' vested interests. Based on the findings from an ethnographic study of a university's strategic planning process, we develop a framework that demonstrates two different patterns in the microprocesses of meaning making. These patterns extend our understanding about the way vested interests enable or constrain the construction of a joint account. In doing so, we contribute to knowledge about resistance, ambiguity, and lack of agreement to a proposed change.