The Hidden Dimension of Blue-collar Sensemaking about Workplace Communication

TLDR

The study examines qualitative data from a food‑processing plant in New Zealand to explore how blue‑collar workers make sense of workplace communication, emphasizing the role of the physical and social geographies of their work environments. Two concepts—“working in with others” and “getting on with others”—are used to illustrate how workers’ geosocial environment shapes their sense‑making accounts. Analysis reveals that the meaning of these concepts varies with the factory location where workers regularly work, mirroring differences in geosocial features across departments and suggesting important implications for managing internal organizational communication.

Abstract

This paper examines data from a qualitative study that explored ways workers make sense of workplace communication in a food processing plant in New Zealand. The study focuses specifically on concepts that injected the relationship of the physical and associated social geogra phies of blue-collar workers' regular work environments into sense making about communication. Two concepts are used to illustrate the link between workers' geosocial environment and their sensemaking accounts: "working in with others" and "getting on with others." Analysis of discourse containing these concepts revealed that meaning depends upon where in the factory the sensemaker using the concept regularly works. Specifically, the study found that differences in mean ing for each concept mirrors the variation in the geosocial features of the three departments studied. In addition, the demonstrated rela tionship between conceptual meaning and geosocial environment sug gests important implications for those seeking to understand and manage internal organizational communication.