We're Changing—Or Are We? Untangling the Role of Progressive, Regressive, and Stability Narratives During Strategic Change Implementation

Abstract

Data from a Fortune 500 retailer suggest that managers tell strategically ambiguous, interwoven narratives about how an organization changes and how it remains the same, thereby attempting to both unfreeze and freeze the existing meanings employees attribute to the organization. Employees embellish these narratives to make sense of and narrate responses to change (resisting, championing, and accepting), something patterned by time period and context. This study revises conceptualizations of managerial and employee discourse in fostering and hampering the implementation of strategic change by broadening consideration of both the sources and the types of meanings used to “construct” change.