پارادوکس در تغییرات سازمانی: نقش حیاتی در نفوذپذیری رهبران Paradoxes in Organizational Change: The Crucial Role of Leaders’ Sensegiving

Introduction The success or failure of organizational change is highly dependent on employee behaviour (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999; Oreg, Vakola, & Armenakis, 2011). Unfortunately, resistance to change, defined as ‘a tridimensional (negative) attitude towards change, which includes affective, behavioural, and cognitive components’ (Oreg, 2006, p. 74), is common (Oreg, 2006; Scheck & Kinicki, 2000). Critical reasons for this resistance are employees’ experiences of uncertainty and disruptions in their sensemaking (Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010; Weick, 1995). However, despite an extensive literature on predictors of employee change reactions (Oreg et al., 2011) and despite common knowledge of good change management practices (e.g. Kotter, 1996; Whelan-Berry & Somerville, 2010), followers’ negative change reactions are still a threat for the successful organizational change. In the following, the focus on the paradoxical nature of organizational change offers a new perspective on the still relevant question of how leaders can manage employees’ uncertainty and support their sensemaking in organizational change (Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010). Paradoxes, defined as ‘contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time’ (Smith & Lewis, 2011, p. 382), are particularly salient in organizational change (Lewis, 2000; Schad, Lewis, Raisch, & Smith, 2016). Nasim and Sushil (2011, p. 186) even claim that ‘managing change is invariably managing paradoxes’. Both leaders and followers experience tensions between the old and the new, are required to learn and develop while at the same time perform at their best, and struggle between the need to change and adapt and their desire for order and stability (Smith & Lewis, 2011). Unfortunately, individuals’ reactions to paradoxical tensions are oftentimes defensive because individuals feel anxious, uncertain and threatened (Lewis, 2000; Schad et al., 2016; Vince & Broussine, 1996). Recent research on paradoxes and change has focused on leaders’ sensemaking and decision-making with regard to paradoxical tensions with promising insights and findings (Schad et al., 2016; Smith, 2014), also with a focus on organizational change (Lüscher & Lewis, 2008). However, the role of follower sensemaking about paradoxes in organizational change has been neglected so far. Further, there is no research on the role of leadership in this process, although scholars have acknowledged its importance (Lüscher & Lewis, 2008; p. 221). There are compelling arguments and evidence for the notion that to make sense of paradoxes is challenging for leaders (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Lüscher & Lewis, 2008; Smith, Besharov, Wessels, & Chertok, 2012), in particular for middle managers in organizational change who have not designed the change themselves but are required to execute the change (Balogun & Johnson, 2004; Lüscher & Lewis, 2008). However, not only managers but also followers experience paradoxical demands and tensions in organizational change. For example, leaders expect their followers to deal with change creatively while at the same time maintain their efficiency (see also Miron-Spektor, Gino, & Argote, 2011). Followers often do not decide the direction of change themselves, usually have less information than managers have, and have the least discretion to shape the process of implementing change; these are conditions that create uncertainty (Bordia, Hobman, Jones, Gallois, & Callan, 2004; Kraft, Sparr, & Peus, 2016). Therefore, followers need support to deal with their paradox-related uncertainty and to restore their disrupted sensemaking (Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010). Research has highlighted the role of managers’ and leaders’ sensegiving in organizational change (Bartunek, Krim, Neccochea, & Humphries, 1999; Foldy, Goldman, & Ospina, 2008; Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Rouleau, 2005). Leaders both communicate the need for and the direction of change and aim to manage their followers’ change-related uncertainty with suitable communication processes (Allen, Jimmieson, Bordia, & Irmer, 2007; Bordia et al., 2004; Kraft et al., 2016). However, until now, theory about both the roles of followers’ sensemaking and leaders’ sensegiving for followers’ reactions to paradoxical demands in organizational change is scarce.