ABSTRACT
Change is a constant feature of organizing and one that requires resilience, or the ability to effectively face challenges. Although research demonstrates important findings about resilience during chaotic change like crises, less is known about resilience in mundane situations like planned change. This study explores team-driven planned organizational change, offering insights about how team members metaphorically frame change, analyzing how their framing fluctuates over time relative to perceptions of team success. Our three theoretical contributions extend theory about metaphors and organizational change, showing how negative framings of change are endemic to teams, regardless of perceived success; generate knowledge about resilience in organizing by showing how metaphors both build and undermine resilience; and extend applied theory about stakeholder participation in bureaucratic organizations.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Dr Tamara Afifi for her support and insightful critiques during the review process, as well as the thoughtful critiques of three anonymous reviewers. Additionally, we thank Dr Kate Lockwood Harris for her helpful and encouraging feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone and no affiliated agencies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Shawna Malvini Redden (Ph.D., Arizona State University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at California State University, Sacramento. Her research examines emotion, identity, sensemaking, and change in organizing, as well as teens and social media.
Lou Clark (Ph.D., Arizona State University) is an alumna of the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University. Her research examines the intersections of communication, compassion, and health.
Sarah J. Tracy (Ph.D., University of Colorado Boulder) is a Herberger professor and Co-Director of the Transformation Project in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University. Her research examines compassion, identity, emotion labor, bullying, burnout, wellbeing, and leadership.
Michael S. Shafer (Ph.D., Virginia Commonwealth University) is a professor in the School of Social Work and Director of the Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy at Arizona State University. His research focuses on workforce development and systems changes that help support the treatment of mental illness and substance abuse treatment.
Notes
1. While we analyzed eight teams across three time points, we report here on seven due to space limitations.