The influence of structure. On the sensemaking process in a significantly changing environment
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2020-06-29
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en
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For some organizations, dealing with environmental change is a huge challenge. Particularly when these environmental changes hit the entire organization. In this research, three different payroll organizations are affected by the initiation of the “Wet Arbeidsmarkt in Balans”, the WAB law. Organizations respond to changes like this through sensemaking. Focus in this research is on how the organizational structure of these payroll organizations affect the sensemaking process in the described context. The organizational structures of these payroll organizations are described and compared to each other. The findings of this research are that organizations with a more flexible organizational structure spread their sensemaking process more over the entire organization than organizations with a more bureaucratic organizational structure. The organizations where sensemaking is more spread stimulates creativity and innovation, which is necessary for a changing environment. But in this research, also the bureaucratic organizations created innovative solutions to meet the WAB law. This attenuate the existing literature. Another finding is that organizations with a more bureaucratic character seem to have more disruptive change than organizations with a more flexible organizational structure. The flexible organizations only needed to do some emergent change.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen