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Constituting Change and Stability: Sense-making Stories in a Farming Organization

Massey University, New Zealand, M.E.PeiranoVejo{at}massey.ac.nz

Ralph E. Stablein

Massey University, New Zealand, r.stablein{at}massey.ac.nz

Recognizing the multiplicity of stories and possible interpretations in any narrative approach, we develop our `story' (i.e. this journal article) within the emerging tradition of responsible writing. We conceptualize organizational change as the normal condition of organizing rather than as an episodic event. In these circumstances, sense-giving and sense-making stories were found to be important in handling and creating instances of stability. Further, we attempt to show how old stories are told in new ways, while adapting to changing needs of its members created by contextual developments. We provide a discursive analysis of an institutional video on Knowledge Management, four in-depth interviews with members of the Argentine Association of Regional Consortiums of Agricultural Experimentation (AACREA), a rural farming association and a set of twenty-one interview transcripts from the institution's archives. An analysis of dualities present in the stories show how change is both managed (sense-giving) and understood (sense-making). We refer to five of these dualities and show how the tension they carry is functional and productive to the growth and development of the organization.

Key Words: change • reflexivity • sense-giving • sense-making • storytelling

Organization, Vol. 16, No. 3, 443-462 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1350508409102306


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