Experiencing rare and unusual events richly: The role of middle managers in animating and guiding organizational interpretation

Organization Science

Volumn 20, Issue 5, 2009, Pages 909-924

  Beck, Tammy E ^a   Plowman, Donde Ashmos ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE   (United States)

Author keywords

Middle managers; Organizational interpretation; Organizational learning

Indexed keywords

EID: 77049120488     PISSN: 10477039     EISSN: 15265455     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1090.0451     Document Type: Article

References (102)

1. Abma, T. A. 2000. Fostering learning-in-organizing through narration: Questioning myths and stimulating multiplicity in two performing art schools. Eur. J. Work Organ. Psych. 9(2) 211-231.
2. Ansoff, H. I. 1975. Managing strategic surprise by response to weak signals. California Management Rev. 18 21-33.
3. Ashmos, D. P., G. P. Huber. 1987. The systems paradigm in organization theory: Correcting the record and suggesting the future. Acad. Management Rev. 12(4) 607-622.
4. Bazerman, H. M. 2006. Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.
5. Balogun, J. 2003. From blaming the middle to harnessing its potential: Creating change intermediaries. British J. Management 14 69-83.
6. Balogun, J. 2006. Managing change: Steering a course between intended strategies and unanticipated outcomes. Long Range Planning 39 29-49.
7. Balogun, J., G. Johnson. 2004. Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking. Acad. Management J. 47(4) 523-549.
8. Balogun, J., G. Johnson. 2005. From unintended strategies to unintended outcomes: The impact of change recipient sensemaking. Organ. Stud. 26(11) 1573-1601.
9. Barr, P. S. 1998. Adapting to unfamiliar environmental events: A look at the evolution of interpretation and its role in strategic change. Organ. Sci. 9(6) 644-669.
10. Bazerman, M. H. 2006. Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.
11. Boje, D. 1995. Stories of the storytelling organization: A postmodern analysis of Disney as "Tamara-Land." Acad. Management J. 38(4) 997-1035.
12. Brooks, I. 1997. Call my bluff: Multiple interpretations of an organizational process. British J. Management 8 269-282.
13. Brown, A. D., M. Humphreys. 2003. Epic and tragic tales: Making sense of change. J. Appl. Behavioral Sci. 39(2) 121-144.
14. Buljan, A., Z. Shapira. 2005. Attention to production schedule and safety as determinants of risk-taking in NASA's decision to launch the Columbia shuttle. W. H. Starbuck, M. Farjoun, eds. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 140-156.
15. Burgelman, R. A. 1983. A process model of internal corporate venturing in the diversified major firm. Admin. Sci. Quart. 28 223-244.
16. Chakravarthy, B. S. 1982. Adaptation: A promising metaphor for strategic management. Acad. Management Rev. 7 35-44.
17. Columbia Accident Investigation Board. 2003. Report, 6 vols.: Vol. 1, http://caib1.nasa.gov/news/report/volume1/; Vol. 6, http://caib1. nasa.gov/news/report/volume6/. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
18. Cunha, M. P., S. R. Clegg, K. Kamoche. 2006. Surprises in management and organization: Concept, sources and a typology. British J. Management 17 317-329.
19. Cyert, R. M., J. G. March. 1963. A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
20. Czarniawska, B. 1998. A Narrative Approach in Organizational Studies. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
21. Daft, R. L., K. E. Weick. 1984. Toward a model of organizations as interpretation systems. Acad. Management Rev. 9(2) 284-295.
22. Day, G. S., P. J. H. Schoemaker. 2004. Driving through the fog: Managing at the edge. Long Range Planning 37 127-142.
23. Dunbar, R., R. Garud. 2005. Data indeterminacy: One NASA, two modes. W. H. Starbuck, M. Farjoun, eds. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 202-219.
24. Dutton, J. E., S. J. Ashford. 1993. Selling issues to top management. Acad. Management Rev. 18(3) 397-428.
25. Dutton, J. E., S. E. Jackson. 1987. Categorizing strategic issues: Links to organizational action. Acad. Management Rev. 12 76-90.
26. Dutton, J. E., S. J. Ashford, R. M. O'Neill, E. Hayes, E. E. Wierba. 1997. Reading the wind: How middle managers assess the context for selling issues to top managers. Strategic Management J. 18(5) 407-425.
27. Edmondson, A. C., M. A. Roberto, R. M. J. Bohmer, E. M. Ferlins, L. R. Feldman. 2005. The recovery window: Organizational learning following ambiguous threats. W. H. Starbuck, M. Farjoun, eds. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 220-245.
28. Farjoun, M. 2005. History and policy at the space shuttle program. W. H. Starbuck, M. Farjoun, eds. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 21-40.
29. Fincham, R. 2002. Narratives of success and failure in systems development. British J. Management 13(1) 1-14.
30. Fiol, C. M. 1994. Consensus, diversity, and learning in organizations. Organ. Sci. 5(3) 403-420.
31. Fischoff, B. 1975. Hindsight foresight: The effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty. J. Experiment. Psych.: Human Perception Performance 1 288-299.
32. Fiske, S. T., S. E. Taylor. 1991. Social Cognition, 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill, New York.
33. Floyd, S. W., P. J. Lane. 2000. Strategizing throughout the organization: Managing role conflict in strategic renewal. Acad. Management Rev. 25(1) 154-177.
34. Floyd, S. W., B. Wooldridge. 1992. Middle management involvement in strategy and its association with strategic type. Strategic Management J. 13 153-167.
35. Gioia, D. A., K. Chittipeddi. 1991. Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management J. 12(6) 433-448.
36. Gioia, D. A., J. B. Thomas. 1996. Identity, image, and issue interpretation: Sensemaking during strategic change in academia. Admin. Sci. Quart. 41(3) 370-403.
37. Golden, B. R., J. M. Dukerich, F. H. Fabian. 2000. The interpretation and resolution of resource allocation issues in professional organizations: A critical examination of the professional-manager dichotomy. J. Management Stud. 37(8) 1157-1187.
38. Goleman, D. 1985. Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception. Simon & Schuster, New York.
39. Hodgkinson, G. P., P. R. Sparrow. 2002. The Competent Organization: A Psychological Analysis of the Strategic Management Process. Open University Press, Philadelphia.
40. Hoffman, A. J., W. Ocasio. 2001. Not all events are attended equally: Toward a middle-range theory of industry attention to external events. Organ. Sci. 12(4) 414-434.
41. Hogarth, R. 1987. Judgment and Choice, 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons, New York.
42. Hoon, C. 2007. Committees as strategic practice: The role of strategic conversation in a public administration. Human Relations 60 921-952.
43. Huber, G. P. 1991. Organizational learning: The contributing processes and the literatures. Organ. Sci. 2(1) 88-115.
44. Huy, Q. N. 2002. Emotional balancing of organizational continuity and radical change: The contribution of middle managers. Admin. Sci. Quart. 47(1) 31-69.
45. Ireland, R. D., M. A. Hitt, R. A. Bettis, D. A. de Porras. 1987. Strategy formulation processes: Differences in perceptions of strength and weaknesses indicators and environmental uncertainty by managerial level. Strategic Management J. 8(5) 469-485.
46. Isabella, L. A. 1990. Evolving interpretations as a change unfolds: How managers construe key organizational events. Acad. Management J. 33(1) 7-41.
47. Kanter, R. M. 1982. The middle manager as innovator. Harvard Bus. Rev. (July-August) 150-161.
48. Kauffman, S. 1995. At Home in the Universe. Oxford University Press, New York.
49. Kilduff, M., W. Tsai, R. Hanke. 2006. A paradigm too far? A dynamic stability reconsideration of the social network research program. Acad. Management Rev. 31(4) 1031-1048.
50. Klein, K. J., S. W. J. Kozlowski. 2000. Multilevel Theory, Research, and Methods in Organizations: Foundations, Extensions, and New Directions. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
51. Lampel, J., Z. Shapira. 2001. Judgmental errors, interactive norms, and the difficulty of detecting strategic surprises. Organ. Sci. 12(5) 599-611.
52. Lant, T. K., Z. Shapira. 2001. New research directions on organizational cognition. T. K. Lant, Z. Shapira, eds. Organizational Cognition: Computation and Interpretation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 367-376.
53. Lant, T. K., F. J. Milliken, B. Batra. 1992. The role of managerial learning and interpretation in strategic persistence and reorientation: An empirical exploration. Strategic Management J. 13 585-608.
54. Levitt, B., J. G. March. 1988. Organizational learning. Annual Rev. Sociol. 14 319-340.
55. Levy, D. 1994. Chaos theory and strategy: Theory, application, and managerial implications. Strategic Management J. 15 167-178.
56. Maitlis, S. 2005. The social processes of organizational sensemaking. Acad. Management J. 48(1) 21-49.
57. Majchrzak, A., S. L. Jarvenpaa, A. B. Hollingshead. 2007. Coordinating expertise among emergent groups responding to disasters. Organ. Sci. 18(1) 147-161.
58. March, J. G., H. A. Simon. 1958. Organizations. John Wiley, New York.
59. March, J. G., L. Sproull, M. Tamuz. 1991. Learning from samples of one or fewer. Organ. Sci. 2(1) 1-13.
60. Martins, L. L., A. Kambil. 1999. Looking back and thinking ahead: Effects of prior success on managers' interpretations of new information technologies. Acad. Management J. 42(6) 652-661.
61. McDaniel, R. R., M. E. Jorday, B. F. Fleeman. 2003. Surprise, surprise, surprise! A complexity science view of the unexpected. Health Care Management Rev. 28(3) 266-278.
62. Meyer, A. D. 1982. Adapting to environmental jolts. Admin. Sci. Quart. 12 515-537.
63. Mezias, J. M., W. H. Starbuck. 2003. Studying the accuracy of managers' perceptions: A research odyssey. British J. Management 14 3-17.
64. Milliken, F. J. 1990. Perceiving and interpreting environmental change: An examination of college administrators' interpretation of changing demographics. Acad. Management J. 33(1) 42-63.
65. Milliken, F. J., T. K. Lant, E. N. Bridwell-Mitchell. 2005. Barriers to the interpretation and diffusion of information about potential problems in organizations: Lessons from the space shuttle Columbia. W. H. Starbuck, M. Farjoun, eds. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 246-266.
66. Mintzberg, H. 1978. Patterns in strategy formation. Management Sci. 24(9) 934-948.
67. Nonaka, I. 1988. Toward middle-up-down management: Accelerating information creating. Sloan Management Rev. 29(3) 9-18.
68. Nonaka, I. 1994. A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organ. Sci. 5(1) 14-37.
69. Nystrom, P. C., W. H. Starbuck. 1984. To avoid organizational crises, unlearn. Organ. Dynam. 12(4) 53-65.
70. Ocasio, W. 1997. Towards an attention-based view of the firm. Strategic Management J. 18(6) 187-206.
71. Ocasio, W. 2005. The opacity of risk: Language and the culture of safety in NASA's space shuttle program. W. H. Starbuck, M. Farjoun, eds. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 101-121.
72. Park, K. M. 2007. Antecedents of convergence and divergence in strategic positioning: The effects of performance and aspiration on the direction of strategic change. Organ. Sci. 18(3) 386-402.
73. Plowman, D. A., D. Duchon. 2008. Emergent leadership: Getting beyond heroes and scapegoats. J. Hazy, J. Goldstein, B. Lichtenstein, eds. Complex Systems Leadership Theory (CSLT). ISCE Publishing Company, Mansfield, MA, 124-142.
74. Plowman, D. A., L. T. Baker, T. E. Beck, M. Kulkarni, S. T. Solansky, D. V. Travis. 2007. Radical change accidentally: The emergence and amplification of small change. Acad. Management J. 50(3) 515-543.
75. Rothman, J., V. J. Friedman. 2001. Identity, conflict and organizational learning. M. Dierkes, A. B. Antal, J. Child, I. Nonaka, eds. Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge. Oxford University Press, New York, 582-597.
76. Rouleau, L. 2005. Micro-practices of strategic sensemaking and sensegiving: How middle managers interpret and sell change every day. J. Management Stud. 42(7) 1413-1441.
77. Russo, J. E., P. J. H. Schoemaker. 2002. Winning Decisions: Getting It Right the First Time. Currency, New York.
78. Schwab, A. 2007. Incremental organizational learning from multilevel information sources: Evidence for cross-level interactions. Organ. Sci. 18(2) 233-251.
79. Schwenk, C. R. 1984. Cognitive simplification processes in strategic decision making. Strategic Management J. 5 111-128.
80. Senge, P., C. O. Scharmer, J. Jaworski, B. S. Flowers. 2004. Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society. Doubleday, New York.
81. Senge, P. M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline. Doubleday/Currency, New York.
82. Sharma, S. 2000. Managerial interpretations and organizational context as predictors of corporate choice of environmental strategy. Acad. Management J. 43(4) 681-697.
83. Shaw, B. 1903. Man and Superman. The University Press, Cambridge, MA.
84. Simon, H. A. 1947. Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organizations. MacMillan, New York.
85. Sims, D. 2003. Between the millstones: A narrative account of the vulnerability of middle managers' storying. Human Relations 56(10) 1195-1211.
86. Starbuck, W. H., M. Farjoun, eds. 2005. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK.
87. Starbuck, W. H., B. Hedberg. 2001. How organizations learn from success and failure. M. Dierkes, A. B. Antal, J. Child, I. Nonaka, eds. Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge. Oxford University Press, New York, 327-350.
88. Sutcliffe, K. M., K. Weber. 2003. The high cost of knowledge. Harvard Bus. Rev. (May) 74-82.
89. Thomas, J. B., R. R. McDaniel, Jr. 1990. Interpreting strategic issues: Effects of strategy and the information-processing structure of top management teams. Acad. Management J. 33 286-306.
90. Thomas, J. B., S. M. Clark, D. A. Gioia. 1993. Strategic sensemaking and organizational performance: Linkages among scanning, interpretation, action, and outcomes. Acad. Management J. 36(2) 239-270.
91. Thomas, J. B., L. J. Shankster, J. E. Mathieu. 1994. Antecedents to organizational issue interpretation: The roles of single-level, cross-level, and content cues. Acad. Management J. 37(5) 1252-1284.
92. Tversky, A., D. Kahneman. 1981. The framing of decisions and the rationality of choice. Science 185 1124-1131.
93. Van Cauwenbergh, A., K. Cool. 1982. Strategic management in a new framework. Strategic Management J. 3 245-264.
94. Vaughan, D. 2005. System effects: On slippery slopes, repeating negative patterns, and learning from mistake? W. H. Starbuck, M. Farjoun, eds. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 41-59.
95. Watkins, M. D., M. H. Bazerman. 2003. Predictable surprises: The disasters you should have seen coming. Harvard Bus. Rev. 81(3) 72-80.
96. Weick, K. E. 1993. The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Admin. Sci. Quart. 38 628-652.
97. Weick, K. E. 1995. Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
98. Weick, K. E. 2005. Making sense of blurred images: Mindful organizing in Mission STS-107. W. H. Starbuck, M. Farjoun, eds. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 159-177.
99. Weick, K. E., K. M. Sutcliffe. 2001. Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity. Jossey Bass, San Francisco.
100. Wissema, H. 2002. Driving through red lights: How warning signals are missed or ignored. Long Range Planning 35(25) 521-539.
101. Woods, D. D. 2005. Creating foresight: Lessons for enhancing resilience from Columbia. W. H. Starbuck, M. Farjoun, eds. Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 289-308.
102. Wooldridge, B., S. W. Floyd. 1990. The strategy process, middle management involvement, and organizational performance. Strategic Management J. 11 231-241.