Weick et al. asserts that “communication is a central component of sense making.” Articulation culminates the antecedent activities of” noticing, bracketing, labeling” with a propensity for action. According to the process laid out by Weick et al., a merged team, left to their own devices, will methodically move through the process of sense making and may eventually collaborate (or not collaborate) to achieve a certain outcome. We posit that the process may be expedited through directive communication. In other words, by facilitating the process of sense making through the communication of a plausible story, team effectiveness, as measured by time to achieve results, will improve.
- Hypothesis I: Directive sense making in a PMI context will moderate the timing of the results of a collaborative effort.
- Hypothesis II: Incongruent narratives in a PMI context will reduce collaboration as measured by employee morale and resistance.
For this research, we propose using Darden learning teams to test our hypotheses. In the case of directive communication, we would time the outcome of two teams, one where we provide a narrative and the other that allows the team to develop its own.
In the second case, we would study two learning teams, one where we provide an oral narrative that is congruent with the case study that we have provided and the other where we provide an oral narrative that contradicts some aspects of what members of the team have just read. Upon completion of the exercise, we would measure team satisfaction and the levels of resistance. It would also be interesting to measure and compare team performance.
Great start! The paragraph leading up to the first hypothesis shows an understanding of sensemaking. In the hypothesis itself, though, I would consider “directive sensemaking” itself to be a vague term. I thought you said it best when you said “the communication of a plausible story.” (Although, given your next hypothesis, I would leave the word “plausible” out until the next hypothesis.) Therefore, the first variable would be: Do managers communicate a merger integration story to their employees or not? (Now, to be very precise, we actually even have two variables in this refined hypothesis. One is, “Do managers communicate to their employees or not” and the second is, “If managers communicate, do they do so with a story?”)
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, the language of your first hypothesis is about moderation, but you treat PMI as a boundary condition rather than as a moderating variable.
Having clarified this first hypothesis (or hypotheses), the second hypothesis becomes explicitly about plausibility, which you suggest is operationalized as “congruence.” This is a plausible operationalization to me, but it begs further definition. What would congruence actually look like for employees in a PMI? (And when you get to research design, how do you measure it?) Also, in this second hypothesis, I thought you could have stuck with the same dependent variable as in hypothesis one, and used your new dependent variable as the explanation. Thus, incongruent narratives would reduce time to achieve results because of resistance and lowered employee morale (which would be mediating variables).
As for the research proposal, the first thing we need to be clear on is that if you are designing an experiment, you will need multiple groups in each condition, rather than one group in each condition.
As a less important note, I think the Darden learning teams are a good point of reference, but you might also want to get creative and think through what other kinds of teams you could use and how. You could, for example, do a two-stage experiment, where first you do a team identification exercise to create cohesiveness within teams, and then do a merger exercise where you test your hypotheses.
One final thought. In this blog, you only answered questions one and three. You did not tell me what we can learn about culture, institutions, or sensemaking by studying these things in a PMI context. Overall, though, I like the way your group plays with ideas.
I really like the way you have described manager communication in a merger situation as a story. If the story is compelling and aids in the process of sensemaking, does the merger happen more successfully? Ultimately, does collaboration make it more successful? How would you measure success - in terms of congruence?
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting idea, and I like the way you bring sensemaking into the realm of post merger integration. I think the challenge for your team will be to find a good setting for this experiment. I don't see the MBA learning teams as really dealing with PMI in their course work. Alternately, you could design an experiment using MBA students where you prime the participants to be on two separate teams with two very different identities but with a common goal for a common project. You could give each team a different narrative and thus contruct the story incongruence you are looking for. Then you observe whether more collaboration occured where teams demonstrated sensemaking behaviors.
ReplyDelete“It’s not about getting the story right but rather, making interpretations that are congruent with the current environmental and social cues that sustains motivation”
ReplyDeleteVery interesting blog and one I’m which has a lot of very practical applications to management. And I agree with the statement above but am not sure the learning team experiment you suggest would be a good way to test you hypothesis II. Would you want to create a narrative that was congruent with the case study or with the environmental and social cues inherent that distinguish that learning team?