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Organizational Management & Leadership ISBN 13:978-1-934748-11-4

Chapter –1-2

Term – Managerial Roles

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Leadership & Organization Development Journal
Leader roles, organization-based self-esteem, and employee outcomes
Steven M. Norman, Donald G. Gardner, Jon L. Pierce,

Article information:
To cite this document:
Steven M. Norman, Donald G. Gardner, Jon L. Pierce, (2015) “Leader roles, organization-based self-
esteem, and employee outcomes”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 36 Issue: 3,
pp.253-270, https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-06-2013-0072
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Leader roles, organization-based
self-esteem, and employee

outcomes
Steven M. Norman

Hasan School of Business, Colorado State University-Pueblo, Pueblo, Colorado,
USA

Donald G. Gardner
College of Business and Administration, University of Colorado at Colorado

Springs, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, and
Jon L. Pierce

School of Business and Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth,
Minnesota, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between different managerial
roles and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), and employee job satisfaction, organization
commitment, and turnover and absence intentions.
Design/methodology/approach – Survey data were collected from 1,386 employees in a high
technology industry. Employees described the roles their managers fulfilled, and then rated their own
OBSE, satisfaction, commitment, and turnover and absence intent.
Findings – Different managerial roles had different relationships with OBSE, which mediated the
relationships between some of the management roles and employee outcomes.
Research limitations/implications – This study used a cross-sectional design with single source
data in a single industry. Future research should examine these relationships using longitudinal
designs, multiple data sources, and a variety of industries.
Practical implications – Managers should be aware that their behaviors affect employee
self-esteem, which in turn has strong relationships with a variety of important outcomes. Managers
should be trained to manifest behaviors that increase employee self-esteem.
Originality/value – This is the first study to examine the effects of management roles on
organization-based self-esteem, and ultimately employee satisfaction, commitment, and withdrawal
intentions.
Keywords Leadership, Turnover, Job satisfaction, Organization commitment,
Managerial behaviours, Organization-based self-esteem
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Since the late 1980s a rich body of knowledge has developed that provides insight into
organization-based self-esteem (OBSE). While we have witnessed the emergence of
a comprehensive understanding of its relationships with many personal and work
outcomes (cf. Bowling et al., 2010; Pierce and Gardner, 2004), there has been
considerably less empirical exploration of its antecedents. This is especially true in

Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
Vol. 36 No. 3, 2015

pp. 253-

270

0143-7739
DOI 10.1108/LODJ-06-2013-0072

Received 11 June 2013
Revised 30 September 2013
Accepted 30 September 2013

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-7739.htm

The authors express their appreciation to Dr Scott McIntyre (late) for his contributions to this
study. A preliminary version of this study was presented at the annual meeting of the Academy
of Management, 2013.

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employee
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terms of our ability to address the question – from a behavioral perspective, do the roles
that managers and leaders fulfill for employees positively influence OBSE?[1]

From a variety of perspectives (Theory X/Theory Y: McGregor, 1960, Human
Resource Model: Miles, 1964, 1975; transactional and transformational leadership,
Burns, 1978) it seems logical to assume that the management behaviors associated
with different roles will have different effects on OBSE (i.e. a personal sense of
organizational worthiness: Lord et al., 1999; Pierce and Gardner, 2004). Lord et al. (1999)
stated that “leaders can profoundly influence subordinates’ self-concepts, and thereby
influence follower behaviors and other social processes” (p. 167), and OBSE is a
significant factor in most employees’ self-concept. Management behaviors vary in the
degree to which they signal trust by creating opportunities for the exercise of
self-direction and self-control, create conditions for success, make individual employees
feel valuable, and signal their personal and organizational worthiness. In addition, it is
plausible to reason that OBSE may provide us with insight into “how” management
behaviors affect subordinate and follower’s work-related motivation (e.g. intrinsic
motivation), attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction), and behavior (e.g. performance, citizenship
behavior). The main purpose of this study is to empirically examine the potential
effects that employee-perceived management roles have on OBSE, and the mediating
function of OBSE in the management role—employee outcome relationships.

We start by providing a brief overview of the global and OBSE constructs. This is
followed by an examination of the theoretical antecedents and consequences of OBSE
and the development of our research hypotheses. Central to this discussion is the
theoretical linking of several leader behaviors with OBSE, leading up to an examination
of the mediating role of OBSE in the relationship between manager behaviors and
follower (subordinate) personal and work outcomes. Finally, we discuss our findings,
highlight the applied implications of this work, and conclude with recommendations for
future research on OBSE.

Theoretical framework
Self-concept and OBSE
Self-esteem is one part of the self-concept, a cognitive schema that organizes memories
about the self and controls the processing of self-related information. Viewed as
a reflexive cognitive structure, the self-concept has both an evaluative and
a knowledge component. For example, Gecas (1982) defined self-concept as “the
concept the individual has of him[her]self as a physical, social, and spiritual or moral
being” (p. 3). In a similar manner, Rosenberg (1965) defined the self-concept as “the
totality of the individual’s thoughts and feelings that have reference to him[her]self as
an object” (p. 7). As such the self-concept encompasses all those parts of the
“phenomenal field which the individual experiences as part or characteristic of him[her]
self” (Snygg and Combs, 1949, p. 58).

As a component of the self-concept, self-esteem also reflects a perception of the
self-encompassing both an evaluation of and a cognitive orientation toward the self.
It is a relatively stable, trait-like condition that is theoretically and empirically distinct
from other personality traits (e.g. Erdle, 2013). Those with high self-esteem have
more positive views and better feelings about themselves than their low self-esteem
counterparts, who see themselves in a more negative light (e.g. less competent) and who
have a lower sense of “self-liking.”

People develop domain-specific facets of self-esteem in many of life’s roles
(e.g. parent, golfer, employee), which many believe (e.g. James, 1890) are differentially

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placed within one’s hierarchy of self-values, and when aggregated form one’s global
self-esteem. OBSE (Pierce et al., 1989) is one of those domain-specific facets of
self-esteem, reflecting individuals’ evaluations of their personal adequacy and self-
worth within the work and organizational context. Derived from Coopersmith’s (1967)
conceptualization of global self-esteem, Pierce et al. (1989) defined OBSE as “the
degree to which an individual believes him/herself to be capable, significant, and
worthy as an organizational member” (p. 625). As such, it manifests itself in such
beliefs as “I COUNT around here; I am an IMPORTANT PART of this place; and
I make a DIFFERENCE around here,” where “here” refers to the employing
organization (these are three items from the Pierce et al. (1989), measure of the OBSE
construct). Early in an individual’s organizational relationship, before a discernible
pattern of organizational experiences have transpired, OBSE is malleable, shifting,
and very much state-like. With the passage of time and an accumulation of
organizational experiences OBSE increasingly evolves into an unquestioning and
stable belief as to one’s organizational worthiness.

Manager influences on OBSE
It is likely that manager behaviors affect employees’ sense of self-worth. For example,
Dansereau et al. (1998) position employee self-worth as a benchmark for assessing
leadership effectiveness; successful individualized leadership enhances employee
self-worth/self-esteem (also see Mumford et al., 2000). Similarly, Lord et al. (1999)
discuss the influences of leadership on short- and long-term employee self-concepts.
What remains to be clarified is how and why different leadership behaviors affect
employees’ self-concepts.

In their original theorizing on OBSE, Pierce et al. (1989) suggested that there are
three categories of organizational experiences that shape the self-perception of
organizational worthiness, each of which is to some degree influenced by the role
of managers and their associated behaviors. Much of the current scholarship focussed
on the antecedents of OBSE center on these three types of personal experiences within
the organizational context.

First, work environment structures (e.g. technology, job, and work unit design)
can influence employees’ OBSE. As Korman (1971) suggested, controlled social
environments lead to lower levels of global self-esteem, while high involvement ones
enhance global self-esteem. Increasing levels of work environment structure typically
result in system-imposed regulatory behaviors (e.g. close monitoring of employees’
behaviors). These highly structured work environments suggest to employees that
their ideas are not valued, and that they are incapable of effective self-regulation (Pierce
and Gardner, 2004). The absence of opportunities for successful self-regulation is
likely to lead employees to believe that they are not trusted “around here” and
question their ability to successfully engage in self-direction and self-control. As such,
manager-imposed barriers to the development of a sense of competency,
trustworthiness, and organizational importance lead to the emergence of low OBSE.

Conversely, social systems that allow for more autonomy and influence (i.e.
opportunities for involvement, effective self-direction, and self-control) tend to promote
perceptions of one’s trustworthiness, competence, and capability and the development
of higher levels of OBSE (Elloy, 2005; Elloy and Randolph, 1997). In sum, manager
behaviors (e.g. shared leadership) that allow for employee input, decision-making,
and the exercise of self-direction and self-control, are associated with higher OBSE,
while those manager behaviors that are more controlling (directive) in nature are

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associated with lower OBSE (McColl-Kennedy and Anderson, 2002; Vecchio, 2000;
Wang et al., 2010).

A second source of OBSE is related to the messages received from significant others
(e.g. leaders, managers, co-workers) within the workplace. When significant others tell
employees that they can successfully perform their job duties, provide organizational
support, and acknowledge employee accomplishments, employees’ OBSE should be
enhanced. Thus, manager behaviors that provide opportunities for followers to have
an impact on the organization should enhance the views employees have of themselves,
as opposed to being highly controlling and directive in nature (Borycki et al., 1998;
Gardner et al., 2004; McAllister and Bigley, 2002; Vecchio, 2000). There is some
empirical support for this proposition. De Cremer et al. (2005) examined “rewarding
leadership styles” as a possible antecedent of OBSE. Rewarding leadership styles
emphasize complimenting employees for their achievements, and motivating those
employees to reward themselves for their successes. De Cremer et al. (2005) reported a
positive relationship (r ¼ 0.40) between rewarding leadership styles and OBSE,
implying that messages from significant others (like managers) have substantial
effects on OBSE.

On the other hand, if managers are directive and controlling, this may have an
adverse effect on the employee’s OBSE since the message being sent would be that the
employee is not competent or trustworthy (Vecchio, 2000). For example, Wang et al.
(2010) found a statistically significant, negative relationship between perceived
authoritarian management style and OBSE. Managers who behave as if employees
have little to offer the organization beyond their labor have employees with low OBSE.
Thus, managers within the organization can influence, both positively and negatively,
the OBSE of their employees (Bowling et al., 2010).

Finally, as highlighted in past research on global self-esteem (Brockner, 1988;
Korman, 1970), employees’ direct experiences of success (failure) and their attributions
as to the locus of causality for those experiences also affect their level of self-esteem.
Past successes coupled with self-attributions for that success lead to higher levels of
self-esteem (Korman, 1971). Conversely, failures accompanied by self-attributions for
those failures would lower self-esteem, and increase the uncertainty of performance on
related tasks. Past success at work, under conditions of autonomy, spawns employee
attributions of self-regulation and control, leading to higher levels of OBSE (Gardner
and Pierce, 1998). Similar to methods proven to enhance self-efficacy (Bandura, 1982),
employees gain more confidence in their abilities by effectively utilizing the internal
(e.g. skills) and external (e.g. equipment) resources needed to succeed at a given task.
Thus, OBSE is enhanced by successfully executing work assignments and projects,
over and above effects due to managerial behaviors. However, managers that ensure
that employees have the resources that they need to succeed on their jobs, such as
through coaching of employees, will also have employees with high levels of OBSE.

In summary, we hypothesize that managers’ behaviors are a major influence upon
each of the three major sources by which organizational members come to a sense of
OBSE. Different leadership styles have different effects on employees’ self-concepts
(Lord et al., 1999). We reason here that directive/controlling managerial behaviors fail to
contribute to work opportunities that allow employees to engage in self-managing
behaviors (i.e. autonomy). The structures that result from directive behaviors signal
to employees that they are not capable of self-direction and self-control, nor can they be
trusted in making work-related decisions. We hypothesize that directive management
behaviors essentially suggest to the follower that they are less than competent;

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otherwise there would not be the need for the manager to oversee and control the
follower’s behavior.

Further, Mischel (1973) notes that behavior is a function of both the person and the
situation. He goes on to suggest that in strong situations, ensuing behavior is in large
part a function of the situation and not that of the person. High levels of directive
managerial behavior result in the creation of a strong situation for the employee.
As the strength of the situation increases it becomes increasingly difficult for the
employee to attribute performance success to the self, thereby limiting their access
to a second source of positive OBSE. We therefore hypothesize:

H1. There is a negative relationship between directive manager behaviors and
employees’ OBSE.

Related to the above, it would also stand to reason that managers who share leadership
with employees, develop team members through coaching, and focus on the future
(implying that employees will be an integral part of the organization’s future),
also create conditions for the development of higher levels of OBSE. Previous research
has supported the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors
and employee OBSE (Kark and Shamir, 2002; Kark et al., 2003; McColl-Kennedy and
Anderson, 2002; Rank et al., 2009). Transformational leadership, by definition, includes
a developmental aspect in which the leader helps “transform” employees to higher
levels of success. One of the four components of transformational leadership,
individualized consideration, is specific to understanding what each employee’s goals
are and to providing developmental opportunities in support of goal attainment.
Chen et al. (2005) found that those employees who perceive that the organization was
supporting them in their goals and desires had higher levels of OBSE and, as a result,
higher levels of organizational commitment and performance. Elloy and Randolph
(1997) and Elloy (2005, p. 259) found that “superleader” behaviors, which “help
members to recognize their own capacity for decision making”, had positive
relationships with employees’ level of OBSE. It seems that including employees in
future plans and providing developmental opportunities for each employee, as an
individual contributor, sends a message that the employee is valued by the
organization. As a result, such employees would perceive that their self-worth is higher
than those who perceive that they were not included in future planning and
developmental opportunities. Given this, we offer our next hypotheses:

H2. There is a positive relationship between shared leadership behaviors and
employees’ OBSE.

H3. There is a positive relationship between developmental manager behaviors and
employees’ OBSE.

H4. There is a positive relationship between future-oriented manager behaviors and
employees’ OBSE.

Consequences of OBSE
Reviews of the OBSE literature (Bowling et al., 2010; Pierce and Gardner, 2004) reveal
that there are several personal and work-related outcomes that have been linked to this
self-concept. Among these effects is a positive relationship with job satisfaction and
organizational commitment, and a negative relationship with turnover intentions.
Those employees with higher levels of OBSE have been found to be more satisfied with
their jobs. Some studies have shown that as much as 34 percent of the variance in job

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satisfaction has been associated with OBSE (Pierce et al., 1989). Some of this variance
might be attributed to the feelings of personal achievement that results from having
higher levels of OBSE (Bowden, 2002). It would seem logical that those employees who
feel better about themselves and their worth to the organization (OBSE) would
be more satisfied with the jobs that created those positive feelings. We offer our
next hypothesis:

H5. There is a positive relationship between OBSE and job satisfaction.

In addition, based upon current scholarship, we would expect employees with higher
levels of OBSE to be more committed to their organization. Perhaps this is related
to the employee’s identification with the organization with which they are a viable,
contributing member (Bowden, 2002; Kark and Shamir, 2002; Kark et al., 2003). If
organizational members feel good about their value to an organization, and this
creates stronger identification with that organization, it would seem to follow that they
would be more affectively attached to the organization simply because they want to be
affiliated with that source of pleasure. Thus, we hypothesize:

H6. There is a positive relationship between OBSE and affective organizational
commitment.

Experiences that result in personal beliefs that “I count around here, I make a difference
around here, and I am an important part of this place” are associated with positive
affect (cf. Bowling et al., 2010; Pierce and Gardner, 2004). Given the hedonistic nature of
the human condition, it is difficult to envision that these types of experiences would be
associated with avoidance intentions and/or behaviors. Empirical evidence reveals
a negative relationship between OBSE and both turnover and absenteeism intentions
(Bowling et al., 2010; Pierce and Gardner, 2004). Employees who feel better about their
overall worth to the organization want to stay with that organization. Perhaps the
certainty of knowing that their value to an organization is high would override any
motivations to join other organizations, where their importance is undetermined.
Conversely, those who do not feel their worth is high within an organization might
think about leaving that organization, and try to find an organization where they can
feel more valued and worthwhile (Korman, 2001). Thus, those employees lower in
OBSE would perhaps seek other employment opportunities and form higher turnover
intentions. Though turnover behaviors are permanent in nature (it is rare for an
organization to re-hire an employee who has quit), it would seem logical that low OBSE
employees would also have stronger intentions to voluntarily be absent from work. We
would expect employees lower in OBSE to form absence intentions more strongly than
their high-OBSE counterparts, to protect what little self-esteem that they possess
(Korman, 2001). Therefore, we offer our next two hypotheses:

H7. There is a negative relationship between OBSE and turnover intentions.

H8. There is a negative relationship between OBSE and absence intentions.

Manager influence on OBSE: consequences and process
It has been reasoned above that manager behaviors have effects on OBSE, and that
OBSE is related to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and withdrawal
intentions. Similar observations, connecting manager behaviors with follower attitudes
and behavior, have been repeatedly observed (cf. Dulebohn et al., 2012). In this section,
we argue that OBSE serves as a major linchpin between manager behaviors and

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employee outcomes, thereby providing insight into one psychological process that
explains “how” manager behavior impacts employee (follower) personal and work
outcomes.

Building on the work of Shamir et al. (1993) we posit that manager behavior in
general, and manager directive, and future and development-oriented behaviors
in particular, impact follower attitudes, motivation, and behavior as a result of the
effects of these behaviors on the follower’s OBSE. Energized by self-enhancement
(Dipboye, 1977) and self-verification motives (Swann, 1984), employees are going to
find directive managerial behaviors to be a constraint on the demonstration of one’s
competence, worthiness, and growth, thereby leading to low OBSE. This in turn leads
to a lowering of job satisfaction and affective commitment, and a strengthening of
withdrawal intentions.

Manager behaviors that are future oriented and that promote development create
conditions where one can experience self-enhancement through opportunities to reveal
one’s organizational worthiness. Non-directive and future- and developmental-oriented
manager behaviors express confidence in the follower. In addition, these behaviors
communicate a perceived worth and efficacy in the follower, all of which positively
affects the follower’s OBSE (Shamir et al., 1993). Higher OBSE then promotes and
sustains high commitment and membership attitudes.

In a somewhat similar vein, Shamir et al. (1993) hypothesize that transformational
leadership is a set of leader behaviors that enhances follower self-esteem. In light of the
observation that transformational leaders employ “individualized consideration” as a
leadership tool, we believe the support, encouragement, and coaching provided to
followers to be consistent with follower development of OBSE. In addition, two other
behaviors engaged in by the transformational leader (i.e. intellectual stimulation and
inspirational motivation) appear to be counter to highly directive manager behavior.
Thus, we reason that the positive effects stemming from non-directive manager
behavior is, in part, a function of the positive effect that this behavior has upon the
follower’s OBSE. Thus, we hypothesize:

H9. OBSE mediates the negative relationships between directive manager
behaviors and employee job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and the
positive relationships with turnover and absence intentions.

H10. OBSE mediates the positive relationships between shared leadership
behaviors and follower job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and the
negative relationships with turnover and absence intentions.

H11. OBSE mediates the positive relationships between developmental manager
behaviors and follower job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and the
negative relationships with turnover and absence intentions.

H12. OBSE mediates the positive relationships between future-oriented manager
behaviors and follower job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and the
negative relationships with turnover and absence intentions.

Methods
Sample and procedures
Data were collected from a large multinational manufacturer of computer hardware
and software. The main purpose for the data collection was to support a consultant’s

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efforts to introduce self-managed teams to the work units (none of the authors were the
consultant). In exchange for one of the author’s participation, the consultant
incorporated measures that have been previously validated in the extant organizational
behavior research literature (see full description below). All of the participants held
software development and support jobs (e.g. software specialist, system support
consultant, software engineer). There were 1,386 participants; 82 percent were male,
64 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher, average age was 35 years, average
company tenure was 5.27 years, and average job tenure was 2.62 years. One of the
authors personally collected the survey data. Participants completed surveys in groups
during work hours, and either handed or mailed the survey directly to the author/
administrator.

Measures
OBSE: was assessed with the ten-item instrument developed and validated by Pierce
et al. (1989).

Overall job satisfaction: was measured with the 20-item Minnesota Satisfaction
Scale (Weiss et al., 1967).

Organizational commitment: was measured with the 15-item Organization
Commitment Scale (Mowday et al., 1979).

Turnover and absence intentions: there are no widely accepted measures of these
behavioral intentions, which led us to create items similar to those used in past research
(e.g. Chen and Spector, 1992; Hom et al., 1984). Employing a five-point Likert-type
scale, we employed two items to index absence intent (e.g. “I expect to be absent from
work at least once in the next two months”) and two for turnover intent (e.g. “I expect to
quit my job within the next three years”) which were summed to form a measure of the
two behavioral intention variables.

Perceived management/supervisor behaviors: were measured with a single
categorical item developed specifically for this organization. It asked each participant
to describe the single role that best described their “manager or supervisor”. Options
were: directs each member’s work (Directs), manages group effort with focus on goals
(Goal-oriented), shares leadership with members who are goal-focussed (Shares
Leadership), coaches the team and manages team interface with other groups or
managers (Coaches and Interfaces), and focusses on team future and team development
(Future-oriented). The group goal-oriented manager role does not provide a test of our
hypotheses, but results for it are reported below for exploratory purposes.

In an ideal situation a widely used and previously validated measure of leadership
style (e.g. LMX; Scandura and Graen, 1984) would have been employed. In our study,
this was not possible as the organization and consultant had specific objectives
for this measure that were not consistent with existing leadership style scales. The
operationalization of manager behaviors that we employed is not uncommon in
leadership research, as it allowed participants to rate manager behaviors in a way that
“typecast” their managers in terms that are familiar to them (e.g. Bass and Avolio, 1994;
Sosik and Dionne, 1997 in McColl-Kennedy and Anderson, 2002).

Analyses
Over the last 25 years the majority of research on mediated relationships has used a
statistical procedure outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986). Recently this method for
detecting mediation effects has been found to have low statistical power, requiring two

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statistically significant relationships to support mediation when only one is needed to
provide support for an indirect relationship (Preacher and Hayes, 2004). In addition,
when a Sobel test is employed to test the statistical significance of mediation (the
product of the regression coefficients for the X→M (a) and M→Y (b) pathways) it
assumes a normal distribution of the test statistic under the null hypothesis (where X is
the predictor variable, M is the mediator, and Y is the dependent variable). This
assumption has been seriously questioned, as the product of the two coefficients (ab) is
usually skewed and non-symmetrical, and this results in an underpowered test of
mediation (Preacher and Hayes, 2004). Instead, we use bootstrapping to create the
sampling distribution for ab, and then derive 95 percent confidence intervals for
the observed mediation coefficients. Bootstrapping is a nonparametric approach to
mediation tests that does not make assumptions about the sampling distribution of the
mediation test statistic (ab). If the resulting confidence intervals for the test statistics do
not include zero, there is support for a statistically significant mediated relationship. In
our case, we used multiple regression to calculate the ab mediation coefficient, and
tested the coefficient with 10,000 bootstrapped samples from the raw data (see Hayes
and Preacher, 2014; Preacher and Hayes, 2004, for full descriptions, the rationale
for and the execution of this method). In addition, we analyzed the raw data using an
SPSS macro written by Hayes and Preacher (Mediate, available at www.afhayes.com/
spss-sas-and-mplus-macros-and-code.html#sobel) to accommodate the categorical
nature of our predictor variable (participant’s description of the manager’s role in
supervising employees).

Results
Table I presents the descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of the study variables.
Because correlations between the single categorical managerial role variable and the
other variables are non-interpretable, we created five binary (0, 1) variables to represent
each of the five managerial roles, where 0 is not checked, and 1 is checked for the role
that describes the participant’s manager’s behavior. These are reported only for
descriptive purposes, to suggest the nature of the relationships between each of the
management roles and the other variables measured in the study. Analyses reported
below provide more precise, simultaneous tests of these role relationships.

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5

1. OBSEa 2.91 0.76 (0.91)c

2. Org. commitment 3.16 0.42 0.27** (0.63)
3. Overall job satisfaction 3.65 0.56 0.43** 0.26** (0.88)
4. Quit intent 2.44 1.25 −0.47** −0.29** −0.68** (0.73)
5. Absence intent 2.02 1.08 −0.18** 0.01 −0.06* 0.08** (0.71)
6. Direct membersb 0.05 0.21 0.08** 0.08** 0.05* −0.05 0.01
7. Manages group with goalsb 0.14 0.35 −0.37** −0.13** −0.03 0.14** 0.12**
8. Shares leadershipb 0.25 0.43 −0.01 −0.17** −0.31** 0.27** 0.08**
9. Coaches and interfacesb 0.42 0.49 0.00 0.17** 0.01 −0.12** −0.11**
10. Focuses on futureb 0.14 0.35 0.32** 0.06* 0.36** −0.27** −0.06*
Notes: aOrganization-based self-esteem; bcoded 0 ¼ no, 1 ¼ yes, point biserial correlations are
reported where appropriate; csample coefficient α appear on diagonal in parentheses, where appro-
priate. *po0.05; **po0.01 (two-tailed)

Table I.
Descriptive statistics
and intercorrelations

of study variables

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www.afhayes.com/spss-sas-and-mplus-macros-and-code.html#sobel

Consistent with much prior research (Pierce and Gardner, 2004), OBSE is significantly
correlated ( po0.05) with job satisfaction (0.43; H5), organization commitment (0.27;
H6), and quit (−0.47; H7) and absence (−0.18; H8) intent. In addition, OBSE is
significantly and positively correlated with “directs members” (0.08; H9) and “focuses
on the future” (0.32; H12) managerial roles, but negatively with the “manages group
with goals” (−0.37). There are no specific hypotheses about this latter relationship. The
lack of a significant correlation with the shared leadership, and coaches and interfaces
roles was unexpected. The positive relationship between the “directs” role and OBSE is
opposite to what was hypothesized. We discuss possible reasons for these results in the
discussion section.

Tables II-IV present the results from the tests of the mediation relationships. Note
that the reported coefficients are non-standardized and therefore should not be
interpreted like correlation coefficients. We used effects coding of the categorical
predictor variable (managerial role). This contrasts the means for each managerial role
against the pooled (grand) mean for all of the roles. Because this type of analysis
arbitrarily uses one category as a reference group (directs members in our case), two
sets of analyses are required to obtain all of the results reported in these tables (see
Cohen et al., 2003, p. 315). Table II summarizes the total direct relationships of the
different managerial roles with the four outcome variables in the study. The Baron and
Kenny (1986) test for mediation requires significant relationships between the predictor
and outcome variables, but this is not now believed to be necessary for an indirect
effect to occur (as opposed to mediation; see Preacher and Hayes, 2004). As a result,
these results are reported here for informational purposes only.

Table III summarizes the results for the relationships between the predictor
(managerial role) and mediator (OBSE), and is analogous to a one-way ANOVA

Managerial Role
Organization
commitment

Overall job
satisfaction

Quit
intent

Absence
intent

Directs members 0.15** 0.08 −0.24** 0.02
Manages group with
goals

−0.14** −0.10* 0.48** 0.27**

Shares leadership −0.13** −0.37** 0.65** 0.11
Coaches and interfaces 0.07** −0.06* −0.12* −0.18**
Focusses on future 0.05* 0.44* −0.77** −0.22**
R2 0.25 0.19 0.15 0.03
F(4, 1381) 22.94** 80.02** 58.78** 9.12**
Notes: *po0.05; **po0.01 (two-tailed)

Table II.
Total direct
relationships of
perceived managerial
roles with outcome
variables

Managerial role OBSE

Directs members 0.25**
Manages group with goals −0.73**
Shares leadership −0.05
Coaches and interfaces −0.04
Focusses on future 0.56**
Notes: *po0.05; **po0.01 (two-tailed)

Table III.
Direct relationships
of perceived
managerial roles
with organization-
based self-esteem

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O
rg
.c
om

m
it
m
en
t

O
ve
ra
ll
jo
b
sa
ti
sf
ac
ti
on

Q
ui
t

in
te
nt

A
bs
en
ce

in
te
nt

B
L
L
C
I

U
L
C
I

B
L
L
C
I
U
L
C
I
B
L
L
C
I
U
L
C
I
B
L
L
C
I
U
L
C
I

D
ir
ec
ts

m
em

be
rs

0.
03

0.
01

0.
02

0.
07

0.
05

0.
10
*

−
0.
18

−
0.
23

−
0.
12
*

−

0.
06

−
0.
09

−
0.
03

M
an
ag
es

gr
ou
p
w
it
h
go
al
s

−
0.
10

−
0.
13

−

0.
08

−
0.
21

−
0.
25

−
0.
18
*

0.
51

0.
43

0.
60
*

0.
16

0.
07

0.
26
*

Sh
ar
es

le
ad
er
sh
ip

−
0.
08

−
0.
02

0.
00

−
0.
02
−
0.
03
0.
00

0.
04

−
0.
01

0.
08
0.
01

−
0.
00

0.
03

C
oa
ch
es

an
d
in
te
rf
ac
es

−
0.
01
−
0.
01
0.
00
−
0.
01
−
0.
03
0.
01
0.
03
−
0.
01
0.
07
0.
01
−
0.
00
0.
02

F
oc
us
es

on
fu
tu
re

0.
08
0.
06
0.
10
*
0.
06
0.
05

0.
08
*

−
0.
40

−
0.
47

−
0.
33
*

−
0.
13

−
0.
19

−
0.
06
*

N
o
te
s:

B
,m

ed
ia
ti
on

co
ef
fi
ci
en
t
(a
b)
;L

L
C
I,
bo
ot
st
ra
pp

ed
lo
w
er

lim

it
co
nf
id
en
ce

in
te
rv
al
(2
.5
pe
rc
en
t)
;U

L
C
I,
bo
ot
st
ra
pp

ed
up

pe
r
lim

it
co
nf
id
en
ce

in
te
rv
al
(9
7.
5

pe
rc
en
t)
;1
0,
00
0
bo
ot
st
ra
pp

ed
sa
m
pl
es

of
ra
w

da
ta
.*
Si
gn

if
ic
an
t
m
ed
ia
ti
on

ef
fe
ct
;c
on
fi
de
nc
e
in
te
rv
al

do
es

no
t
in
cl
ud

e
0

Table IV.
Tests of mediation

effect of OBSE
on managerial
role – outcome
relationships

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(Cohen and Cohen, 1983). Three of the different categories of manager role perceptions
have statistically significant ( po0.05) relationships with OBSE: positive for “directs
members” (0.25), and “focus on the future” (0.56), and negative for manages group with
goals (−0.73). The positive relationship between the directive management role and
OBSE is contrary to H1. The positive relationship between the future-oriented
management role and OBSE supports H4. H2 and H3 are not supported as there are no
significant relationships between shared leadership (H2) and developmental (H3)
managerial behaviors, and OBSE. Though not hypothesized, there is a significant
negative relationship between managing the group with goals, and OBSE. Table IV
presents the results for the tests of mediation. A statistically significant ( po0.05)
mediation relationship is demonstrated by a 95 percent confidence interval around
the obtained coefficient that does not include zero. There is evidence that OBSE
mediates the relationship between “directs members”, “focuses on future”, and
“manages group with goals” perceived managerial roles for all four of the employee
outcome variables. The results indicate that OBSE mediates a positive relationship
between “directs members” and job satisfaction and organizational commitment,
and a negative relationship with turnover and absence intent. This is contrary to H9.
The results also indicate that OBSE mediates a positive relationship between
future-oriented managerial behaviors and job satisfaction and organizational
commitment, and a negative relationship with turnover and absence intent. This
finding supports H12. Stated differently, employees who perceive their managers as
clarifying expectations, or as one who anticipates future changes in managing the
group, also have higher OBSE, which in turn has its expected relationships
with the dependent variables. Finally, while not hypothesized, OBSE mediates a
negative relationship between group goal-oriented managerial behaviors and job
satisfaction and organizational commitment, and a positive relationship with turnover
and absence intent. Those managers who are perceived as leading their work
groups with a focus on group goals have employees with lower levels of OBSE.
OBSE does not mediate the shared leadership or the coaching and interfacing
managerial roles on any of the outcome variables, providing no support for
H10 and H11.

Discussion
OBSE significantly and positively correlated with job satisfaction and organizational
commitment, and negatively correlated with both quit and absence intentions,
consistent with our hypotheses and much prior research (Pierce and Gardner, 2004).
Additionally, OBSE is positively and significantly related to the “directs members” and
“focuses on the future” manager behaviors; the latter relation is as expected, but the
former relationship was unanticipated. We expected that managers who focus on
the future would have a positive impact on follower OBSE, similar to the effects of
a transformational leader’s “individualized consideration” component (Shamir et al.,
1993). However, prior theorizing related to the self-regulatory processes of
self-enhancement and verification (Dipboye, 1977; Swann, 1984) led us to propose
that directive manager behaviors will have an adverse impact on follower OBSE, and
as a consequence be dissatisfying. While our empirical observations run counter to this
proposition, there may be mitigating circumstances related to the host organization’s
transition to self-managed teams. It might be that this major change to employees’
routines created ambiguity for them. Managers who directed employees’ efforts during
this transition may have alleviated this ambiguity, which in turn had positive effects on

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OBSE (see Pierce et al., 1989). This notion is similar to the propositions extended by
Hersey and Blanchard (1969) in their situational (life cycle) leadership theory. Early in
one’s organizational tenure, directive behaviors exhibited by managers might be
perceived as providing clarity for one’s role in the organization, thereby contributing
positively to OBSE. While our observation was unexpected, future research should
explore the boundary conditions and dynamics associated with the directive
behavior – OBSE relationship. Directive manager behaviors are not always
perceived negatively by employees, and may result in employee successes that
bolster OBSE.

OBSE was found to mediate the positive relationship between future-oriented
manager behaviors and both job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and
mediates the negative relationship between future-oriented manager behaviors
and both turnover and absence intent. Since future-oriented behaviors imply
confidence in the follower, we proposed that these effects on OBSE would then be
reflected in employee job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover and
absence intent. Since, by definition, OBSE is related to the follower’s self-perceived
value and worth to the organization, it would seem that manager behaviors that reflect
confidence in the follower’s abilities would facilitate a beneficial subsequent impact on
the four dependent variables (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, absence
and turnover intent). The implication for managers is that they should convey to
employees that the employee fits into the work group’s long-term plans, as long as that
is true. Related, managers should not assume that employees view the work
environment in the same way as the manager does. Managers need to draw employees’
attention to decisions and actions that affirm the employees’ importance to the group
(cf. Gardner and Pierce, 2013).

The results obtained in this study offer several contributions to both theory and
practice. First, the results observed between OBSE and job satisfaction, organizational
commitment, and both turnover and absence intentions provide further support to the
extant OBSE theoretical and empirical literature (Bowling et al., 2010; Pierce and
Gardner, 2004). In addition, we extend OBSE research into the area of leadership. The
results obtained here strengthens leadership theory in general, and transformational
(Bass, 1985; Bass and Avolio, 1994) and situational leadership (Hersey and Blanchard,
1969) theories in particular. It also supports the Lord et al. (1999) proposition that
different leadership styles will have different effects on employees’ self-concepts. By
showing support for the relationship between OBSE and the individualized
consideration aspect of transformational leadership, we provide further support for
the positive impact that transformational leadership can have on desirable
organizational variables. In addition, we provide possible research directions to
explore situational (life-cycle) effects on follower OBSE by finding a possible exception
to the expected relationship between directive leadership and employee OBSE, based
on role ambiguity within the organization.

We found fairly substantial effects of the “manages group with goals” management
role on OBSE, and that OBSE mediated the group goals management role on the
employee outcome variables. We did not develop formal hypotheses about the effects of
managing the work group with goals, but are surprised that the effect is large and
negative. Perhaps the emphasis on group goals comes at the expense of the individual
consideration that bolsters OBSE. If a manager does not simultaneously dedicate
efforts to both individual and group success, one or the other might suffer (see Lord
et al., 1999). In the situation where group goals receive the majority of the manager’s

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attention, OBSE of individual employees might decline. This conjecture warrants
further investigation, given that many managers are assessed in terms of the success
of both employees and the work group.

Though the study has several contributions, there are also some limitations that
should be noted. First, the management behavior measure has some inherent
limitations (e.g. the inability to examine the instrument’s internal consistency
reliability). Given the objectives of the management of this organization, we were
limited to utilizing a single ipsative item to measure perceived manager behaviors.
While this measurement approach to leadership research has been previously
employed (Bass and Avolio, 1994; Sosik and Dionne, 1997), it is accompanied by
limitations. Any attempts to replicate this work might utilize an instrument that has
stronger supportive construct validation evidence. The data we collected were
cross-sectional in nature. As a consequence, the relationships we found cannot
establish causality. In the cases of empirical support for some of our hypotheses, they
merely reflect what would be found if the hypotheses were true, at a po0.05 level.
This investigation is also restricted by the fact that all of our data were obtained from
a single source (employees). Thus, these observations are susceptible to common
method bias. Finally, our sample size was large, but all of our survey participants
come from a single organization within a single industry, who were experiencing
a major organizational change. These conditions restrict the generalizability of our
research findings. This limitation furthers the call for this study to be replicated
involving a more heterogeneous sampling of manager-follower relationships
and organizations. Additionally, while we mention self-efficacy as a related
concept, the current study did not examine the possible relationship between
self-efficacy and OBSE. Future studies could explore these possible relationships
more closely.

Conclusion
The study conducted here contributes to OBSE research through its examination of the
potential impact that manager behaviors have on follower OBSE. OBSE is a critical
variable within organizational research, and it is important that we continue to examine
its antecedents and consequences. The positive impact that OBSE can have within the
organizational context is enhanced by knowledge of the factors that contribute to
OBSE. It is important that we continue to engage in replication, convergence, and
extension research efforts, in order to explore the boundaries of the variables of
interest, and to expand the network of related variables in order to continue to inform
both theory and practice. Finally, the empirical observations reported here provide
some insight into the question “How does leadership affect employee personal and
work outcomes?” by suggesting that at least in part it may be through the effects that
these behaviors have upon employees’ OBSE.

Note
1. Note that we prefer to use the term “leader” to describe managers who also engage in

effective leader behaviors. We use the term “manager” to describe those employees given
the legitimate, reward, and coercive power to regulate the behaviors of subordinates
for the benefit of the organization. However, in our study we asked participants to describe
their managers and supervisors, and use the term manager in the context of our research
design.

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About the authors
Dr Steve M. Norman earned his PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is a Tenured
Associate Professor of Management at the Colorado State University-Pueblo where he teaches
courses in organizational behavior, management, and leadership. Steve’s research and consulting
interests include the areas of authentic and transformational leadership, electronic leadership,
positive psychological capital, OBSE, and select other organizational behavior concepts.

Dr Donald G. Gardner earned his PhD in Organizational Behavior from the Purdue
University. He is currently a Professor of Management and Organization at the University of

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Colorado at Colorado Springs. He teaches courses in human resource management, labor
relations, and management. He was also the first Associate Dean in the College and was the Chair
of the Management Department. Dr Gardner has also held visiting appointments at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Helsinki School of Economics and Business, the Australian
Graduate School of Management, and James Cook University in Queensland, Australia (where he
was also the Head of School). Dr Gardner has published and presented over 70 research articles in
the areas of organizational behavior and human resource management. Dr Donald G. Gardner is
the corresponding author and can be contacted at: dgardner@uccs.edu

Dr Jon L. Pierce is a Professor of Organization and Management in the Labovitz School
of Business and Economics at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He received his PhD in
Management and Organizational Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He teaches
courses in organizational behavior, management, and leadership. Dr Pierce was a Visiting
Scholar in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. His
research is centered on the psychology of work and organizations in general, and currently
focussed on psychological ownership and the self-concept within the work and organizational
context.

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mailto:dgardner@uccs.edu

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Managing managerial identities: Organizational fragmentation, discourse and identity struggle
Sveningsson, Stefan;Alvesson, Mats
Human Relations; Oct 2003; 56, 10; ProQuest
pg. 1163

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Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350

Dancing in the dark: Making sense of managerial roles during strategic
conversations

Florence Allard-Poesi*
Paris-Est University, Institut de Recherche en Gestion (EA2354), France

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history:
Received 2 May 2013
Received in revised form 25 March 2015
Accepted 5 April 2015

Keywords:
Sensemaking
Strategic conversation
Managerial roles
Contradictions
Discourse

A B S T R A C T

This article explores how managers make sense of their strategic roles when confronted with
contradictory expectations from top management. Relying on Edwards and Potter’s version of discourse
analysis (DA), we analyze extracts of conversations between a director and a team of managers as they
strive to elaborate a strategic project for a large association within the social sector. Our research
complements prior research on managerial roles in (1) showing that the sensemaking of managerial roles
relies on the construction and contestation of scripted descriptions of the organization and its
environment, (2) demonstrating how the managers and the director both contribute to the fabric of
contradicted versions of the managerial roles and (3) how participants’ will to power contributes to the
“dance” observed.

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Scandinavian Journal of Management

journal homepage: www.elsev ier.com/locate /sca man

1 While managers’ contribution to strategizing can be regarded as part of their

1. Introduction

This article aims to understand how managers make sense of
their strategic roles during conversations. Research in strategic
management has emphasized the key role that middle managers
play, particularly in terms of strategic renewal. Middle managers
need to make sense of the strategic orientations given by top
management, that is to interpret and enact these orientations
through the creation of the adequate structures, systems and
personnel. They also have to make sense of experiences and
information from the field and possibly champion these strategic
orientations (Mantere, 2005; Regnér, 2003). These contributions of
middle managers to strategizing, which may be referred to as their
strategic role, depend on their understanding of who they are in
the organization and what is expected of them, i.e., on how they
make sense of these strategic roles.

Following an interactionist perspective, a role may be defined as
an intermediary translation device between oneself and others
(Simpson & Caroll, 2008; p. 33–34) of how one should act in a
particular situation. Roles are intermediaries between personal
identity (i.e., the more or less temporary stabilization of one’s own
definition of who I am, Alvesson & Willmott, 2002) and others, be
they specific persons (i.e., the boss, some colleagues) or more

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 141784767.
E-mail address: allard-poesi@u-pec.fr (F. Allard-Poesi).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2015.04.002
0956-5221/ã 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

generalized others1 including professional or occupational identi-
ties (i.e., the more or less temporary stabilization of some abstract
and institutionalized conception of one’s own profession).

This definition calls attention to the discursive and political
dimensions of managers’ roles. Roles, write Simpson and Carroll
(2008; p. 33), “sit as boundary object[s] in the middle of
intersubjective interactions” and “translate[s] meanings back-
wards and forwards between actors” (p. 34). They are the object of
continuous negotiation between individual strivings and external
prescriptions, personal conceptions and organizational or institu-
tional discourses (Mantere & Vaara, 2008). As such, roles are the
locus of power struggles and the dynamics of control and
resistance (see Laine & Vaara, 2007; Thomas, Sargent, & Hardy,
2011), where power, following a conversation analytic view of a
Foucauldian conception (Foucault, 1982), is understood as
relational and exercised in talk-in-interactions (Samra-Fredericks,
2005; p. 811; Heritage, 1987). In this perspective, the sensemaking
of roles in organizations does not rely exclusively on the actions
(i.e., the decision taken, the communicative practices) of those who

occupation as managers, we prefer to talk about the manager’s strategic role (and of
managers’ roles) rather than managers’ occupations, considering that being a
manager conveys a much more ambiguous, unstable and contextual definition
compared to what is usually referred to as an occupation (e.g., doctor, firefighter, see
Bechky, 2006, 2011).

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1016/j.scaman.2015.04.002&domain=pdf

mailto:allard-poesi@u-pec.fr

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2015.04.002

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09565221

www.elsevier.com/locate/scaman

F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350 339

are in a superior hierarchical position, but depends on both the
superior’s and the subordinates’ communicative actions
(Schneider, 2007) through which they create, assemble, produce
and reproduce the social structure through which they orient
(Heritage, 1987; p. 231).

While the managers’ identity construction processes has
received much attention in the last decade (see Alvesson &
Willmott, 2002; Alvesson, Ashcraft, & Thomas, 2008; Ybema,
Keenoy, Oswick, Bevereungen, Ellis, & Sabelis, 2009), and while
recent strategy-as-practice research has contributed to the
understanding of manager roles in the sensemaking and enact-
ment of strategy (see Rouleau, 2005; Balogun & Johnson, 2004;
Mantere, 2005, 2008), the actual construction of the managers’
strategic role has been neglected.

We consider this problematic in so far that while managers are
the maître d’oeuvre2 of strategy, they often face ambiguous if not
contradictory expectations from top managers (Lüscher & Lewis,
2008; Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2003). As “Who we think we are
(identity) as organizational actors shapes what we enact and how
we interpret” (Weick, Sutcliffe & Obstfeld, 2005; p. 416), managers
may be incapable of making sense of the strategic orientations and
how to act, if they do not know what role they have in the strategic
process and in the organization (see Balogun & Johnson, 2004).
Lack of clarity of participants’ roles in a strategic project may also
encourage useless struggles for territory, thereby impeding
structuring and collective sensemaking (see Patriotta & Spedale,
2009, 2011).

In a similar way, managers may find it difficult to commit
themselves to any one course of action (Maitlis & Sonenshein,
2010) and so retrench themselves in a passive or cynical attitude
regarding the top management’s strategic initiatives (McCabe,
2009; Mantere & Vaara, 2008).

This article aims to understand how managers make sense of
their strategic roles when confronted with contradictory expect-
ations from top management. Considering conversations and
interactions as the privileged medium through which people
negotiate and make sense of their roles (Balogun & Johnson, 2004;
p. 545), we rely here on Edwards and Potter (1992)’s version of
Discourse Analysis, a variant of Conversational Analysis, to analyze
conversations between a director and a team of managers who are
in the process of elaborating a strategic project in a large French
association within the social sector.

Our research contributes to prior research on managerial
roles in three related ways. First, it shows that managers and
the director make sense of the managers’ strategic role by
relying on descriptions of oneself and others (e.g., Simpson &
Caroll, 2008; Edwards, 1994, 1995), and on the construction and
contestation of scripted descriptions of the organization and its
environment. Second, while previous research has underscored
that different organizational actors may hold different dis-
courses about their roles in the strategy process (Mantere &
Vaara, 2008; Laine & Vaara, 2007), our research shows how the
same actors may develop, and oscillate, between different and
contradictory conceptions of their roles during the same
meeting; thereby engaging in a sort of dance that contributes
to the lack of clarity (the dark) in the definition of the managers’
role. Third, while prior research has shown that power struggles
during conversations may lead to trench warfare between actors
and the loss of sensemaking of the task at hand (Patriotta &
Spedale, 2009), our analysis show how participants may also
oscillate among contradictory concepts of their roles as the
result of their will to power during the conversation, leading

2 The maître d’oeuvre, literally the Master of Works, acts as a bridge, for example,
between the architect and the end client and building companies.

them to lose control over their argumentation. On the whole, the
research shows how sensemaking of managerial roles evolves in,
and is shaped by, discrete conversations between top manage-
ment and middle managers in strategy meetings. It contributes
to the understanding of how political and interpretative
dynamics drive the sensemaking of managers’ strategic roles
in the organization during conversations among the actors.

This article is organized around four sections. First, we briefly
review previous work on how managers make sense of their
strategic roles. Second, we describe the context within which this
research took place, and, the methods of data collection and
analysis that were used. We then present the discourses of the
director and the managers concerning the strategic roles of the
managers, and conduct a detailed analysis of two sequences of
conversations in which the managers and the director oscillate
between different conceptions of their roles. Finally, we discuss the
research contributions.

2. Making sense of manager’s strategic roles

Three complementary strands of research may contribute to our
understanding of how managers make sense of their strategic
roles.

2.1. Managers’ strategic roles: a reaction to top managers’ sensegiving

A first research strand concerns the top managers’ efforts to
shape or frame other managers’ understandings of their roles,
in particular during strategic change. In this perspective, top
managers are seen first as engaged in sensemaking activities so
as to make sense of the strategic orientations and the
organizational structure supporting this strategy, and second
as committing to sensegiving activities so as to convince the
managers and the other organizational members to embrace
their vision (cf. Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991). In an in-depth
investigation of the effects of top management’s discourse on
managers’ understanding of their roles in the strategy process,
Mantere and Vaara (2008), and Laine and Vaara (2007) show
two contrasting reactions from managers and other organiza-
tional actors. Whether promoting a participative or a hierarchi-
cal, disciplinary (non-participative) concept of the strategy
process, managers generally adhere to the discourse promoted
by top managers. However, a few managers do resist top
manager’s expectations, in particular when these are under-
stood as an attempt from top managers to reinforce their
hegemony (Laine & Vaara, 2007) or to keep managers in a
rather passive or subordinate role of execution (Mantere &
Vaara, 2008). Far from always taking on the expected role of a
passive transmitter of corporate strategy, some managers even
develop counter-conceptions through which they reaffirm their
roles as strategic innovators (Laine & Vaara, 2007) or promote a
more collective vision of the strategic process (Mantere & Vaara,
2008). These results confirm previous research on identity
regulation (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002), which outlined that
organizational members may either endorse or resist identity
regulation3 attempts from the organization.

While this research investigates both the top management’s
and the other’s managers sensegiving/sensemaking, a second
research strand focuses on the middle managers’ sensemaking
process during strategic change.

3 Identity regulation refers to the organization’s discourses and practices that
seek to shape the worker’s identity (see Alvesson & Willmott, 2002).

340 F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350

2.2. Managers’ strategic roles: managers’ sensemaking

Contrasting with the first approach, this research underscores
that the discourses and practices from top management during
strategic change may be unclear or even contradictory so that
managers do not only react to top managers’ expectations; they
have to make sense of their roles as change unfolds. Balogun and
Johnson (2004) show that the top management’s decision to
engage in a major organizational restructuring in a UK electricity
provider lacked operational content so that the managers at the
head of the different divisions had to make sense of the
restructuring and engage in lengthy negotiation in order to
mutually define their roles in the new structure. This process took
place mainly through their informal interactions and outside the
control of senior managers.

Other researchers have pointed out the contradictory messages
addressed to middle managers during strategic change. Lüscher
and Lewis (2008) show the difficulty that production team
managers have in making sense of their new roles when executive
managers are asking them, for example, to build effective teams
while ensuring productivity. Confronted with what the authors call
the paradox of performing, should managers take the time to deal
with conflicts in their team or rather keep the team focused on
productivity (p. 232)? This ambiguity is that much stronger when
the discourse (valuing risk-taking and initiative, for instance)
enters into conflict with practices (that reward conformity to the
plans defined by top management, see Alvesson & Sveningsson,
2003).

Confronted with unclear or contradictory discourses regarding
their strategic roles, managers must make their own sense of what
is expected of them. These processes result in different under-
standings ranging from the adoption of a contradictory or schizoid
concept of their roles, incorporating the antagonisms of the
organizational discourse (Lüscher & Lewis, 2008), from the
rejection of the strategic discourse as a whole (McCabe, 2009)
or to a selective reconstruction of certain aspects and the rejection
of others (see Humphreys & Brown, 2002; Clarke, Brown, & Hope
Hailey, 2009).

2.3. Manager’s strategic roles: co-constructed sensemaking through
conversations involving both top and the other managers

A third, emerging research strand investigates the process
underlying these different sensemaking dynamics. Activating both
interpretative and socio-political dynamics (Rouleau, 2005),
conversations that take place during formal meetings, work
sessions or informal encounters are the privileged medium
through which both sensemaking and organizational structuring
occur (see Crevani, Lindgren, & Packendorff, 2010; Patriotta &
Spedale, 2009, 2011; Weick, 1993, 1990). Bechky (2006) showed
how, through polite admonishing, joking and thanking, role
expectations in a film project can be smoothly communicated
and negotiated, allowing coordination among participants to take
place.

Outlining the socio-political aspect of conversations, Westley
considers that they “potentially enact formal structures of
domination” (our emphasis, Westley, 1990; p. 340). Conversations
are, in fact, the locus of power struggles related to differences in
hierarchical status (Westley, 1990; Thomas et al., 2011), compe-
tencies, or rhetorical skills (Samra-Fredericks, 2005, 2003) among
actors. Unless the conversation turns out to be a monologue,
subordinates react to the superior’s communicative practices
influencing, in return, the superior’s behaviors. In fact, power
relationships are not shaped exclusively by the superior’s
behaviors but also result from the way in which participants
design their interactions, because it can have the effect of placing

them in a relationship where discourse strategies of greater or
lesser power are differentially available to each of them (Hutchby,
1996; p. 482, in Schneider, 2007; p. 188). With few exceptions, this
co-constructive dimension of sensemaking has received little
attention until recently.

Articulating sociopolitical and interpretive dimensions, Thomas
et al. (2011) underscored that the enactment of hierarchical
relationships relies on communicative practices whereby senior
managers display authority and try to impose their views on
middle managers (during a workshop held as part of a change
program at a telecommunication company). In this configuration,
sensemaking is fragmented as the senior managers and the middle
managers stick to their views and contradict each other without
searching for a common ground to build on; alternatively, senior
and the middle managers may incrementally build on the others’
views, even if it is in opposition to one’s own. These results confirm
Pattriotta and Spedale’s study (2009, 2011) which shows how what
they call the interaction order – i.e., the relational patterns that
emerge out of the flow of exchanges among actors during face-to-
face interactions – affects sensemaking. Detailed analysis of the
meetings held during the set-up phase of a consultancy task force
in an European oil company, led the authors to outline how the
participants’ moves to position themselves favorably in the project
(at the expense of others) and the leader’s aggressive attempt to
regain control over the conversation contribute to a conflicting and
fragmented interaction order that is reenacted from one meeting
to another. In the absence of a working consensus of the
participants’ roles in the task force, the participants cannot
develop a common definition of what the project itself means,
leading to further loss of meaning of participants’ roles in the
project.

In sum, this research strand displays how the participants’
discursive behaviors during conversations enact or reenact
structuring processes that may reflect (or suspend, Westley,
1990) the actors’ roles in the organization and thus constitute a
more or less favorable platform for joint sensemaking (as opposed
to a fragmented sensemaking, Maitlis, 2005 or collapse of
sensemaking, Weick, 1993).

While bringing insights into the incidence of structuring on
sensemaking (or lack of), the research discussed above says little
about how organizational actors facing contradictory expectations
from top management make sense of their roles, or said differently,
how sensemaking effects the structuring process.

Capitalizing on this research, we aim to develop a micro-
processual analysis of sensemaking of the managers’ strategic roles
during conversations between the managers and the director as
they strive to develop a strategic project for a large association
within the social sector. Our intention is also to contribute to the
understanding of how interpretative and socio-political dynamics
articulate and combine during conversations in organizations.

3. Research design and methods

3.1. Research setting

The research took place over 21/2 years in a large French
association within the social sector. Created in 1946, the
association is a departmental organization comprised of
160 employees. As for most associations within this sector, its
financial resources (annual amount of 10 million Euros) come
largely (90%) from general councils and, less so (10%) from the PJJ
(Protection Judiciaire de la Jeunesse/Judicial Youth Protection), a
service under the auspices of the Minister of Justice.

The association’s mission is defined as the protection, reception,
education, social and professional insertion for children, adoles-
cents and young adults in difficulty, danger or delinquency. These

F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350 341

children are received by the association at the behest of the PJJ or
the social services of the ASE (Aide Sociale à l’Enfance/Child
Protection Agency). The association has three centers dedicated to
this mission which are located a few kilometers from one another.
Each serves a different population and proposes different services:

– A social and educational center (Maison d’Enfant à Caractère
Social – MECS A) that accommodates 60 children between the
ages of 6 and 14 for a period of 3–4 years with the goal of helping
them assimilate socially and academically.

– An educational and professional center (MECS B) that accom-
modates 65 adolescents from the ages of 14–21 years old with
the objective of professional training and social and professional
insertion.

– A state approved delinquent center for educational orientation
and action (MECS C) that can house approximately 30 adoles-
cents for a period of one year with the goal of guidance,
educational help and social and professional insertion.

The association also has at its disposal the service of the MO
(Milieu Ouvert – Open Milieu), a service that provides social
investigation and support to families and youth in difficulty.

The structure of the association has three hierarchical levels.
The main office of the association (the Bureau), is elected by the
board of directors, which names the director. The director heads
up the four different operational entities (MECS A, B, C and
MO); each entity is managed by a center manager. The director
also is responsible for supervising the central administrative
department that regroups the financial and human resource
services of the association. Each center is then organized into
services. There are 12 service managers in all and a technical
advisor who reports to the administrative department. At the
request of the director, all 18 managers – including the 4 center
managers, the 12 service managers, the technical advisor and
the director-, actively participated in the action-research
described here.

3.2. Participatory action-research

The director of the association contacted the author and an other
researcher to help the managerial team define the organization’s
strategy. We progressively understood that defining a strategic
project for the organizationwas a means for the organization to meet
several challenges. On the one hand, the general council was asking
the associations in the social sector to be accountable regarding their
financial resources and to report on the quality of the services
provided. This pressure for accountability, which was regarded by
the members of the association as creating competition among
associations, was accompanied by new legal obligations, including
new procedures to guarantee greater transparency and dialogue vis-
à-vis the families and the youth. The directorand the managersof the
association felt that the organization should develop strategic
answers that met these new demands for cost control and better
quality for the services provided.

On the other hand, they were convinced that the organization
was ill prepared to meet these challenges. The different centers of
the association had developed independently from one other, and
the managers were not in the habit of working together or with
the director. They had to clarify and converge on a workable
definition of their roles as director and managers in the strategic
project. The board of the association, which was mainly
composed of retired notables and industrialists, while lacking
competencies to understand and help the organization to develop
adequate strategic answers, put increased pressure on the
director so that he initiated strategic change. The objective of
the action-research was to help the team develop a strategic

project for the association. This supposed that the managers and
the director would also agree on their respective roles in the
project (see also Patriotta & Spedale, 2009, 2011).

This research borrows its methods from participatory action-
research in which the problem to resolve, and the research design,
are defined with the actors in the field (Reason, 1994; Whyte,
2014). While containing numerous difficulties, this research
design seems to be a pertinent research alternative for
understanding actors’ sensemaking (Lüscher & Lewis, 2008), as
it implies that the researchers experience, from the inside, the
contradictions, ambiguity and uncertainties that organizational
actors are facing.

Led by the two researchers, the study relied on full-day
collective work sessions as well as smaller group sessions. These
sessions took place at intervals of a few weeks, allowing the
researchers to synthesize the work accomplished up until that
point and to give the sub-groups time to conduct specific research
(for example, to study the evolution of the legislative and
regulatory context, the competition, etc.).

The research was conducted in two phases:

– During the first phase (year 1 with 6 days of collective work) a
strategic diagnosis was developed. This included the following
meetings:

– During the first meeting, we collected each participant’s view of
the main issues and challenges that the organization was facing
through semi-structured, written questionnaires. Basic concepts
and vocabulary of strategy (e.g., the organization’s mission,
suppliers, competitors, clients/users, resources and competen-
cies, SWOT analysis) were introduced and illustrated.

– The second meeting was devoted to a report and discussion
about the main issues and problems of the association as
identified by the participants in their individual questionnaires
(completed during the 1st meeting).

– During the third and fourth meetings, a strategic diagnosis of the
institutional environment and the association’s competitors was
achieved.

– The fifth meeting was dedicated to the identification of the
association’s mission, involving a debate on the profile of the
youth that the organization should take and the social needs
that it should meet.

– During the sixth meeting, four strategic orientations revolving
around the notion of quality service provider were identified: (1)
the definition, communication and fulfillment of common
procedures and rules, (2) the adaptation of the service provided
to meet the needs of the families and youth, (3) including their
latent needs, and (4) cost control.

– The second phase (year 2 with 6 meetings) was based on the
work of the sub-groups which enabled the specification of these
directions and the development of concrete action plans.

The project was thus formalized and presented to the board at
the end of the second year of intervention.

These meetings were generally divided in two parts: (1) a report
on the work done during the previous meeting and (2) a collective
work session on a particular aspect of the strategic diagnosis or
plan. The researchers guided the collective work sessions through
open-ended questions (see Extract 2 analyzed below) that
encouraged participants to express (e.g., what is your opinion
about . . . ?) and elaborate their views about the subject at hand
(e.g., what do you mean by . . . ? Could you develop your idea
about . . . ?), and check that they agree on the strategic diagnosis
or the actions to implement (e.g., would you agree on this point?
On that action?).

342 F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350

3.3. Data collection

Our analysis is built on two data sources:

– Notes taken during interviews with the director conducted by
one of the researchers before the beginning of the study;

– The near complete transcription4 of the work sessions that were
focused on strategic diagnosis, representing a total of more than
25 h of tape recording.

As our intention was to focus on content (rather than the details
of discursive devices used by participants as in conversational
analysis) during the conversations, we transcribed the conversa-
tions by following a simplified format. Because of the high number
of participants at the work sessions, we were not always able to
identify each speaker. When this happened we attributed the
remarks heard to Manager X. In addition, certain passages could
not be transcribed as some participants were talking at the same
time, or several conversations were being held simultaneously.
However, in general, and without detailing all points of view of
each of the participants (certain views not necessarily being
expressed in the meetings themselves) the numerous conflicts and
divergent opinions expressed at the meetings leave us to believe
that the transcriptions give us ample and pertinent cues with
which to better understand how participants make sense during
these conversations.

Our understanding of context was also based on the numerous
informal discussions held during breaks and lunches and on
internal documents. The documents written by the participants in
their workgroups between two meetings, the different elements of
diagnosis and the directions developed during the collective
sessions completed our data.

3.4. Data analysis

We focus our analysis on the first six meetings where we, as
researchers, encountered difficulties both making sense of the
problems of the organization and building consensus around the
identification of those problems (and so on the actions to
implement) among the managers.

From the very first (individual) meeting with the director, we
were struck by the contradictory manner with which he defined
the problem to be resolved and the roles he gave to the managers in
their strategic functions. On the one hand, he diagnosed a
breakdown of the strategic functioning that he related to a lack
of motivation from the employees and a lack of commitment of the
managers in the strategic function. On the other hand, when we
suggested a research design aimed at helping the team to
collectively define the strategy of the organization, the director
objected, saying that the strategy and the projects of the
association are not to be played with, the mission of the association
is clearly defined in its statutes and cannot be debated and that the
strategic function is handed over to the managers.

We also observed a similar alternating between a participative
and a hierarchical, non-participative concept of strategy in the
group of managers during the first phase of the strategic diagnosis
(see Extract 2 below). It was our feeling that, as action-researchers,
we may be incapable of building a consensus around the role of the
managers in the strategy process as the discussions were marked
by a continuous coming and going between agreement and,

4 The passages where one or the other researcher presents a summary of the
work done in the previous meetings were not transcribed. Neither were the
passages of the first meeting, during which theoretical and methodological
elements were presented and discussed with the participants.

sometimes aggressive, contestation on both the definition of
managers’ role and on the strategic process itself: Who was going
to do what and how?

It was this observation that gave us the metaphor of dancing in
the dark. In order to understand how participants perform this
dance, we systematically researched (1) the discourses of the
director and the managers (in the transcripts) on the strategic roles
of managers, (2) the sequences of conversations where partic-
ipants swung from one version to another.

In these sequences, we noticed that they anchored their
argumentation in detailed descriptions of the organization’s
functioning, of its strategic positioning and environment.

In order to analyze these extracts of conversations we relied on
Discourse Analysis (DA) as developed by Edwards (1994, 1995,
2006) and Edwards and Potter (1992), an approach and method
that focuses on the way in which people describe their own and
others’ experiences. Following Conversational Analysis’ analytical
commitments, DA considers that talk is a medium for social action,
so that the analysis of discourse becomes the analysis of what
people do (Potter, 2004; p. 201). Rather than explaining people’s
talk through reference to their underlying beliefs, values, states of
mind, or implicit goals, DA describes what people are actually
doing when talking, for it is through these actions that people
fabricate the context of their interactions and display mutual
understanding (or misunderstanding).

In this perspective, institutions (and consequently organiza-
tions), exemplified by asymmetrical relationships, prototypical
descriptions, or constraints on people’s actions, are envisioned as
situated constructions that are made up, attended to, and made
relevant by participants during their conversations (Potter, 2004).5

In other words, the organizational or institutional dimensions are
seen as enacted in, and through, the participants’ talks-in-
interactions.

According to Edwards (1994, 1995, 2006), one should pay
particular attention to the descriptions people make of their world
when talking to each other, for it is through these descriptions that
they perform particular actions during their conversations, i.e.,
suggesting a particular interpretation, rejecting an anticipated
interpretation, blaming the other, accounting for their or the
others’ actions or interpretations, etc. In particular, people often
describe events or experiences as instances of generalized patterns
(or as exception of these). Through these scripted descriptions
(Edwards, 1994), they establish a normative base against which
some events or actions can be considered as normal, adequate or
usual while others will be regarded as pathological, anomalous or
as requiring an account. In this analysis, the details provided by the
participants cannot, as such, be classified as referring to, or
deviating from, this norm: one should pay attention to the ways in
which participants, during the very course of the conversation,
assemble details and produce a particular interactional upshot
(e.g., blaming, justifying, accounting for the event in question and
for the very act of reporting). Scripts are, in fact, characterized by
their variability and flexibility so that their functions cannot be
identified without a careful analysis of the surrounding talks.

Following these analytical commitments, we analyze the way in
which participants made sense of the managers’ strategic role
during the conversations through descriptions of the organiza-
tional functioning, and, as will be demonstrated, of the organiza-

5 This clearly distinguishes DA from Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis for
which social reality is made of different layers of discourse (from macro Discourse
to micro, situated conversations) so that one cannot analyze a conversation without
taking into account the institutional discourses (or texts) that participants draw on
when talking. According to DA, institutional realities are enacted in, and through,
conversations and do not pre-exist these talks.

F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350 343

tion’s strategy and environment. Our analysis focuses on the
particular moments of conversations where participants swing
from one version of the managers’ role to another in order to
understand how and why they operate such moves.

In these analyses, we considered whether we, as action-
researchers could have contributed to the contradictions and
oscillations observed. The detailed analysis of extracts of
conversations where the director and the managers swung from
one version of the managers’ role to another shows that we had
limited, if not no influence, on the unfolding of the oscillation
observed.6 These elements, together with the contradictory way in
which the director defined the managers’ roles at the beginning of
the research process, led us to believe that, while not totally lacking
in influence, the researchers actually acted more in a midwife
capacity, bringing contradictions to the surface, rather than
creating those contradictions.

4. Dancing in the Dark

We first briefly present how the director and the managers
define, in contradictory and confusing terms, managers’ strategic
roles so that we, as researchers, also felt in the dark. We then
analyze two extracts of conversations where the director and the
managers oscillate from one version of their role to another
through their construction of various scripts of the organization
and its environment; an oscillation that resembles a sort of dance.

4.1. In the dark: setting up contradictory roles

In broad terms, the director and the managers construct two
versions of the managers’ strategic roles:

– A non-participatory version where the strategic function is
handed over to the managers and their roles mainly consist of
meeting their missions as defined by the state and the board.
Although agreeing with the director on this first version, the
director and some center managers disagree on the director’s
management style. While they ask for more autonomy – a
laissez-faire management style – the director defends his
centralizing management style as a way to insure the financial
viability of the organization,

– and a participatory version where, working together and
transversally, managers may find innovative answers to the
complex problems of the youth in their care.

4.1.1. A non-participatory concept of managers’ strategic role
Sometimes the director and a few of the managers would

defend a disciplinary, non-participatory conception of strategy
(Mantere & Vaara, 2008). During our first interviews and the first
collective meetings, the director defended the idea that the
strategy, as defined by the board and himself, was handed over to
the managers so that their roles in the strategic process mainly
consisted of implementing the strategic orientations. During the
2nd meeting, for instance, the managers discussed the centraliza-
tion of management considering it as one of the more important
organizational problems to be resolved. The director responded to
this by saying that the centers, and thus their managers, are not
autonomous (see Extract 1 analyzed below); that this absence of

6 While, for instance, in Extract 1, Researcher 1 tried to interrupt the
confrontation between the director and the manager, the participants went on
without considering the researcher’s attempt. And when, in Extract 2, the
researcher invited participants to agree on a definition of the organization’s target,
those did not hesitate to reject the proposed definition.

autonomy extends to the strategic level: it is not up to the centers
to define strategic directions which remain a policy prerogative,
meaning the prerogative of the association’s board.

While all the managers were opposed to the centralization of
the head office, two center managers agreed with this non-
participative version of their strategic roles, i.e., that their roles
essentially consist of satisfying the mission that was given to their
particular establishment. When the group worked on defining the
global mission of the association during the 5th meeting, they
questioned the pertinence of this work for the association as a
whole and, indirectly, their participation in the strategic project.

Center Manager (MO): I ask myself if this level [of the
association as a whole] is relevant enough to work on [ . . . ]
Working on the strategic level of the association and in its
mission, I wonder if it is the best place to act, the most effective
[ . . . ]

This does not mean that they agree with the centralized
management style of the director. While accepting their role of
passive transmitter of the directives of the head office to the
operational level, they also want more autonomy and room for
maneuvering in the fulfilling of their missions; a call that led to an
open conflict with the director during the second meeting (see
Extract 1 analyzed below).

4.1.2. A participatory concept of managers’ strategic role
Contrary to the previous, rather passive, concept of the

managers’ strategic role is a vision that is more participatory
and collective. During our second interview, the director reformu-
lated the problem he encountered as the breakdown of strategic
function, meaning a lack of involvement of the managers in the
elaboration of a strategic function. He then agreed to have the
managers participate in the development of the strategic project.
At the end of the 5th meeting, when the group was striving to
define the mission of the organization, he even goes as far as
talking about the strategic will of the group of managers. The
director also defended the idea that managers are not simple
executors of a given strategy responding to the mandates of the
state, but that they are capable of working together, transversally
and of innovating. When we completed the strategic diagnosis of
the association during the 3rd meeting and defined its missions as
a provider of social services responding to the mandates of the
state, the director protests:

Director Not only, not only! We are looking to develop new
answers; we do not only apply existing mandates. [ . . . ]. We
don’t just execute solutions. Even if there are limitations, we are
also innovators.

Here, the director is defending a participatory concept of
strategy; a vision that is also defended and expressed by some
managers through the notion of transversal work during the 5th
meeting. This transversal work (i.e., working at the level of the
association as a whole, with all its centers and services) is justified
by the complex problems of the young that are seen in the centers
(see also Extract 2 analyzed below).

Center Manager (MO): [ . . . ]That is what interests me,
working in that sphere at the level of the association as a
whole, to internally work to find a solution, with all its centers
and services, and modalities that could be put into place to help
those [the young] that we see in MO for whom we have no ready
answers.

This work is also justified by the very notion of association
which indicates filling a void left by the state, satisfying needs that
are not covered by the state through new services.

Service Manager (MECS B): I believe that there is a niche to take
on in terms of the current difficulties that youth are facing; a lot

344 F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350

of institutions are getting to the end of their rope. So, there is a
spot to be filled and there we can be innovators of new projects
and new types of support to be offered.

4.2. Dancing: oscillating between contradictory roles

In order to understand how participants develop such
contradictory concepts of their roles and oscillate between them
we analyze in detail two sequences where participants swing from
one version to another.

4.2.1. Extract 1. Between a non-participative and a participative
concept of manager’s role

During the 2nd meeting, the researchers reported on the main
problems identified by the participants through the individual
questionnaires collected in the first meeting. While participants
agreed with the definitions of the first problems presented, a
strong conflict appeared between the director and a manager
concerning the centralization of the head office (see Extract 1
below), which has been identified as a major issue for the
organization by a vast majority of participants. In order to clarify its
meaning, Researcher 1 asked participants to define and illustrate
the notion of centralization. Without specifically asking for more
participation in the strategic process, a manager then recalls an
episode (see beginning of Extract 1) that he presents as exemplar of
a centralized decision process; thereby indirectly calling for more
autonomy. He is, however, forced to step back, and so reframes the
centralization problem in terms of lack of consultation or dialogue
between the center managers and the director, in effect, asking for
more participation in the strategy process. At first, the director
defends his centralized, non-participatory management style and
does not accept the manager’s call for more autonomy. While he
does not explicitly mention the managers’ strategic role in the
process, he defends a decision taken without referring to either the
manager or the team, i.e., a non-participatory concept of the
managers’ strategic role. He then takes the call for dialogue as an
opportunity to up the ante, that is to extend the manager’s
interpretation to imply that the lack of dialogue is managers’ fault
and that they should participate in the strategic process; changing
from a non-participative to a participative concept of strategy.

4.2.1.1. Extract 1A. Words in CAPITALS indicate the speech became
especially loud

1Center Manager (MO): I am going to try to give you an
example of centralism that shows the state

2 of the relationships among management, the head office and
the Board. I was asked to study the

3 implementation of a new service, a service in family
mediation. It was first initiated by a social

4 worker in the Open Milieu service. Here, we are onto
something important, the ability to listen to a

5 need expressed by a social worker. Well, it is not only the
social worker that expressed this need, but

6 it is clear we were listening. So, I began to work on this project.
I started with the Director who

7 expressed, rather quickly, one of the limitations of the project
based on, I believed, his overall

8 knowledge of the situation. One of the limits was that
financial risks must not be taken. And I have a

9 problem in proposing a new service with instructions not to
take financial risks because I know that

10 we cannot even think of creating a new service if we don’t
accept to take some financial risks.

11 Director: but it [this answer] must be put in the
ASSOCIATIVE CONTEXT! That is possibly the

12 very reason for centralization. In fact, the association is in a
precarious situation that necessitates, in

13 order to continue a certain number of services and
establishments, that other financial risks are

14 avoided [ . . . ]. But anyway that’s not a limit to the project.
15 Researcher: [I would like if possible to avoid . . . ]
16 Center Manager (MO): [Yes that is why I am saying] that it is

the knowledge on the part of the
17 Head Office regarding the patrimonial and financial situation

of the association and the expectation
18 of the Board. So, I understand that the limit that I was told

makes sense. I am not contesting that.
19 Researcher: [I . . . ]
20Director: [When you say] we can’t take on a project without

taking on financial risks that means
21 we cannot do any project at all. But that isn’t the answer that

was given.
22 Center Manager (MO): that isn’t the answer I was given but I

do have a problem with the answer.
23 [ . . . ]
24 Researcher: is it financial autonomy or more the absence of

autonomy for the project that appears to
25 be an example of centralization or centralism?
26 Center Manager (MO): the example of centralism in that

case is that a study on the financial risk of
27 the project was not done before giving the answer that

financial risk should not be taken. For me,
28 that is centralism.
Below, we note the main components of the extract, considered

as a set of actions and moves performed by the participants and
detail how these moves rely on scripted descriptions of the
organization.

(1) The manager narrates an episode that he presents as
exemplar of the centralism of the head office (l. 1). In describing
this particular event, he mixes specific actions (I was asked; it was
first initiated, l. 2–3; I started with, he expressed, l. 6–7) and
generalized aspects regarding the situation (we are onto some-
thing important, l. 4) and his ability to deal with it (it is clear we
were listening l.6; his overall knowledge of the situation, l. 7–8). In
describing the incident, he outlines that it has generalized
implications for the organization and its protagonists (l.1. An
example of centralism that shows the state of the relationship) so
that the description has the characteristics of a script (Edwards,
1994,1995). In presenting the incident as exemplar of some general
characteristics of the organizational functioning – as opposed to
something uncommon – the manager protects his description
against potential refutation – of it being a rare occurrence – as well
as protecting himself against accusation of bias or prejudice
(Edwards, 1995; p. 325). The credibility of the manager, because he
is asking for more autonomy and so has an interest in the reporting
of the incident, could be in doubt. The script here is a powerful
device in managing this issue of credibility of both the account and
the speaker so that the call for more autonomy in decision-making
appears legitimate (And I have a problem in proposing a new
service with instructions not to take financial risks because …, l.
8–9).

(2a) The director counters this move first by suggesting an
alternative interpretation of the script (l. 11–14) He complements
the manager’s description and gives some information about the
financial situation of the organization. In so doing, he accepts the
managers’ description of himself as being a centralizing director,
but, at the same time, presents himself as a responsible top
manager who must ensure the financial viability of the organiza-
tion as a whole. Complementing the managers’ description, the
director outlines that his centralizing management style is
legitimate.

F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350 345

(2b) In the next turn, although the manager does not contest
these elements, he implies that he is not happy with other aspects
of the episode (I am not contesting that [our emphasis] l.18),
leading the director to operate a second, more serious counter-
move through which he contests the manager’s version (that they
could not do any project, l.21) and suggests an alternative script
(l.21 It isn’t the answer that was given). This way, he not only
denies that he is refusing autonomy to the managers but also sheds
doubt on the credibility of the manager’s account.

(3a) The manager is then forced to step back (that isn’t the
answer I was given, l.22) but provides new information (a study for
the financial risk of the project was not done before giving the
answer that financial risk should not be taken, l. 26–28) and so
develops an alternative script where the refusal of the project is not
seen as a lack of autonomy but as a lack of participation and
dialogue in the decision process (for me, that is centralism, l.
27–28). While initially asking for more autonomy, he now argues
for more participation and dialogue in the decision process (l.
26–28). This new interpretation of what centralization means may
be seen as a sign of the participants’ will to power. Introduced by
Luhman and Boje, (2001; p.164) in the analysis of discourse, will to
power designates the struggle of the individual to actively
reinterpret and re-story meaning from one event to the next that
is aimed at benefiting some over others. In our view, the manager’s
wish to make his point pushes him to redefine his interpretation of
the episode; a script that argues for a participative concept of
managers’ role in the strategy process.

The new version of the managers’ role is confirmed in the
following exchange that took place soon afterwards.

4.2.1.2. Extract 1B. 29 Center Manager (MO): there is a problem in
the functioning of the organization. And I believe that

30 it is up to us, as much as the head office, to resolve this type of
problem in order to avoid feeding

31 resentment. Because there is also a risk of feeling a bit
deprived of certain prerogatives as Center

32 managers, and the risk is that this will have consequences on
our direct collaborators and on our

33 services. And this is something dangerous that could be put
into play and that will affect even the

34 field workers, a sort of cascade effect.
35 Director: there is also a phenomenon of reproducing the

mechanism of centralization both ways.
36 Center Manager (MO): yes.
37 Director: effectively, it is the head office that, to make it

simple, will try to get around the
38 management teams (i.e., of the centers). There is also an

opposite effect that we try to fight against –
39 that the questions asked in the centers are not addressed to

management but go directly to the
40 technical services in the head office.
41 Center Manager (MO): exactly.
42 Director: and in that mechanism, I wonder if there isn’t an

economy in terms of the management
43 teams. We don’t manage the problem, and in the end, that is

fine with us.
44 Center Manager (MO): [maybe]
45 Researcher: [but there we. . . . ]
46 Director: [I worked] 10 YEARS LIKE THAT! Just an example, I

didn’t take care of the budget, I
47 didn’t take care of the orders, it was done elsewhere! I could

ALWAYS say I wasn’t happy with that,
48 but at least I didn’t have to do it! Administrative accounts,

training schedules, etc.!
(3b) Following the previous turn, the manager explains that

centralism means lack of dialogue and information among the

different hierarchical levels. He now describes the organizational
functioning and its consequences in general terms (there is a
problem of functioning, l.29; a sort of cascade effect l.34). This
scripted description is also an occasion to present himself as being
both a caring (this will have consequences on our direct
collaborators, l.32) and responsible manager (it is up to us, as
[ . . . ] to resolve this type of problem, l.30). By speaking in general
terms and sharing his part of responsibility for the lack of
participation or dialogue that he denounces (l.31) the manager is
once again careful not to appear biased or prejudiced against the
director.

(4) Surprisingly, the director not only agrees with the description
of the organization as implying centralization but pushes the
argument further. He complements the manager’s script and
reciprocates the argument (a phenomenon of reproducing the
mechanism of centralization both ways, l.35; the questions asked in
the centers are not addressed to management but go directly to the
technical services in the head office, l. 39–40). Also, the director not
only recognizes that he is a centralizing manager but is able to
reciprocate the blame when he argues that this functioning suits the
managers because they do not have to manage the problem (We do
not manage the problem, and in the end, that is finewith us, l.43). The
director’s will to power is manifested here when he reinterprets the
centralization issue as a generalized organizational functioning – so
that the problem is not due to his own management style; a
reinterpretation through which he amalgamates centralization of
the head office with passivity and non-participation from the
managers. The director illustrates his point by referring to his own
experience (l. 46–48) as a center manager when he did not take care
of the budget or the accounts. In considering his past behavior as
manager as exemplar of such passive, non-participatory, irresponsi-
ble behaviors, he is able to up the ante while at the same time to
protect his description from a charge of bias. Again, the description of
the managers’ role is anchored in a generalized description of
organizational functioning.

On the whole, the analysis of the extract shows that participants
(1) change from a rather non-participatory to a participatory
version of the managers’ role; (2) anchor these versions and claims
in scripted descriptions of the organization from which they
present themselves as both credible and responsible or knowl-
edgeable managers (cf. Edwards, 1994, 1995, 2006). These various
versions and descriptions are progressively constructed in relation
to the counter-versions and descriptions elaborated by the other
participants during the conversations (cf. Edwards, 1995; p. 329).
However, through these continuous adaptations of their script,
they lose sight of their initial position regarding the managers’ role
in the strategic process and end up with a version that contradicts
that which was initially defended. On the one hand, the manager’s
stepping back and suggesting a new interpretation contradicts his
initial claim for more autonomy and, on the other, the director’s
contestation followed by his agreement with the manager’s
labeling of his management as centralizing, may be seen as the
participants’ will to power during the conversation.

In our view, the director and the manager’s will to make their
point during the very course of the conversation greatly contrib-
utes to the sensemaking of the manager’s role observed. In order to
counter the other’s argument, they refer to facts, complement the
version of the episode with new facts, or agree with the others’
version and up the ante. But far from mastering the unfolding of
the conversations, these two last moves may lead them both to
suggest a version of the managers’ role that contradicts their initial
version; as if their will to power in the conversation, and their wish
to escape the responsibility of the issue at hand, release so much
energy that they lose control of their argumentation.

Of course, those changes may not be a problem in themselves, if
they did not happen again and again, rendering the sensemaking of

346 F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350

managers’ role unstable and equivocal during the entire diagnosis
phase of the research. It also impedes the creation of a common
ground for making sense of the strategic orientations to be
followed by the organization (see also Patriotta & Spedale, 2009).

While dealing with the organization’s mission, the sequence of
the Extract 2 (5th meeting) is, in fact, similar to Extract 1. The
swinging from one version to another is not initiated by the
director but by another manager and operates between a
participatory and a non-participatory concept of managerial role.
Interestingly, the sensemaking of managers’ roles in the strategic
process is this time related to discussion concerning the mission of
the organization and its environment.

4.2.2. Extract 2 Between participation through transversal work and
lack of participation and innovation

During the 3rd and the 4th meetings, the group completed a
strategic diagnosis of the association. During the 5th meeting, as
we were discussing the organization’s mission and main target, the
issue of the managers’ role in the strategy process was again put on
the table. At the beginning of the meeting, participants defined the
organization as a service provider yet progressively recognized
that it was also able to innovate and propose new services to the
unmet needs of the youth in question. For some managers, this
innovator positioning implies that they would work together,
transversally, so as to propose complex solutions to the complex
problems they encounter; others expressed some reluctance as
this positioning would also expect them to welcome the most
difficult cases. The director takes this reluctance as an opportunity
to present the managers as passive, incapable or unwilling to
participate to the strategic process. The conversation had initially
constructed the managers as capable of working transversally to
propose collective answers to the problems of the youth, and thus
as capable of participating in the strategic process; it ends up with
an opposite version where they are presented as unable or
unwilling to do so.

4.2.2.1. Extract 2A. 1 Service Manager (MECS A): to go back to
what we were saying before [that the managers are able

2 to work transversally and to propose new solutions to the
problems of the youth], I am attracted by the

3 idea of youth in the most difficult situations, because there is
the feeling that it comes from

4 the complexity of difficulties. There is pathology involved,
social, delinquency, etc and I am drawn to

5 the idea that we [the association] are adapted to that as we are
sufficiently generalist and

6 complex. Complex problems, complex answers.
7 […]
8 Researcher 1: does it seem to you, in particular for those who

were not in favor of [the expression of]
9 youth in the most difficult situations, does this idea (given

that the term may not be the best, but it
10 isn’t destined for an ad campaign) if you say the most

complex association, that may seem a little
11 impenetrable.
12 Laughter
13 Researcher 1: but didn’t you . . . isn’t there a consensual

dimension to which the group of centers and
14 services could adhere to?
15 Manager X: but what bothers me, is the most term.
16 Inaudible noise
17 Service Manager (MECS A): the most [that the association

brings] is the complexity of the
18 situations.
19 Manager X: but one can say [that we take on youth] in great

difficulty. The most implies

20 [thinking in terms of] competitive positions. [I prefer] In very
deep or deep difficulty. But

21 again . . . .Again I hear Mr. Z (service Manager MECS B) say,
that the UER (Unités d’Education

22 Renforcée – a new public service that is designed to take in
these difficult cases) are supposed to take

23 these young in great difficulty.
24 Director (Loudly): why is the public service now innovating

for youth in difficulty? They [the
25 UER] do not have seminars that last, I do not know how many

days, on the definition of youth in
26 difficulty! They say placement structures must be created for

this youth. It is in the texts! And they
27 are doing this and innovating because the associations ARE

NOT, it must be said, capable of doing so!
28 Manager X: and yet the question of means doesn’t surface

for the UER.
29 Director [Loudly]: THE QUESTION OF MEANS . . . THE

QUESTION OF MEANS! Have the
30 means for our association regressed?
31 Manager X: no, but in comparison to the UER . . .
32 Director: . . . the means of the association HAVE NOT been

reduced since 1946!
33 Manager X: yes, but in the UER, there is one educator per

youth.
34 Director: it always comes back to the pertinence of our

organizations! We often say that in
35 budgetary meetings [with the general council]. Here, we do

not discuss the financial means, we
36 discuss projects and afterwards we discuss the means. What

do you propose? Effectively, if there
37 isn’t the [strategic] will, it will be difficult to work on these

projects; the organization of it and the
38 taking over of the problem.
39 [Silence]
(1) Manager (MECS A) initially defends a collective and

participatory concept of managers’ role in the strategy process
where, through transversal work, the manager could propose new
solutions to the problems of the youth. In order to justify this, she
describes in general terms the situation of the young (l.4) and
relates it to the organization’s capabilities (l. 5–6) and mission –
which is defined as providing complex answers to the complex
problems of the youth (l.6). Through this script, she not only
defines the managers’ team as capable of working transversally
and innovating, but also herself as a strategist when she establishes
a one-to-one correspondence between the organization’s target
and its capabilities.

In order to, at least temporarily, stop the oscillation observed
between the different versions of the managers’ roles, Researcher
1 asks the group if this definition of the organization’s mission (the
most complex association, l.10) may federate the group (l. 13–14).

(2) Managers express their reticence by laughing (l.12).
Manager X contests this expression (what bothers me, is the most
term, l.15),

(3) and suggests a less extreme formulation (One can say in
great difficulty, l.19). Referring to facts, he explains that UER
(Reinforced Education Centers), a specific social service of the
state, are designed to take the young in great difficulty (l.23) and
that they have more human and financial resources to accomplish
this mission (the question of means doesn’t surface for the UER,
l.28; In the UER, there is one educator per youth, l.33). Through this
comparison, the manager questions the first manager’s scripted
description of the organization as capable of taking the young in
great difficulty. He does not contest the organization’s capability to
work transversally as such, but then reinterprets that as being a
question of available means compared to those of the UER; a

F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350 347

reinterpretation behind which one may see either an anticipative
argument to obtain more financial resources or to refuse to take in
the most difficult cases.

(4) The director agrees that the UER takes the most difficult
cases but he complements the description by exaggerating their
capabilities compared to that of the association; the UER are
innovating, they say placement structures must be created and
they do it (l. 26–28). When manager X counters that public services
have more means, the director opposes that by shouting that the
financial means of the association have not been reduced since
1946 (l.32). He also supplements his description of the UER and
contrasts their high capabilities and efficient functioning with
those of the associations (They do not have seminars that last, I do
not know how many days, on the definition of youth in difficulty!, l.
24–25; it always comes back to the pertinence of our organiza-
tions!, l. 34–35). He also reports on a dialogue with the general
council about the budget of the association and presents it as
exemplar of what the general council demands of the association.
Through this script, he points out the importance of the ability to
propose projects, and the lack of strategic will of the managers of
the association (if there isn’t the [strategic] will, l. 36–37). The
director’s descriptions of the UER and that of his dialogue with the
general council are used to characterize the group of managers as
unwilling and incapable of proposing projects and innovative
solutions (and, indirectly, of not being able to work transversally).

Through this reinterpretation, the director not only constructs
the group as unwilling to work transversally –which contradicts
what manager A argued for at the beginning of the extract – but
also rejects the responsibility for this lack; a move behind which
one may again see the director’s will to power.

To summarize, this section shows that the participants move
from a participatory and innovating concept of the managers’
strategic role to a rather passive and non-participatory one. The
oscillation is not anchored in a scripted description of the
organization’s functioning, as in Extract 1, but on that of the
situation of the youth and the capacity of the organization to
develop adequate answers to these problems. Also, as observed in
Extract 1, the different versions of the managers’ role and of the
organization’s capabilities are progressively constructed in rela-
tion to the version elaborated by the other participant to oppose it
through reference either to the terms used to describe the situation
(complex as opposed to the most complex) or to facts (i.e., the
financial means of the UER compared to those of the organization,
the dialogue with the general council). While carefully adapting or
responding to one another’s script, participants end up with a
version of the managers’ role that contradicts that which was
initially defended. As in the first extract, behind these moves the
participants’ and in particular the director’s will to power is
apparent during the very course of the conversation; that is a will
to reject the responsibility of the issue at hand that goes as far as
trying to make their point heard at the expense of the point itself.
The oscillation is also highly related to the lack of agreement
among the managers around the youth that the organization
should take in (the most difficult ones or not) and to the strategic
orientations to follow (that of an innovator or of a service provider).

Extract 2B followed directly after Extract 2A, and shows how an
external reference permits the managers and the director to
reconcile themselves around a consensual dimension of their roles
as strategists – at least temporarily. It also provides some cues
about the reason of the dance observed.

4.2.2.2. Extract 2B. 40 Service Manager (MECS B): maybe that is
why we are reticent, because there may be judgment

41 that are not explicit and the fear that, in terms of the
association’s policy, is that it will be

42 translated as take in the most disturbed young as long as that
is your vocation, maybe the fear at

43 the strategic level, that the board doesn’t take into account, is
that it will necessitate a total

44 reorganization of intake methods. It may not be said but
there are issues like this. And if there are, it

45 must be said. Because if there are fears about this, it is in the
strategic sphere and we must find

46 the method to communicate a certain amount of clear and
coherent messages to the board.

47 Director: I believe that, yes, there is something like that, it is
what I tried to say this morning . . . the

48 discomfort in talking about these very disturbed youth. I
believe that brings us back to the fear of

49 being in difficulty in general and that goes along a little bit
with what you just said. If we enter into

50 this particular niche, will it end up being us, ourselves, who
will be in great difficulty because we

51 just do not have the proper means, etc.
In this second part of the extract, the MECS B service manager

recognizes their reservations (that is why we are reticent, l. 40)
and, indirectly, their lack of strategic will (the fear, that in terms of
the association’s policy, l. 41; maybe the fear at the strategic level, l.
42) but on the one hand, relates it to the most disturbed youth that
these innovations would target (l. 42), and, on the other, to the risk
that the board will not take into account the vast reorganization
that this would imply (l. 43–44). Although speculative, the
description of the managers’ fear permits the manager to position
himself both as knowledgeable and courageous (if there are, it
must be said, l. 44–45; we must find the method to communicate
. . . , l. 45–46). This script is different from the previous ones in that
it does not put the managers in opposition to the director but
contrasts the strategic group (which seems to now include both the
managers and the director) with the board, thereby affirming the
existence of a competent and proactive strategic group capable of
taking and communicating a firm position vis-à-vis the board (l.
46–47).

The director, as a member of the strategic group (and who
sometimes feels his position threatened by the board), agrees (l.
47). Here the reference to the board creates, by contrast, the
strategic group which includes both the managers and the
director; an inclusion that for the moment overcomes direct
confrontation between them as well as the dance previously
observed. One should not conclude that this conversation puts an
end to the oscillation. In referring back to the morning’s
discussion about these very disturbed youth (l. 48), the director
also comes back to their exchange about the lack of means (l. 49–
51). While agreeing with the manager at that point, he also wants
to have the last word; in doing so his agreement appears quite
ambiguous.

From here, one may hypothesize that the discussions around
the organization’s capability and functioning constructs a
strategic team that is defined in terms of an opposition between
the managers and the director, thereby exacerbating the
participants’ will to power during collective work.
Yet alternatively, a discussion about the relationship between
the group and the board seems to move participants’ attention
toward a more inclusive and contextualized view of the team that
temporarily suspends the opposition between the director and
the managers. On the whole, how participants make sense of the
issue at hand influences their understanding of the relationship
between the managers and the director, in oppositional terms or
not; an understanding that, in turn, activates or suspends
participants’ will to power and political struggles during the
meeting.

348 F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350

5. Discussion

This research contributes to the understanding of how
managers make sense of their strategic roles during strategic
conversations when confronted with contradictory expectations
from top management. This contribution is threefold.

First, complementing prior research on role sensemaking and
on Edwards’ (1994, 1995) work on scripts, our results demon-
strate that sensemaking activities of managerial roles are
anchored in scripted descriptions of the organization and its
environment. Role construction is an intermediary within the
relational processes of meaning construction (Simpson & Caroll,
2008; p. 33), so that altering how the relation is understood and
the terms of the relation can change the meaning of the role.
While recent research have explored the discursive tactics and
practices used by participants during conversations to convince
the audience (i.e., Thomas et al., 2011; Samra-Fredericks, 2003;
Patriotta & Spedale, 2009, 2011), much less is known about the
actual content of these conversations and its incidence on
sensemaking. Our research confirms that participants make sense
of their roles in relation to themselves or others, as Simpson and
Caroll’s definition (2008) suggest. In particular, while the group
changes from one version of the managers’ role to another during
the five first meetings, it arrives at some consensus when the
director and the managers both refer to the board. This external
reference creates the strategic group, thereby temporarily putting
an end to the confrontation between the managers and the
director. This confirms that the relative positioning of the actors
vis-à-vis the other, and thus the interpretive frame through which
they see this other, are crucial elements driving the sensemaking
process (Weick et al., 2005).

Complementing Carroll and Simpson’s view, our research also
shows that the sensemaking process of a managerial role is highly
related to that of the organization and its environment. When
making sense of the managers’ role in the strategy process,
participants do not exclusively refer to the director or to the board,
but always replace the managers’ role in a generalized description
of the organization and/or of its environment. These generalized
descriptions often refer to, or carry within themselves, conflicting
demands presented as coming from the general council (being
accountable for their financial resources and improving the service
quality) or from the social sector (meeting new, unmet social needs
as in the past and meeting the state’s demands only). Further
research is needed here on how organizational members enact or
ignore potential contradictions emanating from their environment
and its history.

Following (Edwards, 1994; p. 325), these scripted descriptions
may be interpreted as a way to depoliticize the issue of role in the
organization. They help participants establish their account as
unbiased and build a picture of themselves as neutral reporters of
facts as opposed to that of a self-serving or self-interested person.
Referring back to events, incidents and episodes, the question of
managerial roles becomes a rational and technical problem (as
opposed to an issue of power and personal interest), so that the use
of scripted descriptions permits managers to appear unbiased, but
also competent, knowledgeable, responsible and apt to think
strategically. Scripts are constructed as a platform of legitimacy
from which to claim a particular version of managers’ strategic
role. Complementing Edwards (1994, 1995), our results show that
participants in an organizational context construct not only
scripted descriptions of their particular personal experiences or
events, but also of the organization and its environment.

Further research is needed on the content of the conversation as
it is believed that what is said is complementary to how it is said in
sensemaking processes (the discursive devices and tactics used,
see Edwards, 1994, 1995) and that it greatly contributes to the

power struggle during the conversation. Longitudinal studies on
the interactions between managers and top managers are also
needed in order to get a deeper understanding of how contra-
dictions evolve over time and of their consequences on the
managers’ and staff’s behaviors and engagement within the
organization.

Second, our research shows how the managers and the director
both contribute to the fabric of contradictory versions of the
managerial roles. Previous research on strategy discourses (e.g.,
Laine & Vaara, 2007; Mantere & Vaara, 2008) has underscored that
managers, confronted with contradictory expectations from top
managersreject,oradopt,topmanagers’versions,ordevelopspecific
versions that selectively incorporate some elements and reject
others. Contrasting with these results, our analysis of the conversa-
tion show that managers are not just reacting to the sensegiving
efforts of top management (e.g.. Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991), but that
they actively participate in the sensemaking of their roles and to the
contradictions observed in their conversations with the director.
These elements also demonstrated that differences in sensemaking
may not only be due to differences of hierarchical positions (Mantere
& Vaara, 2008),functions(Laine& Vaara, 2007; Suominen& Mantere,
2010), or audiences (Vaara, 2003), but that the same actors may hold
different views during a conversation as the result of their
confrontation with other participants.

These results, along with others (see Balogun & Johnson, 2004,
2005) invite us to distance ourselves from the portrayal of strategic
change as made up of successive phases of sensemaking and
sensegiving, mainly dominated or directed by top managers. It also
encourages us to investigate sensemaking through naturally
occurring talk rather than interviews or documentary data (see
also Silverman, 2006).

This co-constructive view of the sensemaking of managers’
strategic role also complements extant literature on identity work
(Alvesson & Willmott, 2002; Watson, 2008). While defining self-
identity in constructive and relational terms, this research views
identity work as the individual’s work on social identities that are
publicly available through discourses (Watson, 2008) or promoted
by the organization (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2003; Alvesson &
Willmott, 2002); so that identity work implies a relationship that is
asymmetrical and ideational. Though not contesting the relevance
of such processes in a world where the individual is submitted to
multiple and often contradictory discourses on how one should be
or behave (Watson, 2008), our results differ from identity work
research by showing (1) how roles – as intermediaries between
self-identity and others – are constructed through conversations
between organizational members (through (small d) discourses as
opposed to (Big D) Discourses, Alvesson & Kärreman, 2000, 2011)
and (2) how their various discursive moves may contribute to the
contradicted versions of their roles (vs. rely on available Discourses
only).

Finally, going into the details of a strategic conversation, the
research outlines the discursive actions through which partic-
ipants fabricate conflicting versions of the managerial role and
oscillate between them. Although the specific subject matter and
actors change, both extracts display a similar organization that can
be summarized as follows:

1. Manager A describes one’s role as strategic manager and/or the
director’s role through a scripted description of the organization
(version 1);

2. Manager B, or the director, counters manager A’s script by
referring to facts (not version 1);

3. Manager A steps back. An alternative version of the manager’s
role and related script is suggested through the addition of other
facts; the new version contradicts the one initially suggested
(not version 1 becomes version 2);

F. Allard-Poesi / Scandinavian Journal of Management 31 (2015) 338–350 349

4. The director agrees with this new version of the manager’s role
but pushes the argument further which leads him to contradicts
himself (version 2 ++ is version 1).

Although needing replication, these results shed light on the
politics of interpretation. In our view, the participant’s will to
power during the very course of the conversation contributed to
the discursive fabric of contradictory versions of managerial roles,
on the oscillation between those versions and the resulting dance
observed. Following the dance metaphor, it seems that partic-
ipants’ will to have the last word during the conversation is
sometimes so strong that they lose control over their argumenta-
tion; that will to power sometimes releases so much energy that
their argumentation just slides away from them. While power is
usually associated with control over the others, as well as, over the
course of the conversation (Samra-Fredericks, 2003) and that of
manipulation (Rouleau and Balogun, 2011; p. 976), our research
confirms Haworth (2006)’s analysis that taking control of the
conversation might be done to one’s own detriment. “Power and
control can always be challenged by the use of discursive
strategies, regardless of the subject matter, the status of
participants, or any other factor. However [ . . . ], they might not
be wise in this context, and can in fact lead to weakening the
challenger’s position in the wider sense [ . . . ] Thus it is just as
important to know when to relinquish power and control in this
context as it is to maintain it” (Haworth, 2006; p. 755). This result
echoes Patriotta and Spedale (2009)’s analysis of conversations in a
consultancy task force where power struggles between consul-
tants over their roles in the project led to entrenched warfare and
loss of sensemaking. However, further research is needed to better
understand how and why conversations sometimes lead to a
positional warfare (as observed in Patriotta & Spedale, 2009) or to
the dance in the dark observed in our research.

In summary, our research shows that the fabric of contradicted
concepts of managers’ strategic roles relies on situated construc-
tions of scripted descriptions of the organization and its
environment; a sensemaking process that is driven by the
participants’ will to power during the very course of a conversation
and that is far from being mastered by participants. In our view,
this invites us to explore the uncontrolled dimensions of power
and sensemaking in organizational life, a dimension that is today
underinvestigated in management and strategy research, even in
its strategy-as-practice approach.

Although contributing to our understanding of sensemaking
during conversations, our research has limitations.

First, the extracts of conversation reported in this research have
been translated from French to English. Some important nuances
may have been lost in the reporting of the events and other
meanings added (cf. Mantere & Vaara, 2008). In order to limit these
possible distortions in interpretation, the research and the analysis
was conducted entirely in French and only then translated in
English.

Second, it was not possible to know the way in which the
different strategic roles constructed by the managers during the
conversations were actually played out in their centers (cf. Lüscher
& Lewis, 2008). Even when we were able to pick up on the
ambivalence of certain actors in the course of the group
conversations, we did not seek to appreciate the degree to which
they continued to individually defend contradictory conceptions of
their role (cf. Vaara, 2003). However, the use of naturally occurring
talk (as opposed to interview data) is a step towards a deeper
understanding of how managers make sense of their roles as they
interact with one another in the organization. In our view, further
research is needed to appreciate how the roles constructed in
interviews, strategic conversations (cf. this research) and during

day-to-day interactions (cf. Rouleau, 2005; Rouleau and Balogun,
2011) will continue to converge or differ.

Finally, for lack of space, the interpretation suggested did not
analyze in-depth our own contribution to the dance. As participatory
action-research members, we sought to understand the different
viewpoints expressed by participants. Through questioning, looking
for clarification and further justifications, we may have exacerbated
the contradictions expressed by participants. They may also have
instrumentalized us – using us to insure that their points were heard
by the director. At the same time, as we were actively looking for
some common ground among participants (see Extract 2) on which
to develop the strategic project, we may have undermined some
differences between interpretations. While it is clear that we did
contribute to the sensemaking process, the size of the group
(18 managers), on the one hand, and our permanent feeling of
confusion during the first meetings, on the other, incline us to believe
that we were more interpreters (amplifying or reducing) than
choreographers of the dance described here.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all participants to this project, in particular
my colleague and friend Véronique Perret who initiated this
research and with whom the action-research was conducted. I am
also grateful to Scandinavian Journal of Management’s editors, and
the reviewers for their comments and suggestions that were of
invaluable help to rework the manuscript. Earlier versions of the
paper have been presented at the 7th CMS Conference, Napoli,
Italy, July 2011 and at the CRECIS Research Center, UCL, Louvain-la-
Neuve, Belgium, February 2011. I would like to thank participants
for their comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to my
colleague Magali Ayache who helped me clarify the empirical part
of the paper. Andi Simon was of invaluable help to translate
conversations and edit our manuscript.

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Dancing in the dark: Making sense of managerial roles during strategic conversations

1 Introduction
2 Making sense of manager’s strategic roles
2.1 Managers’ strategic roles: a reaction to top managers’ sensegiving
2.2 Managers’ strategic roles: managers’ sensemaking
2.3 Manager’s strategic roles: co-constructed sensemaking through conversations involving both top and the other managers
3 Research design and methods
3.1 Research setting
3.2 Participatory action-research
3.3 Data collection
3.4 Data analysis
4 Dancing in the Dark
4.1 In the dark: setting up contradictory roles
4.1.1 A non-participatory concept of managers’ strategic role
4.1.2 A participatory concept of managers’ strategic role
4.2 Dancing: oscillating between contradictory roles
4.2.1 Extract 1. Between a non-participative and a participative concept of manager’s role
4.2.1.1 Extract 1A
4.2.1.2 Extract 1B
4.2.2 Extract 2 Between participation through transversal work and lack of participation and innovation
4.2.2.1 Extract 2A
4.2.2.2 Extract 2B

5 Discussion
Acknowledgement
References

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