San Diego State University Communications Discussion

Respond to two of the following questions using full sentences and referencing the textbook. When you’re finished, respond to two of your peer’s posts.

1. What is Taylorism? In what ways could Taylorism be implemented in ethical or unethical ways?
2. Describe two of the theoretical approaches covered in this week’s readings (Theory X/Theory Y, Sensemaking, Taylorism, etc.) In your opinion, which theoretical perspective would be the most useful in understanding and addressing the problem of workplace bullying?
3. Describe an example of bounded emotionality or bounded rationality. What is a difference between these two concepts?
4. What are some examples of emotional labor and how does the concept differ from simply experiencing emotions at work? What types of jobs rely heavily on emotional labor?

The ‘X – Y Theory’ Questionnaire (Page 1 of 2)
Indicates whether the situation and management style is the ‘X’ or ‘Y’ style:
Score the statements (5 = always, 4 = mostly, 3 = often, 2 = occasionally, 1 = rarely, 0 = never)
01)
My boss asks me politely to do things, gives me reasons why, and invites my suggestions.
02)
I am encouraged to learn skills outside of my immediate area of responsibility.
03)
I am left to work without interference from my boss, but help is available if I want it.
04)
I am given credit and praise when I do good work or put in extra effort.
05)
People leaving the company are given an ‘exit interview’ to hear their views on the organisation.
06)
I am incentivised to work hard and well.
07)
If I want extra responsibility my boss will find a way to give it to me.
08)
If I want extra training my boss will help me find how to get it or will arrange it.
09)
I call my boss and my boss’s boss by their first names.
10)
My boss is available for me to discuss my concerns or worries or suggestions.
11)
I know what the company’s aims and targets are.
12)
I am told how the company is performing on a regular basis.
13)
I am given an opportunity to solve problems connected with my work.
14)
My boss tells me what is happening in the organisation.
15)
I have regular meetings with my boss to discuss how I can improve and develop.
Total Score
60 – 75 = Strong Y Theory Management (Effective long & short term)
45 – 59 = Generally Y Theory Management
16 – 44 = Generally X Theory Management
0 – 15 = Strongly X Theory Management (Autocratic leadership may be effective in the short term but poor in the long term)
Most people prefer ‘Y-theory’ management. These people are generally uncomfortable in ‘X-theory’ situations and are
unlikely to be productive, especially long-term, and are likely to seek alternative situations. This quick test
provides a broad indication as to management style and individual preference, using the ‘X-Y Theory’ definitions.
© Alan Chapman 2001-08 based on Douglas McGregor’s X-Y Theory. Layout by N Lacasse. More free online learning
materials are at www.businessballs.com. Not to be sold or published. Sole risk with user. Author accepts no liability.
The ‘X – Y Theory’ Questionnaire (Page 2 of 2)
Indicates whether the person prefers being managed by the ‘X’ or ‘Y’ style:
Score the statements (5 = always, 4 = mostly, 3 = often, 2 = occasionally, 1 = rarely, 0 = never)
01)
I like to be involved and consulted by my boss about how I can best do my job.
02)
I want to learn skills outside of my immediate area of responsibility.
03)
I like to work without interference from my boss, but be able to ask for help if I need it.
04)
I work best and most productively without pressure from my boss or the threat of losing my job.
05)
When I leave the company, I would like an ‘exit interview’ to give my views on the organisation.
06)
I like to be incentivised and praised for working hard and well.
07)
I want to increase my responsibility.
08)
I want to be trained to do new things.
09)
I prefer to be friendly with my boss and the management.
10)
I want to be able to discuss my concerns, worries or suggestions with my boss or another manager.
11)
I like to know what the company’s aims and targets are.
12)
I like to be told how the company is performing on a regular basis.
13)
I like to be given opportunities to solve problems connected with my work.
14)
I like to be told by my boss what is happening in the organisation.
15)
I like to have regular meetings with my boss to discuss how I can improve and develop.
Total Score
60 – 75 = Strongly prefers Y Theory Management (Effective long & short term)
45 – 59 = Generally prefers Y Theory Management
16 – 44 = Generally prefers X Theory Management
0 – 15 = Strongly prefers X Theory Management (Autocratic leadership may be effective in the short term but poor in the long term)
Most people prefer ‘Y-theory’ management. These people are generally uncomfortable in ‘X-theory’ situations and are
unlikely to be productive, especially long-term, and are likely to seek alternative situations. This quick test
provides a broad indication as to management style and individual preference, using the ‘X-Y Theory’ definitions.
© Alan Chapman 2001-08 based on Douglas McGregor’s X-Y Theory. Layout by N Lacasse. More free online learning materials
are at www.businessballs.com. Not to be sold or published. Sole risk with user. Author accepts no liability.
949314
research-article2020
MCQXXX10.1177/0893318920949314Management Communication QuarterlyWieland
Article
Constituting Resilience
at Work: Maintaining
Dialectics and Cultivating
Dignity throughout a
Worksite Closure
Management Communication Quarterly
2020, Vol. 34(4) 463­–494
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318920949314
DOI: 10.1177/0893318920949314
journals.sagepub.com/home/mcq
Stacey M. B. Wieland1
Abstract
Job insecurity—seen in practices like temporary work, furloughs, and site
closures—is an ongoing reality for increasing numbers of workers. While
the communicative constitution of resilience in situations of job loss
has received significant attention, we know little about how resilience is
constituted in the face of ongoing job insecurity. This study explores that
question by considering how a group of employees enacted resilience during
the 22-month period between the announcement that their worksite would
close and the actual closure. Based on in-depth interviews, this study considers
how soon-to-be terminated employees created and maintained resilience
by (de)centering themselves, framing the future optimistically, affirming
their value, keeping work in perspective, and caring for one another. These
findings point to the importance of sensemaking that enabled employees to
hold conflicting emotions and interpretations in tension and meaningfully
enact purpose, agency, and humanity. Specifically, the analysis suggests that
maintaining dialectics and cultivating dignity are important for constituting
resilience. This study contributes to our understanding of the communicative
constitution of resilience by offering a sixth central process—maintaining
1
Calvin University, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Corresponding Author:
Stacey M. B. Wieland, Department of Communication, Calvin University, 1810 E. Beltline Ave
SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546, USA.
Email: swiela@gmail.com
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Management Communication Quarterly 34(4)
dialectics—to the communication theory of resilience and suggesting that
workplace interactions that cultivate dignity enable resilience.
Keywords
resilience, job insecurity, dignity, dialectics
We received the message at the cafeteria. We were 900 people sitting down and
we understood after 30 seconds that this is really serious . . . . When he had told
us that they will close our site in [22 months], it was absolutely quiet. Nobody
was screaming or asking or showing some sort of anger. Just silence. Not a
word. You could hear people breathing. (Olivia)
Many people said, “Oh, working at SRI: That is safe.” And suddenly you just
realize this isn’t safe. That the company, they don’t want to be in [city] anymore,
we just close it. And almost 1,000 lose their jobs . . . . You realize no job is safe.
It doesn’t matter how big or how small [of a] company you work at, anything
could happen. (Emma)
You need to adapt. You need to be flexible. Otherwise you will go around and
feel really bad all the time having an ache in your tummy and your head.
(Cristina)
This case study explores the experiences of Olivia, Emma, Christina, and
their colleagues after their company—which I call the Swedish Research
Institute (SRI)—announced that the local site of 900 employees would close
22 months later. From an organizational perspective, the advance notice
enabled projects and knowledge to be transferred to other sites. From an
employee perspective, it created a stressful temporary employment situation
for an extended period of time. Based on in-depth interviews with employees
throughout and after the closure, this study considers how employees constituted resilience throughout the closure as they navigated job insecurity.
I sought to study the site closure because of two related stressors facing
SRI employees. First, I knew from my previous ethnographic research at SRI
(Wieland, 2010, 2011) that most employees were quite loyal: As one participant noted, employees were very “devoted to their work” and saw it as more
of a calling than a job. Further, as mentioned by Emma above, many stayed
at the company both because of their commitment and the security that they
believed SRI provided. Although workers remained employed for up to
22 months after the closure announcement, their positions were no longer
Wieland
465
presumed to be long-term, which moved them to the liminal “gray area”
between permanent employment and absolute unemployment (Davies &
Esseveld, 1989; see also Kalleberg, 2018). While participants were undoubtedly already aware of the eroding social contract (Buzzanell, 2000), the closure made it clear that they had to face it directly. I wanted to understand how
they responded to this challenge.
A second stressor facing employees was that most continued working at
SRI for an extended time after the closure was announced. The 22-month
period between the announcement and what many called “the bitter end” was
marked by uncertainty—about severance packages, end dates, and future
employment. This situation struck me as particularly challenging to navigate.
Receiving advance notice of a closure—as participants did in this case—is
not unusual and is often required by law (Thomson Reuters Practical Law,
n.d.). Recently, Michelin and General Motors gave 20- and 12-months’ notice
respectively (Boudette, 2018; Sucher & Gupta, 2018). Advance notice can
enable a smooth transition for the company (Freeman, 2009) and typically
increases the long-term wages of those who are dismissed (Blau, 2006). Yet
advance notice also places employees in an extended period of job insecurity.
At SRI, most employees remained at the company until their end dates in
order to receive severance packages, but staying meant remaining in a period
of liminality—“an experience of being betwixt and between” (Ibarra &
Obodaru, 2016, p. 47)—during which they could not initially pursue new
jobs. While there is significant research considering how those facing job loss
and unemployment react (e.g., Beck, 2016; Buzzanell & Turner, 2003, 2012;
Leanna & Feldman, 1992; Shoss et al., 2018), very little is known about how
victims of closures navigate the liminal period of job insecurity between
receiving advanced notice and the actual closure (Blau, 2006). Understanding
how employees experience and respond to extended job insecurity is especially valuable in light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic because job insecurity is likely to be more widespread. Early estimates indicate that many
workers will face job insecurity associated with furloughs and the ongoing
threat of layoffs over the coming years (Smialek, 2020).
While I didn’t set out to study resilience—“the process of reintegrating
from disruptions in life” (Richardson, 2002, p. 309)—what I learned from
participants about how they negotiated these stressors indicated that they, for
the most part, saw themselves as adapting and reintegrating successfully.
Because of their positive interpretations, I began to focus my inquiry on how
they communicatively constituted resilience (Buzzanell, 2010). In so doing, I
take a phenomenological view of resilience that privileges participants’ collective judgments about whether their situation is interpreted as adverse and
its outcomes are positive (Ungar, 2004). While I cannot make claims about
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Management Communication Quarterly 34(4)
long-term success, I can relay what participants reported about their ability to
manage throughout the closure. Most reported coming to peace with the closure over the three years I conducted interviews. They reported letting go of
SRI—for some this took significant time—and moving forward. For many,
this letting go entailed focusing on the positive things they had gained from
the company and moving beyond resentment. Many told me they shifted
from an initial sense of rejection and uncertainty about the value of their work
to developing confidence not only in their work but also in their ability to
adapt and survive in a changing economy. Most participants ultimately interpreted the closure as a positive thing for them, and many even talked about it
in such terms 3 months after the announcement. In this paper, I consider what
interviewees told me about what enabled them to successfully adapt despite
the site closure and concomitant job insecurity.
The Communication Theory of Resilience
Resilience is “the process of meaning making through everyday messages
and stories that enable reintegration from life’s disruptions” (Lucas &
Buzzanell, 2012, p. 190). Reintegration implies that those enacting resilience
not only recover from adversity but productively move forward by growing
and adapting (Agarwal & Buzzanell, 2015; Buzzanell, 2017). Communication
scholars have examined how this occurs in a variety of situations that disrupt
the status quo such as death, disaster, unemployment, financial hardship,
divorce, and illness (Afifi & McManus, 2006; Agarwal & Buzzanell, 2015;
Beck, 2016; Lucas & Buzzanell, 2012; Pangborn, 2019).
From a communication perspective, resilience is an ongoing, intersubjective process that unfolds through a series of responses rather than a single
event (Buzzanell, 2017). Describing this process as intersubjective points
attention to its social accomplishment, involving coordination between multiple actors (Buzzanell et al., 2009). Thus, resilience does not reside within
individuals but is “situated in human interaction” (Buzzanell, 2017, p. 98).
Communication scholars typically distinguish resilience, a process, from
resiliency, a trait or set of traits individuals possess that enable resilience.
Viewing resilience as communicative asserts that it is accomplished through
communication—“developed, sustained, and grown through discourse, interaction, and material considerations” (Buzzanell, 2010, p. 1).
The Communication Theory of Resilience identifies five communicative
processes that constitute resilience: (1) crafting normalcy, described as establishing a sense of ordinariness through interactions and routines; (2) affirming
identity anchors, described as drawing upon established discourses to maintain one’s sense of self; (3) maintaining and using communication networks
Wieland
467
by cultivating and drawing upon social capital; (4) employing alternative logics to reframe situations or act on them in ways that carve out space for transformation; and (5) foregrounding productive action while backgrounding
negative emotions (Buzzanell, 2010, 2017). Buzzanell (2010) suggested that
future research should build on this theory by identifying additional communicative processes constituting resilience.
Constituting Resilience in the Face of Job
Insecurity
In cases of job insecurity, psychology research has demonstrated that resiliency buffers individuals from emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and counterproductive interpersonal behaviors in the workplace (Shoss et al., 2018).
While communication scholars have not studied how resilience is constituted
in situations of job insecurity, the communicative constitution of resilience
among those facing job loss has received significant attention (e.g., Beck,
2016; Buzzanell & Turner, 2012). Research on coping with job loss emphasizes the value of problem-based coping (actions taken to remove the source
of the stress such as job searching) over symptom-based coping (behaviors
that seek to address the negative emotions associated with job loss) (Leanna
& Feldman, 1992). Job insecurity differs from unemployment in that it
involves prolonged rather than acute uncertainty; thus, eliminating the
stressor through problem-based coping is not usually possible (Afifi et al.,
2012). In cases of job insecurity, adaptation becomes central because the
stressor is ongoing. At SRI, for example, the majority of employees stayed
throughout the closure, placing them in a position of prolonged job insecurity
for more than a year.
Communication studies demonstrate the centrality of social networks to
resilience processes, especially in the face of unemployment (Buzzanell,
2010). Much of this research has focused on family communication contexts.
Buzzanell and Turner (2003, 2012) illuminated how the families of unemployed male breadwinners collaboratively accomplished resilience through
emotion work, the affirming of traditional sources of identity, and the coconstruction of normalcy through narrative. Lucas and Buzzanell (2012)
demonstrated that family communication constitutes resilience over the lifespan by showing how memorable messages communicated in childhood influenced the resilience practices of adult children. Related research considers
other aspects of family communication—including partnership, tension
release, and respect—that enable relational resilience in the face of unemployment (Beck, 2016).
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Management Communication Quarterly 34(4)
While scholars have documented the complex ways those facing job loss
constitute resilience within family contexts, we know less about how resilience is constituted in workplaces, in large part because those experiencing
job loss are typically unemployed. However, scholars have demonstrated that
workplace interactions significantly affect the practice of resilience more
generally and beyond situations of job insecurity (Buzzanell, 2018; Meneghel
et al., 2016). A supportive climate and workplace relationships are crucial for
enabling resilience (Luthans et al., 2008; Powley, 2009). An important direction for research is a consideration of how workplace interactions facilitate
resilience (Buzzanell et al., 2009; King et al., 2016).This study seeks to better
understand the role of workplace communication in constituting resilience
during a period of job insecurity.
Focus of Present Study
Following Afifi (2018), in this study I explore how members of SRI created
and maintained resilience. To do so, I focus on participant sensemaking, in
part because Buzzanell’s (2017) five communicative processes of resilience
all ultimately involve making sense—of contexts, identities, relationships,
rationales, and emotions. Sensemaking is also appropriate for framing my
analysis because interviewees indicated that colleagues together interpreted
the closure in ways that enabled adaptation. Sensemaking is a process by
which we enact contexts, by attending to particular elements of the environment and ignoring others, and select meanings, by choosing particular interpretations of those enacted contexts as most plausible (Kramer, 2017).
Sensemaking is especially prevalent during disruption because loss and
trauma threaten “our sense of self-worth and our most fundamental beliefs or
assumptions about how the world works” (Davis & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2001,
p. 727). When studying sensemaking during disruption, it is valuable to
understand the meanings produced through communication and how those
meanings enable and constrain identity and action (Weick et al., 2005). In this
study, I argue that participant sensemaking enabled participants to develop
nuanced interpretations that maintained dialectics and cultivated dignity.
Because dialectics and dignity emerged as central for constituting resilience
at SRI, I will briefly introduce each concept here.
Dialectics are opposing discourses that intersect and play off of one
another in social life (Baxter, 2011). Rather than framing contradictory discourses as opposing binaries requiring a choice between one or the other,
dialectics affirm contradictory discourses enacted and experienced simultaneously. In other words, rather than adopting an either/or stance, dialectics
Wieland
469
embrace a both/and stance, what Baxter calls a “unity of opposites” (Baxter,
2004, p. 103). Tracy (2004) demonstrated that contradictions can be productive for organizational members when they enact them as complementary
dialectics by attending simultaneously to multiple, conflicting discourses.
Seeing dialectics as productive is consistent with organizational communication scholarship that demonstrates the value of acknowledging and embracing rather than denying complexity and contradiction (Trethewey & Ashcraft,
2004).
Dignity is typically defined as one’s sense of worth and in workplace
contexts is typically understood as stemming from recognition of humanity, respectful treatment, affordance of autonomy, opportunity to contribute meaningfully, and being treated with equal status (Lucas, 2017). Types
of workplace dignity include 1) inherent dignity, which is one’s God-given
value due to their humanity; 2) earned dignity, which emerges from one’s
contributions to an organization; and 3) remediated dignity, which is
defined as “social interactions and organizational practices that conceal
the instrumental and unequal nature of work” (Lucas, 2015, p. 621). Two
central lines of inquiry related to dignity at work focus on problematic
workplaces and on how employees respond to threats to their dignity
(Lucas, 2017). One threat to dignity especially relevant to this study is
reification, which Lucas defined as “when people are treated as bundles of
human resources that are replaceable, expendable, and disposable, instead
of as human beings who have value that transcends the workplace” (Lucas,
2015, p. 626, emphasis in original). Research on dignity focuses primarily
on employees’ experiences of indignity and provides “very little understanding of dignity as a positive experience” (Lucas, 2015, p. 625; for a
notable exception, see Jensen, 2018).
In my findings, I will demonstrate that participant sensemaking that maintained dialectics and cultivated dignity were especially important for constituting resilience at SRI. Before explaining these findings in more detail,
however, I turn to the study’s methodology.
Methods
This study is based on 67 in-depth interviews with 23 employees at various
points during and after the site’s closure. In-depth interviewing is helpful for
understanding participants’ “experience[s] and perspective[s] through stories, accounts and explanations” (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011, p. 173). Interviews
also allow the researcher to understand meanings that cross multiple social
settings and thus are difficult to observe (Kleinman et al., 1997).
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Management Communication Quarterly 34(4)
Participants and Procedures
After learning that SRI—a multinational research and development company
where I had previously conducted participant observation (Wieland, 2010,
2011)—was closing this site of 900 employees, I reconnected with participants from my earlier study to invite them to participate in interviews.
Participants primarily worked in what I call the research implementation
department as managers, project leaders, coordinators, administrators, and
administrative assistants. Four were in managerial roles; one participant
served as a union representative. The majority of participants (21) were
female, as female employees dominated the department that was the focus of
my original ethnographic study.
Three months after the closure announcement, I conducted the first round
of interviews in person. I conducted follow-up interviews via phone with
nineteen participants at later points during and after the closure process.
Individual participants completed anywhere from one to six interviews. Most
completed multiple interviews throughout the closure and many participated
in a final interview after they had transitioned into a new job or retirement
(see Table 1 for participant descriptions and the number of interviews each
completed). The variation in the number of interviews individual participants
completed was due to two factors. The first is the length of time that a participant remained at SRI: Participants who left earlier participated in fewer interviews because I only interviewed each person once after starting a new job.
The second is participant response: I approached active participants to request
a follow-up interview every six months but did not continue to contact those
who did not respond.
Interviews were semi-structured and interview guides were personalized
based on previous conversations. Common topics included their experience,
how they were managing, their efforts to find and their priorities for a new
job, the process of leaving SRI, and their transition to their next jobs. I did not
explicitly ask participants about resilience as I set out to study their experience of the closure rather than resilience per se. Interviews lasted between 23
and 116 minutes, averaging 55 minutes in length. Interviews were recorded
(except for two that failed to record), resulting in 1,126 single-spaced pages
of transcripts.
Data Analysis
My earlier ethnographic study of SRI provided me with contextual knowledge—a deep understanding of the organization’s history and culture as well
as participants’ work processes—that aided interpretation. Data analysis
471
Gender
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Male
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Pseudonym
Agnes
Alice
Alicia
Amanda
Astrid
David
Elsa
Emma
Erika
Greta
Hanna
Inga
Project Leader
Project Administrator
Project Leader
Project Administrator
Project Leader
Project Administrator
Manager
Administrative Assistant
Manager
Project Administrator
Project Leader
Administrative Assistant
Position
Table 1. Participant Descriptions.
8–12
20–24
8–12
8–12
8–12
25+
13–19
8–12
8–12
13–19
13–19
13–19
Years at
SRI
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
4
5
2
5
5
Total interviews
completed
(continued)
Had left SRI: working in new job after period of
unemployment
Had left SRI: working in new job after period of
unemployment
Had left SRI: working in new job
Pre-closure, after information about packages
and end dates
Had left SRI: working in new job after period of
unemployment
After closure announcement, before
information about packages and end dates
After closure announcement, before
information about packages and end dates
Had left SRI: in school
Had left SRI: working in new job
After closure announcement, before
information about packages and end dates
Had left SRI: working in new job
Had left SRI: retired
Circumstances at final interview
472
Gender
Male
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Female
Pseudonym
Jakob
Lena
Lilly
Linnea
Matilda
Michelle
Molly
Olivia
Rakel
Sara
Stella
Table 1. (continued)
Manager
Manager
Project Coordinator
Project Leader
Project Leader
Project Coordinator
Project Leader
Project Coordinator
Manager
Project Administrator
Manager
Position
25+
25+
8–12
8–12
13–19
25+
8–12
13–19
20–24
8–12
13–19
Years at
SRI
4
6
4
2
4
4
2
2
2
4
1
Total interviews
completed
After closure announcement, before
information about packages and end dates
Had left SRI: working in new job
Had left SRI: looking for job after quitting the
first job she took post SRI
Pre-closure, after information about packages
and end dates
Had left SRI: working in new job
Had left SRI: retired
Pre-closure, after information about packages
and end dates
Had left SRI: working in new job
Pre-closure, after information about packages
and end dates
Had left SRI: working in new job after period of
unemployment
Had left SRI: retired
Circumstances at final interview
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473
proceeded inductively and iteratively and involved four steps (Tracy, 2013).
First, through data immersion, I sought to answer the question “What is happening here?” (Tracy, p. 188) and organized my early interpretations by taking notes and writing analytic memos. Second, I used NVivo to conduct
primary-level, inductive coding during which I focused on describing and
organizing the data. Primary-level themes identified reoccurring ways that
participants talked about the closure experience; for example, talking about
the closure as a shared experience, placing blame externally, and discussing
the closure’s impact on the community. The third step involved second-level
coding to understand how the primary-level themes related to one another in
meaningful ways. Through this process, for example, I came to understand
the common connection between the three primary-level themes mentioned
above as serving to decenter themselves. This third step helped me arrive at
the five themes at the heart of my analysis, one of which is (de)centering
themselves. Along the way, I worked iteratively through reading and analytic
memoing to determine how these inductive themes related to existing literature. This process enabled me to identify the two central communication processes constituting resilience—maintaining dialectics and cultivating
dignity—that cut across the five themes and provide the foundation for this
study’s contributions to existing literature. Finally, I conducted member
checks by asking two informants to review a draft for factual accuracy, resonance of my accounts with their experiences, and anything that was missed or
mischaracterized. Their responses affirmed my interpretations and provided
additional insights that I incorporated into my analysis.
Findings and Interpretations
While the demands of ongoing work provided some sense of normalcy, participants experienced the closure and accompanying job insecurity as ongoing stressors that spurred sensemaking on many levels. They worked to make
sense of why the closure occurred. They questioned whether their work at
SRI was still valued. They wondered what was next and whether they would
succeed professionally long-term. They pondered whether their city and
nation would remain vital. Five themes emerged as I considered how participants created and maintained resilience in the face of these uncertainties: (de)
centering themselves, framing the future optimistically, affirming the value
of their past and present work, keeping work in perspective, and caring for
one another. It is important to note that participants’ experiences of ups and
downs indicate that resilience was not a consistent accomplishment; rather, it
manifested inconsistently and developed over time. While not all participants
engaged in these resilience practices—and those that did, did so partially and
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Management Communication Quarterly 34(4)
intermittently—these ways of making sense of the closure ultimately helped
them enact resilience.1
(De)Centering Themselves
In conversations, participants often (de)centered themselves, meaning that
they enacted a broader context for making sense of the closure than their own
individual experience. By talking about the closure in ways that framed it as
not only about them, they looked outward rather than simply inward.
Ultimately, these moves involved both decentering and centering themselves
in ways that held self and other in dialectic tension. Participants (de)centered
themselves by talking about the experience as shared, placing blame externally, and emphasizing the closure’s impact on their community.
Talking about the closure as a shared experience. One way participants (de)
centered themselves is by emphasizing the closure as a shared experience.
Jakob explained, “The fact that everyone was in the same boat was sort of
relief. It made more easy, but it wasn’t easy.” Elsa stated: “This happens to
people everywhere I suppose.” Talking about it as an experience they shared
both with colleagues at SRI and others in similar situations enacted a broader
context within which to understand their individual hardship.
Placing blame externally. A second way participants (de)centered themselves
was by not blaming themselves for the closure. Alice said, “it doesn’t have
anything to do with me personally.” Alice’s choice to mention herself in a
sentence deflecting responsibility forcibly centers herself in the discussion of
blame without identifying a clear external site of blame. Similarly, participants who did not have new jobs right away also blamed the situation rather
than themselves. Annette, who was unemployed for seven months, said that
sometimes she would start to doubt herself because she had not yet been
hired. When I asked her how she handled that, she replied, “[I say] to myself
that it has nothing to do with my qualifications. It’s just that I’ve had bad
luck, and it’s so many people applying for one job.” For the most part, participants did not blame the company either: Most explained the company’s decision to close the site in light of industry changes and stockholder pressure.
They pointed to the systemic forces at work instead of the company itself.
(De)centering by placing blame externally is a good example of what Buzzanell (2017) calls employing alternative logics.
Attending to the impact of the closure on the community. A third way participants (de)centered themselves was by focusing on the implications of the
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475
closure for their local community. In the first round of interviews, many
expressed concern not only for their individual futures but also for the future
of their city. At her first interview, Inga critiqued the company’s decision,
noting that “the company has been in [city] for such a long time and . . .
means a lot to the town, to the university, to all the students, and of course to
all of us employees.” Participants expressed concern that SRI’s buildings
would remain empty and negatively affect surrounding businesses. Shortly
before the second round of interviews, a local entrepreneur purchased the site
to host start-up companies. Almost every participant eagerly shared this news
with me during the second interview, expressing hope for the future of their
community. For example, Michelle explained, “they’re going to make a lifescience park. So that way, they don’t have to destroy the facilities . . . . it’s
good for the university as well, and for the whole region.” By attending to the
closure’s impact on the broader community, they made sense of the situation
within a frame that included more than just their individual hardship.
While participants certainly experienced the closure as affecting them personally, by enacting a broader context beyond their own individual experiences for interpreting closure they (de)centered themselves. While this turn
outward was certainly enabled by their sense of relative economic stability
due to the Swedish safety net, it nonetheless seemed to keep them from wallowing in self-pity and fear due to the hardships the closure presented.2
Placing their focus externally—on their shared plight, on changes in the
industry, and on the impact on the community—enabled participants to make
sense of the closure as affecting both themselves individually and their larger
community. Through this process, they maintained dialectic tension between
the discourses of self and other. That is, they recognized the closure’s impact
on individual and community rather than enabling one to eclipse the other.
Framing the Future Optimistically
Participants also consciously sought to interpret their situation optimistically.
Interviewees told me that they practiced optimism and encouraged each other
to do so. This optimism most obviously manifested in their emphasis on the
importance of positive thinking in early interviews despite significant uncertainty and stress. In later interviews, participants framed the closure as ultimately a good thing for them and talked about increased confidence in their
ability to succeed professionally in a flexible labor market. The analysis
below will make clear that participants’ efforts to maintain optimism did not
stem from denial about the complexity of their situation or the insecurities
they faced. Instead, their interactions emphasized agency and possibility
while also recognizing hardship. In this way, their optimistic framing of the
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future is grounded in their maintenance of dialectical tensions between positivity and negativity and short- and long-term orientations.
Practicing positive thinking grounded in reality testing. Positive thinking was a
strong theme in the first round of interviews. At that time, participants did not
yet have information about severance packages and end dates, which caused
a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety. Despite this, participants stressed the
importance of positivity, both in terms of believing that the company would
treat them well and that they would be able to eventually find a new job.
Many told me that they had actively chosen to discuss the situation in ways
that were more positive than negative: “I’ve made my decision to try not to
be negative because I can’t do anything about it, and I actually felt myself
that you are being too negative, you are being too sour . . . . So I try not to be
negative” (Elsa). Emma justified positive thinking similarly: “You cannot go
around and be negative all the time because that would only make you feel
bad.” While participants stressed their efforts to practice positivity, they also
pointed out the importance of acknowledging the negative emotions.
One way participants practiced positivity was by talking about their
career prospects hopefully. For example, Lilly told me, “I just know it will
sort itself, something will pop up. It always does.” In order to ground their
optimism, participants conducted reality testing—actions taken to evaluate
whether their positivity about their job prospects were warranted.3 Many
said that they tested the job market early on. For example, they stopped
applying after securing an interview because that success gave them confidence that when they were ready to leave, they would find a job. They also
grounded their optimism about job prospects by interpreting colleagues’
new jobs as a good sign for all. Molly commented that she was happy for
colleagues with new jobs and also that “it feels very good for me because
then I know that they managed to get a new job and that wasn’t so difficult,
so it will, probably, be the same for me.” Reality testing enabled them to
anticipate future employment prospects in light of what they could determine in the present.
Practicing positivity was not simply an individual pursuit but a social
accomplishment. Participants told me that they encouraged one another to
think positively. Stella, one of the managers, explained:
In the beginning, there were some people that were very, a little bit bitter and
very critical and other people came and said “It takes me down when I hear
them. Can we do something?” And then we started to discuss, “How can we
change our attitude so we all feel well?” Of course you need to be critical for
the company because they have done something that is very negative for you .
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. . . It’s quite okay to sit with your manager and be very critical. But not in the
big room because some people are feel[ing] bad about that.
Many mentioned the importance of talking about and lamenting the closure,
but not all of the time. Participants reported that managers and colleagues
together regulated conversations to ensure that the atmosphere remained positive. In this way, their sensemaking maintained both positive and negative
emotions rather than absolving the tension between them.
Talking about the closure as an opportunity. Participants also framed the future
optimistically by talking about the closure in ways that interpreted it as providing the opportunity to develop professionally by doing something new.
For example, Lilly told me, “I don’t see it as a failure . . . . I see it as an opportunity to do something else.” Alice agreed, “I’m quite convinced that for most
of us, this will end up as something good.” Fifteen of 23 participants explicitly discussed the closure in those terms already at their first interview.4 Those
who framed the closure as an opportunity typically explained that they were
comfortable at SRI and would not have chosen to leave. Emma, for example,
said in her first interview that if SRI hadn’t closed “I would have stayed and
I probably would have done . . . maybe not exactly the same work, but almost
. . . . For me personally, it was time to do something new anyway.” While
many similarly said that they would not have chosen to leave, they framed the
closure as providing opportunities for development and challenge in a new
job.
I should clarify that those who talked about the closure as an opportunity
did not see it exclusively in that light. Many who claimed the closure was
ultimately a good thing for them also expressed sadness and fear. This demonstrates that their emotion work maintained rather than absolved the dialectic tension between negative and positive emotions. Further, it demonstrates
that they maintained tension between the immediate challenges they faced
related to the closure and their long-term employment prospects.
Emphasizing increased self-efficacy. Post-departure, participants framed the
future optimistically by emphasizing the increased self-efficacy they gained
through this experience. Participants talked about their new jobs as engaging
and energizing. They reported increasing self-confidence and certainty that
they would be able to change jobs again in the future if needed or chosen.
Erika’s comments reflect this:
I am a little bit surprised that it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. It’s very
fulfilling to learn new things and new way of working and it’s good for your
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self-esteem and you feel good when you can see that you can learn new things
and that you are good at it.
Erika described her new job as “very good” and “better” than were she still at
SRI, despite the fact that her new job was a temporary position and paid less
than her position at SRI. She explained her priorities: “I don’t feel that the
money is that important. We have a good life, and I think it’s more important
that you enjoy what you are doing.” Rather than denying the negative results
of the closure, Erika framed money as less important than meaningful work
in a way that acknowledged both the positive and negative implications of the
closure.
Hanna, the interviewee who seemed most devastated by the closure in our
conversations before leaving SRI, had changed her view after a year at a new
company: “It was a hard year. And it took about half a year at the new job to
gain my energy back, but I wouldn’t be as happy as I am right now if I stayed
at SRI, I think.” She also shared additional insight on her new situation, saying, “I’m learning a lot and I think I’ve got a lot of new energy from changing
jobs.”
Through their talk, participants framed the experience of transitioning to a
new job as empowering. They interpreted being chosen by a new employer
and developing in their new positions as a sign that they were capable. They
framed this as providing a new type of security: Rather than finding security
in loyalty from an employer, they said that they could feel secure in their ability to adapt. Matilda articulated this:
I’m more confident and I would rather [not] go out and find a new job, but now
this scary feeling that I might be fired—it doesn’t really frighten me . . . . If they
fire me, okay fine. I [will] go find something else. I’m pretty sure I will find
something else if I need it. That just relaxes me.
Alicia similarly stated, “It’s very easy to say that nothing is safe [if] even [a]
company like SRI could close down. And I think it’s given me a different
perspective . . . . Because I got more confidence [that] I will fix it; I can
handle it.” They framed their successful transition to new jobs as enabling
them to approach the future with confidence and optimism despite their recognition of increasing employment insecurity.
By practicing positive thinking grounded in reality testing, talking about
the closure as an opportunity, and emphasizing increased self-efficacy, participants framed their futures optimistically. While these moves demonstrate
the interrelationship between two of Buzzanell’s processes—employing
alternative logics and downplaying negative feelings while foregrounding
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positive emotions—participants’ sensemaking processes also accomplished
something else. Specifically, this framing maintained the dialectic tension
between fear and hope in that their optimism about the future held positivity
and negativity in tension rather than allowing positivity to bypass negativity.
Their optimistic framing of the future also reflects the tension they maintained between attending to their short-term experience of the closure and
their long-term prospects.
Affirming the Value of their Past and Present Work
Although participants framed the future optimistically, the closure threatened
their dignity as they realized that they were replaceable—what Lucas (2015)
refers to as reification. Lilly explained:
You realize how small you actually are in the big whole thing because you’re
at a company where you feel very like everybody knows everybody . . . and you
feel like you mean something, but then you realize that you actually don’t mean
anything in the big scheme. Of course I still matter as a person. But that’s all
about coming down to who you are and how you feel about yourself.
Lilly and many others interpreted the closure as signaling that SRI did not
value them. While participants certainly grieved their replaceability, one way
they adapted throughout the closure was by making sense of their past and
present work for SRI as valuable. Olivia, for example, noted the importance
of her current tasks because “it’s not like the company is closing down.” In
our conversations, participants affirmed the value of their past and present
work by emphasizing its impact on their colleagues and their sense of pride
as well as by stressing the importance of transferring their knowledge.
Framing their current work as important. Participants affirmed their dignity by
stressing the value of their current work. Throughout the closure, they minimized the company as their motivation for continuing to do a good job.
Instead, they talked about the importance of continuing to work hard for their
colleagues and for their own sense of pride.
Sara, a manager, told me that “it was impressive to see the way people
kept doing high quality work until the very bitter end.” She emphasized that
they were doing it primarily for their colleagues:
It was extremely clear that . . . the focus was the colleagues at the end, to leave
it in a good way for the colleagues that were going to take over. They didn’t do
it for the company; they did it for their colleagues.
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She said that they also valued their present work because they interpreted
doing it well until the end as important for their sense of pride. She explained
the dominant attitude she observed:
Even if the company has done this to me, I will do my job until the end and I
will leave it in a good way to my colleagues and proud of what I have done
myself. I can leave this company and I can be proud of what I did at the
company even though the company doesn’t want me anymore.
She later added, “It’s just a very good feeling to say that I did all that I had to
do until the bitter end . . . . You can leave with pride.” Several participants
talked about their commitment to do their best work until the end as a shared
agreement to “leave with the flag on top.” This commitment, they insisted,
was not about loyalty to SRI; instead it stemmed from their belief in the
importance of their projects, loyalty to their colleagues, and their own sense
of pride. By focusing on their jobs, they were able to momentarily escape the
stress of the closure and—more important—affirm their dignity by finding
purpose in the midst of it.
Stressing the importance of transferring their knowledge. Participants also
affirmed the value of their past and present contributions by stressing the
importance of transferring their projects and knowledge successfully to colleagues at other sites. For example, Olivia explained that the knowledge
transfer process was important to her “because the work I’ve done for the last
three years is important. It’s important for the company but it’s also important
for other companies. And I think for the future within the industry.” Those
who seemed to have the biggest challenge wrapping up their work were those
who didn’t have someone to hand their projects off to. Sara explained that it
was “very, very apparent” that people’s stress levels went down once they
knew who would be taking over their projects: “There were some people
where . . . there was no name and that was difficult.” Knowing who would
continue their work provided participants with a sense of closure and was
also interpreted as indicating the value of their contributions, because the
work would continue after they left.
When administrative assistants were asked to recycle their files rather than
archiving them, they interpreted it as a clear indication that their work was
not valued. Astrid explained: “I’m throwing away ten years [of] work. And
that’s hard . . . . They don’t want my archive of papers. [laughs] No, that’s not
funny.” I asked her how it makes her feel: “It hurts a bit, I think. Because
things that I felt were very important, aren’t important when you are throwing
away most of it.” I asked her how she deals with that disappointment: “I have
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to value it myself. I have to turn it around in that way.” She told me that she
took comfort in the belief that her expertise would be useful to her in her next
job. This is another example how employing alternative logics is crucial for
maintaining resilience in the face of job insecurity.
While the organization’s decision to close the site made participants feel
replaceable, they cultivated a sense of self-worth through affirming the
value of the past and present work—for colleagues, to maintain their pride,
for the success of their projects, and for their future jobs. While this commitment certainly served the company well, it also provided an important source
of meaning for participants by offering them a sense of purpose, which
helped them maintain a sense of earned dignity through their contributions.
Keeping Work in Perspective
Participants also affirmed and strengthened interpretations of work that limited its centrality in their lives. By keeping work in perspective—both through
disengagement practices and reaffirming their view of work as only one part
of life—participants protected themselves and asserted agency, which helped
them maintain a sense of dignity. The practices discussed in this section also
point to the dialectical tension participants constructed through their tempered commitment to SRI.
Disengaging from SRI. In early interviews, many participants told me that they
were disengaging from their work at SRI. Participants reported disengagement practices such as taking long lunches, coming late, and leaving early.
Some discussed quickly deleting emails with details about the reorganization
because they knew they wouldn’t be involved. As Sara said: “My loyalty is
going down a little bit. I can feel that my engagement in work is less now.”
Most saw disengagement practices as reflecting their decreasing commitment
to SRI, something that they interpreted as healthy given the situation. Alice
explained:
I can come a little late and I can leave a little early, so I don’t have to work so
long days and . . . it’s not so hectic of course. So it’s quite comfortable, and as
I have quite a few vacation days, some weeks I only work four days and have
one day off.
She quickly clarified that she still maintained her work ethic: “Of course you
still want to do a good job here before you leave.” While participants reported
remaining committed to completing their projects satisfactorily, many
expressed unwillingness to do anything beyond what was required.
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For many, disengagement occurred early. For others, letting go took longer. It was a process of accepting that they would not be a part of SRI’s future
and coming to peace with that. Stella talked about letting go in terms of needing to “cut the ropes,” which she described as “put[ting] the company behind
me. If I want to do something else, I can be more open. I don’t want to be
bitter.” She added that the advance notice enabled her to “cut the ropes” over
time.
Disengaging was one way that participants kept work in perspective as
they became cautious about giving too much to SRI. Disengagement served
as a form of resistance in response to dignity threats and, ultimately, helped
restore a sense of dignity because it provided a sense of agency and helped
them pursue meaning outside of the workplace (Lucas, 2015). At the same
time, participants were quick to demonstrate that they remained committed to
doing the work that needed to be done. Their tempered commitment to their
work demonstrates their efforts to both engage and disengage simultaneously—demonstrating yet another opposing set of discourses that their sensemaking held in tension.
Framing work as only one part of life. Participants’ view of work as only one
important part of their lives and identities (Wieland, 2011) also helped them
keep work in perspective. This view of work manifested much more in terms
of explicit talk about work’s limitations as a source of meaning rather than
extensive discussion affirming other identity anchors. Given the dignity
threats that the closure represented, framing work as only one part of life
helped participants cultivate a sense of autonomy, self-respect, and inherent
worth.
Many said the closure empowered them to care for themselves and maintain
appropriate distance from work. As Alice said, “I also realized that a job is
important but also it isn’t everything . . . . I was aware of that before but now
it’s even more obvious for me.” I should clarify that participants insisted that
they still cared about work and worked hard. Their work ethic was clearly an
important facet of their identities. Alice explained, “You need to be a little
loyal, but not too much. Not too much. Because it’s not worth it really.”
Participants said they were cautious about being overly committed and believed
that they had to protect themselves. After Alicia said she was unwilling to overcommit to work, I countered that she still needed to remain employable: “You
need to do that, so you need to follow the game in a strategic way . . . that
doesn’t always mean doing everything perfectly.” Framing work as only a part
of life helped participants to emotionally disengage from SRI and discern
which parts of their jobs were most important. This interpretation also made
them cautious about hinging their sense of self-worth on work.
Interesting that asserting other identities &
autonomy is interpreted as a threat to their work ethic?
The proximity of this wisdom on self-worth vs. protecting themselves..
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In post-departure interviews, many participants told me that they had also
started to interpret their relationship with future employers differently. They
explained that their SRI experience led them to be guarded with new employers. As Alicia told me: “I don’t put my soul into [work]”:
Before I always gave my all to everything, I don’t any longer because I realized
that costs me personally too much and I don’t get that much back. And I need
to make sure I take care of myself first, not the company because they will not
take care of me . . . perhaps give me some money if they let me go and so on
but they will not take care of my health and my reeducation or whatever. So I’m
starting to be a little bit more selfish I would say, thinking about me first.
Lena also said she had more balance when asked if she felt loyal to her new
employer: “I’m still engaged, I’m still involved and think things are important and try things, but maybe I’m not that engaged . . . . It’s not that important
for me anymore.” She said she was more likely to take vacation and less
likely to work on Sunday nights. She later reflected that many of her colleagues seem to have “realized that this is a job, and there’s so many things
that are more important . . . . The closing changed many people’s view[s] of
their jobs.”
Constructing work as important but just one part of life helped participants
to both manage the long closure period and adapt to increasing job insecurity.
Ultimately, their meanings of work (Cheney et al., 2008)—orientations
toward work’s value and its role in their lives—helped them negotiate job
insecurity and constitute resilience by asserting autonomy and constructing
boundaries that limited work’s centrality to their sense of self-worth. These
things enabled them to restore dignity that had been threatened by the closure’s indication of their replaceability.
Caring for One Another
A final theme that emerged was the care that participants showed to and
received from one another. By caring for colleagues, participants not only
oriented their attention toward others (further decentering) but also found a
sense of purpose. Being cared for by others made them feel visible and valued. As Alice said, “We were really like a family . . . especially during the
last year.” She told me that members of her department gathered after the
closure announcement: “We just needed to be together to take care of each
other.” Alicia expressed this when she said, “I’ve [also] been thinking more
about how are other people doing around me? How can I help them? How
can we do this together?” Their care for one another—through individual-
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ized consideration and attending to exit rituals—restored dignity to both parties by humanizing them.
Showing individualized consideration. Managers played an important role in
caring for others by showing individualized consideration. These actions
included attending to individual needs of their staff and helping address them
(Northouse, 2010). In our first interview, I asked Sara what her staff needed
from her at that point. She thoughtfully responded:
They need to be seen. To have someone recognizing that they are there, that
they are doing their job. Someone taking an interest in their future . . . The most
important [thing] is to just be there and to ask them how things are going and .
. . how they are feeling and also how what I call “their new project,” which is
project Eva or project Hanna [is going].
Jakob held a similar view: “[I] help people look for their reactions and help them
through.” Sara also talked about managers’ central role after the announcement
as “helping all our staff to re-orient in life and to help them [find a] new job.”
This interpretation of their role led managers to care for employees in various practical ways. They regularly checked in to see how employees were
doing. They encouraged staff to use work time to revise their résumés and
look for jobs. They provided résumé feedback. Another significant way managers cared for employees was—in most cases—following the employee’s
lead when determining individual end dates. Sara and others told me that they
felt their ability to treat staff well was enabled by the fact that SRI “empowered” local leadership to handle exits how they felt was best.
Participants indicated that they felt cared for by their managers. Olivia
said “I felt I was actually seen because of this chain from the line managers.”
Alice said similarly:
They have been here. They have been visible . . . just coming into my office and
saying “Hello. How are you today? How is life? How are things going?” It’s
not necessary to have a long talk, just to show that I’m here and I care like that.
Just to be here, to be visible, to be generous.
Through individualized consideration, managers attended to employees’
needs and helped meet them, and participants noticed that managers balanced
productivity needs with concern for their wellbeing. They experienced this
care as significantly influencing their sense of self-worth in the midst of the
closure. Many noted it was especially impressive given that managers were
also “in the same situation.”
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Attending to exit rituals. Another significant way managers cared for staff was
attending specifically to their final days at SRI. Sara talked extensively about
her role in providing “good exits” for the staff. She explained: “The most
important thing is that you feel when you leave, you feel that someone had—
up until the last day—you have been someone and someone has seen you and
seen what you have been doing.” She later explained:
When the company has just said “we don’t want you anymore,” it’s not good if
your manager forgets you . . . . [I tried] to show people you still have a value to
the company. Your work is still valued. You are valued as a person.
Sara sought to provide staff with good exits by recognizing their contributions and acknowledging their humanity—two central elements to workplace
dignity.
While their care for one another connects to what Buzzanell (2017) calls
building and utilizing communication networks, their care for one another
demonstrates another way that relationships communicatively constitute
resilience. Caring for one another in the face of uncertainty—by showing
individualized consideration and attending to exit rituals—helped participants turn outward, find a sense of purpose, and reclaim dignity. As Astrid
pointed out, the closure provided those leaving with a context to connect
deeply with others, even those with whom they might not normally interact.
Through these interactions, they humanized one another—attending to each
other as people who were also struggling in the face of the closure. In addition to the obvious connections between this finding and cultivating dignity,
it is important to note that their reciprocal care for one another also points to
their maintenance of the self/other dialectic.
Discussion
As mentioned earlier, Buzzanell’s (2010, 2017) theory of resilience includes
five processes: 1) crafting normalcy, 2) affirming identity anchors, 3) maintaining and using communication networks, 4) employing alternative logics,
and 5) foregrounding productive action while backgrounding negative emotions. This study suggests that the central communication processes constituting resilience in the face of job insecurity differ from situations of job loss. In
Buzzanell and Turner’s (2003) research on job loss, crafting normalcy,
affirming identity anchors, and foregrounding/backgrounding emotions were
most important. While navigating emotions was also evident at SRI, crafting
normalcy and affirming identity anchors were not particularly prevalent. I
suspect this is because between the announcement and closure, participants
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maintained typical work routines. Instead, ongoing sensemaking processes
that framed the situation—the closure, their futures, their views of work—in
ways that enacted a broader context were especially helpful for navigating
the continued stress of their situation because such sensemaking turned them
outward. This helped them to maintain dialectical tensions between self/
other, positivity/negativity, short-/long-term, and engagement/disengagement. In addition, sensemaking that affirmed the value of their past and present work, kept work in perspective, and cared for one another was helpful
because it provided them with a sense of purpose and agency, which in turn
cultivated their sense of self-worth. This finding suggests that the most crucial of Buzzanell’s (2017) five communication processes that constitute resilience in situations of job insecurity are employing alternative logics and
foregrounding/backgrounding emotions.
This study contributes to our understanding of resilience in two ways.
First, it offers a sixth process—maintaining dialectics—to the communication theory of resilience. Interviews indicate that holding conflicting emotions and interpretations in tension was a crucial aspect of the resilience labor
of SRI employees. Maintaining interplay between several opposing discourses helped participants constitute resilience: positivity/negativity, self/
other, short-/long-term orientation, and disengagement/engagement.
Dialectical tension was perhaps most apparent in their ongoing work to legitimize yet minimize negative emotions in a way that enabled them to acknowledge sadness and fear while cultivating hope. They maintained this negative/
positive dialectic, however, not only through emotion work but also through
sensemaking that resulted in complex, contradictory interpretations that
accounted for both the negative and positive. For example, participants made
sense of their situation in ways that acknowledged their status as replaceable
while simultaneously constructing self-efficacy and hope for their futures.
They also simultaneously sought to disengage from work while completing
their tasks with integrity. When facing conflicting interpretations and emotions related to the closure, participants in this study demonstrated a facility
for maintaining the interplay between them. While maintaining dialectics in
some ways echoes Buzzanell’s fifth process—foregrounding productive
action while backgrounding negative emotions—it also represents a significant departure by emphasizing the ongoing interplay of competing discourses
(rather than simply privileging one and downplaying the other) and suggesting multiple dialectical tensions that animate resilience.
This study thus suggests that constituting resilience is a process marked by
discursive struggle that maintains—rather than denies—contradictory experiences, emotions, and interpretations. Communicatively constituting resilience can thus be described as a “contrapuntal” process in which contrasting
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melodies are played together (Baxter, 2011). Whereas relational dialectics
theory idealizes transforming dialectics to balance power between opposing
discourses, this study suggests that imbalanced discourses that nonetheless
maintain ongoing interplay might better enable resilience. Whereas denial of
negative emotions and interpretations did not seem helpful, nor did balancing
negative and positive. Instead, this study suggests that an imbalance that
maintains the tension by acknowledging the negative while tilting toward
positive constituted resilience. Future research should consider other dialectical tensions that constitute resilience as well as what the consequences of
denial, tilting, or balancing those forces is for resilience.
Second, this study contributes to our understanding of how resilience is
constituted in workplaces by suggesting that interactions that cultivate dignity enable resilience, at least in the face of job insecurity. While participants
did not use the word dignity, interviewees indicated that their experience
was shaped by being treated with dignity and, in turn, treating others with
dignity. Participants’ reciprocal communication practices humanized one
another through their care, which increased not only others’ but their own
sense of their purpose and worth within a situation rife with dignity threats.
This is consistent with Buber’s (1970) insight that when we humanize others, we ourselves become more human in the process. Participants also cultivated dignity through their efforts to maintain their sense of pride and
value their work. This finding suggests that employees experiencing a shared
dignity threat such as job insecurity can cultivate dignity through finding
purpose, carving out spaces for agency, and treating one another humanely.
This confirms Jensen’s (2018) finding that a culture of dignity can help manage stigma.
By suggesting that cultivating dignity is a central communication process
of resilience in workplaces, this study also expands the network perspective
of relationships that dominates the communication theory of resilience. This
study’s findings suggest that a social exchange perspective of workplace relationships as networks drawn upon out of self-interest to assist the struggling
individual (e.g., Buzzanell, 2010, 2017) is a helpful but limited way of conceptualizing relationships. Building on Buzzanell’s (2017) point that “developing deep relationships” (p. 9) enables resilience, this study suggests that
workplace relationships enable resilience not only through social exchange
but also through dialogic encounters. This study demonstrates the value of a
dialogic approach to relationships that emphasizes the role of mutuality in
enabling resilience (Richardson & Maninger, 2016). An emphasis on mutuality complements the economic view of relationships embedded in the network approach by providing a phenomenological view that sees dialogic
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communication as providing opportunities for empathic encounters with others (Craig, 1999). Future studies should consider how dialogic communication that acknowledges and humanizes others—or a lack thereof—affects the
constitution of resilience in the face of other workplace stressors.
Practical Implications
This study’s findings offer several practical implications for organizational
leaders and employees seeking to constitute resilience in situations of job insecurity. To organizational leaders and managers, this study suggests the importance of humanizing employees by making sure they feel seen and valued.
Equipping line managers with time and tools to provide emotional and practical support to employees is one way to accomplish this. Attending to exit rituals
is also critical, as helping employees feel seen as they exit communicates that
they are valued and respected by the company and colleagues. This suggests
that layoff practices that protect employee confidentiality through secrecy may
actually hinder the cultivation of dignity and, as a result, resilience (Løvseth &
Aasland, 2010). Future research should consider the consequences of strict
confidentiality practices for employee resilience in layoff situations.
For individuals facing job insecurity, this study suggests the value of
maintaining rather than absolving tension between contradictory interpretations and emotions. For example, (de)centering enables individuals to both
acknowledge their own experience while not getting engulfed by it. Further,
holding negative and positive emotions in tension can help cultivate hopefulness while acknowledging hardship. Conducting reality testing by applying
for jobs is a specific strategy that emerged from this study that could be valuable to others facing job insecurity. In addition, this study suggests that those
facing job insecurity should surround themselves by a supportive community—of colleagues, relatives, or a support group—in which they can care for
and be cared for by others in order to cultivate dignity.
Conclusion
By interviewing employees throughout and after a worksite closure, this
study provided a rich understanding of how sensemaking helped employees
enact resilience. It suggests that workplace interactions that enabled participants to make sense of the closure in ways that maintained dialectic tension
and cultivated dignity enabled them to adapt and remain hopeful. This study
is limited due to its focus on one small group of employees in one cultural
context. Future studies should consider the experiences of others facing job
insecurity in other cultural contexts as well as individuals facing different
Wieland
489
types of job insecurity. While interviews enabled me to gain insight into
meaning production through participant stories, accounts, and explanations
(Lindlof & Taylor, 2011), future studies of workplace closures should use
ethnographic observation to provide additional insight into how communication constitutes such meanings. In the context of COVID-19, there are significant opportunities to study the constitution of resilience in other situations
of job insecurity including furloughs or the ongoing threat of layoffs.
This study’s findings echo Sennett’s (1998) conclusion that our best hope
in the face of an increasingly flexible economy is to acknowledge our mutual
dependence, create social structures that enable individual resilience, and
cultivate community by translating “shared beliefs and values into concrete,
daily practices” (p. 137). This study demonstrates the complexity and promise of those practices.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Rebecca Meisenbach, Patricia Sias, Sarah Riforgiate, and three anonymous
reviewers for their excellent feedback on this manuscript. Thanks to participants for their
generosity in sharing their stories and experiences throughout the closure. Thanks to Yiye
Wu, Silvana Pop, and Bryleigh Loughlin for their help transcribing interviews. Thanks to
the Swedish Institute, Villanova Graduate Studies in Communication, Western Michigan
University’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship,
and the Calvin Center for Innovation in Business for generously supporting this project.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article: I did receive internal funding from
Villanova University, Western Michigan University, and Calvin University that supported this research.
Notes
1.
Participants’ enactment of resilience was undoubtedly enabled by how SRI
treated them—providing extended notice of their termination and generous
severance packages—as well as the Swedish safety net, which includes unemployment insurance, job search support, retraining, and legislation that protects
workers through measures such as minimum notice periods . While the pressures
participants experienced were not primarily economic, they experienced significant pressures nonetheless.
490
2.
3.
4.
Management Communication Quarterly 34(4)
While not the focus of this manuscript, resilience is certainly constituted not only
through individual response and the support of a community but also through the
collective creation of systems that provide resources to protect individuals when
they face such a crisis.
Reality testing is a term taken from psychotherapy that refers to a process counselors use to help clients evaluate their thoughts and feelings in light of that
which can be objectively observed.
Only three participants didn’t discuss the closure as an opportunity with me at
any point during my data collection: Two of those individuals only participated
in one interview, which was shortly after the announcement. While the third
maintained that she wished she still worked at SRI, she was ultimately optimistic
in stating that her new job “is a really good thing” (Olivia).
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Author Biography
Stacey M. B. Wieland (PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Calvin University, USA. Her main
research interests include identity, meanings of work, work/life navigation, and
dialogue.
COMM 406
Week 3
Rationality, Decision Making &
Ab(uses) of Information
Learning Outcomes
• Describe the different forms of rationalities and decision-making
models.
• Apply Scientific Management principles to contemporary organizing
practices.
• Analyze and critique the universalization of scientific management.
Rationalities (plural)
• Used colloquially as an insult.
• Many different forms of rationality, but usually epitomized by
bureaucracy .
• Alternatives exist to the legal/rational system. For example, Palancas
is a term used in many LAC for using personal relationships and
intuition to make decisions.
Rationalities
• Narratives persuade us.
• Metaphors move us.
• Baxter: Writing gives us the perception that something is “done;”
“solidified;” “real”
• Basque region of Spain prioritizes F2F communication
Scientific Management
(Taylorism)
• Training and education of managers has
steadily increased over the decades.
• Frederick Winslow Taylor (engineer in
1900s)
• Time & motion studies
• Principles of Scientific Management
4 Principles of Scientific Management
• Codifying workers’ skills into scientific laws (versus relying on intuition
to accomplish tasks)
• The scientific selection and training of labor
• The unity of work processes through the systematic application of
standards to all employees—managers as well as workers
• The resulting development of a “harmonious and just relationship”
between management and labor
Efficiency
• Applied to “home economics”
• Productivity is not a natural state, humans need
rewards/punishments.
Lillian Gilbreth
Example: Ford Motors
• Ford
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLud5XYfY_c
Classical Management
• Scientific Rationality
• Industrial Revolution
• Authoritarian values and hierarchy
• Bureaucracy
• Division of Labor
TRIANGLE
SHIRTWAIST
FACTORY FIRE
(1911)
Ludlow Massacre (1914)
Human Relations
• Hawthorne Studies
• Social science
• Organization as the sum of relationships
• Human Resources:
• – Maslow’s Hierarchy
• -Likert’s Principle of Supportive Relationships >>
Elton Mayo & The Hawthorne Effect
(1924-1927)
McDonaldization
George Ritzer
Principles of Mcdonaldization
• Efficiency
• Calculability
• Predictability
• Control
• Irrationality
McDonaldization in Creative Industries
What kinds of organizations do not focus on
efficiency?
• Universities?
• Is there a difference between effectiveness and efficiency?
Resisting the Universalization of
Organizational Principles
The “human
dimension”
• Hawthorne Studies (19271932)
• Lighting was the subject
of research, but it turns
out they were studying
the human dimension
Human Resource Management
Theories
Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y
• Critique of traditional managerial authority
• Model framed in terms of control and influence
Theory X:
• Average worker inherently dislikes work
• So most workers must be coerced to work
• Average worker wants to avoid responsibility
and prefers to be directed
Theory X & Theory Y
• My boss asks me politely to do things, gives me reasons why, and invites my suggestions.
• I am encouraged to learn skills outside of my immediate area of responsibility.
• I am left to work without interference from my boss, but help is available if I want it.
• I am given credit and praise when I do good work or put in extra effort.
• People leaving the company are given an ‘exit interview’ to hear their views on the
organisation.
• I am incentivised to work hard and well.
• If I want extra responsibility my boss will find a way to give it to me.
• If I want extra training my boss will help me find how to get it or will arrange it.
• I call my boss and my boss’s boss by their first names.
• ) My boss is available for me to discuss my concerns or worries or suggestions.
McGregor’s Theory X & Y
• What are some advantages to using this theory?
• What are some drawbacks to Theory X & Theory Y?
• How could you use this instrument in management?
Span of Control & Flow of Information
• Span of Control – number of people one supervises
• Usually maxes out around 7-9 people
• Linkage Formula = N(N-1)/2
• Unlimited information is not always most efficient
• Knowledge management systems were borne from downsizing
Culturally Situated Forms of Knowing
• Refers to the ability to house information in the collective network; as
opposed to individuals
• Luhmann’s autopoiesis
• Denhardt: Critiques information-processing model as oppressive
because it asks How and not Why.
• Morgan & Krone: Techno-scientific language prioritizes certain types
of knowledge over others (science, detached, etc.)
• This shapes normative perceptions and expectations of professionalism
Models of Group Decision Making
• Effective decisions are accurate, quality, external approval
• Communication becomes more important in ambiguous tasks
• Negative/positive biases change based on the decision
• Functional Model:
• Assess the problem
• Specify the goals
• Identify solutions
• Evaluate advantages and disadvantages
Weick’s Sensemaking Theory
• Previous decisions frame future decisions.
• Retrospective sense making
• Equivocality & Equifinality – There is no “one best way to organize”
• Enactment, Selection & Retention = an active process of constructing
the world
A recent gripe,
complaint, or
conflict
“That’s not my job—that’s
your job.”
I took them to mean….
What they really needed
was…..
Fair Distribution of Workload
“You didn’t make the
instructions very clear.”
Clarification, Opportunity for
Questions
“I did my best, and all I get
are criticism.”
Feedback
[Add one of your own here]
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
• Robert Michels (1911) Political Parties
• All organizations gravitate towards oligarchic rule/decision-making
• Petro Georgiou suggests that all organizations are not goal-directed,
but survival directed
Emotions at
Work
• Hochschild’s Emotional
Labor:
• Jobs that entail
emotional performance
• Burnout can result from
suppression
• Bounded Rationality
• Emotions play an
important role in
decision-making
Concertive Control
• Concertive control – “grows out of a substantial consensus about
values, high-level coordination, and a degree of self-management by
members or workers in an organization.
• More controlling than rational managerialism
• Suspend individual desires for collective goals
• ”Value-based discourse” to induce proper behavior (ideas, norms,
rules)
Tightening the Iron
Cage: Concertive
Control in
Self-Managing Teams
James R. Barker
Marquette University
In this paper, I provide an ethnographic account of how
an organization’s control system evolved in response to
a managerial change from hierarchical, bureaucratic
control to concertive control in the form of self-managing
teams. The study investigates how the organization’s
members developed a system of value-based normative
rules that controlled their actions more powerfully and
completely than the former system. I describe the
organization and its members and provide a detailed
account of the dynamics that emerged as concertive
control became manifest through the members’
interactions. This account depicts how concertive control
evolved from the value consensus of the company’s
team workers to a system of normative rules that
became increasingly rationalized. Contrary to some
proponents of such systems, concertive control did not
free these workers from Weber’s iron cage of rational
control. Instead, the concertive system, as it became
manifest in this case, appeared to draw the iron cage
tighter and to constrain the organization’s members
more powerfully.*
I don’t have to sit there and look for the boss to be around; and if
the boss is not around, I can sit there and talk to nny neighbor or do
what I want. Now the whole team is around me and the whole
team is observing what I’m doing.
“Ronald,” a technical worker in a small manufacturing
company, gave me this account one day while I was
observing his work team. Ronald works in what
contemporary writers call a postbureaucratic organization,
which is not structured as a rule-based hierarchy. He works
with a team of peers who are all equally responsible for
managing their own work behaviors. But Ronald described
an unexpected consequence of this team-based design.
With his voice concealed by work noise, Ronald told me that
he felt more closely watched now than when he worked
under the company’s old bureaucratic system. He said that
while his old supervisor might tolerate someone coming in a
few minutes late, for example, his team had adopted a “no
tolerance” policy on tardiness and that members monitored
their own behaviors carefully.
© 1993 by Cornell University.
0001-8392/93/3803-0408/$! .00.
I wish to thank Patricia A. Adier, Phillip K.
Tompkins, George Cheney, Brenda J.
Allen, Lars Thagar Christensen, and
Michael Pacanowsky for their advice and
criticisms during the writing of this essay.
In addition, John H. Puckett provided the
necessary support and coordination that
enabled me to complete the research
project.
Ronald’s comments typify life under a new form of
organizational control that has prospered in the last decade
as a means of avoiding the pitfalls of bureaucracy. This form,
called “concertive control,” grows out of a substantial
consensus about values, high-level coordination, and a
degree of self-management by members or workers in an
organization. This paper describes and analyzes the
development of concertive control after Ronald’s company,
“ISE Communications,” converted to self-managing (or
self-directing) teams, a concertive structure that resulted in a
form of control more powerful, less apparent, and more
difficult to resist than that of the former bureaucracy. The
irony of the change in this postbureaucratic organization is
that, instead of loosening, the iron cage of rule-based,
rational control, as Max Weber called it, actually became
tighter.
408/Administrative Science Quarterly, 38 (1993): 408-437
Concertive Control
THE PROBLEM OF CONTROL
Control has been a central concept in organizational theory
since the time of Weber and remains perhaps the key issue
that shapes and permeates our experiences of organizational
life, Barnard (1968: 17) best stated the importance of control
when he wrote that a key defining element of any
organization was the necessity of individuals to subordinate,
to an extent, their own desires to the collective will of the
organization. For individuals to achieve larger goals they
must actually surrender some autonomy in organizational
participation. Because of this basic tension, control is always
problematic in any organization.
To work through this problem, an organization’s
members—managers and workers alike—must engage in
ongoing formal and informal “processes of negotiation in
which various strategies are developed , , , [that] produce
particular outcomes” for the organization (Coombs. Knights,
and Willmott. 1992: 58), Herein lies the essence of control
as it becomes manifest in organizational activity. For any
organization to move toward its goals and purposes, its
“particular outcomes.” its members must interactively
negotiate and implement some type of strategy that
effectively controls members’ activities in a manner
functional for the organization,
Edwards’ Three Strategies of Control
Edwards (1981) has identified three broad strategies that
have evolved from the modern organization’s struggle with
controlling members’ activities. First is “simple control.” the
direct, authoritarian, and personal control of work and
workers by the company’s owner or hired bosses, best seen
in nineteenth-century factories and in small family-owned
companies today. Second is “technological control.” in
which control emerges from the physical technology of an
organization, such as in the assembly line found in traditional
manufacturing. And third and most familiar is bureaucratic
control, in which control derives from the hierarchically
based social relations of the organization and its concomitant
sets of systemic rational-legal rules that reward compliance
and punish noncompliance,
A pivotal aspect of Edwards’ model is that the second and
third strategies, technological and bureaucratic control,
represent adaptations to the forms of control that preceded
them, each intended to counter the disadvan…