Annie Pye

Leadership and Organizing: Sensemaking in Action

This article aims to challenge some of the assumptions which we make in our understanding of leadership, through empirical illustration from a large organization where a chief executive endeavours to ‘lead’ global change. The continuing search for the Holy Grail, which seems to characterize interest in leadership, implies that research efforts are perhaps being directed at ‘solving the wrong problem’. Leadership as a form of social influence is hard to distinguish from many other influences in relationships between people yet, it is argued, its emphasis on moving towards future action encourages a conception not dissimilar to organizing. The case analysis developed in this article goes on to reframe leadership as an example of sensemaking. It concludes that while sensemaking will never replace leadership as a focus or topic of interest, to understand leadership as a sensemaking process helps illustrate more clearly what happens in the daily doing of leading.

Network learning: An empirically derived model of learning by groups of organizations

Building on a previous conceptual article, we present an empirically derived model of network learning - learning by a group of organizations as a group. Based on a qualitative, longitudinal, multiple-method empirical investigation, five episodes of network learning were identified. Treating each episode as a discrete analytic case, through cross-case comparison, a model of network learning is developed which reflects the common, critical features of the episodes. The model comprises three conceptual themes relating to learning outcomes, and three conceptual themes of learning process. Although closely related to conceptualizations that emphasize the social and political character of organizational learning, the model of network learning is derived from, and specifically for, more extensive networks in which relations among numerous actors may be arms-length or collaborative, and may be expected to change over time.

Making Sense of Sensemaking in Organization Studies

‘Sensemaking’ is an extraordinarily influential perspective with a substantial following among management and organization scholars interested in how people appropriate and enact their ‘realities’. Organization Studies has been and remains one of the principal outlets for work that seeks either to draw on or to extend our understanding of sensemaking practices in and around organizations. The contribution of this paper is fourfold. First, we review briefly what we understand by sensemaking and some key debates which fracture the field. Second, we attend critically to eight papers published previously in Organization Studies which we discuss in terms of five broad themes: (i) how sense is made through discourse; (ii) the politics from which social forms of sensemaking emerge and the power that is inherent in it; (iii) the intertwined and recursive nature of micro-macro sensemaking processes; (iv) the strong ties which bind sensemaking and identities; and (v) the role of sensemaking processes in decision making and change. Third, while not designed to be a review of extant literature, we discuss these themes with reference to other related work, notably that published in this journal. Finally, we raise for consideration a number of potentially generative topics for further empirical and theory-building research.

Simplexity: Sensemaking, organizing and storytelling for our time

Simplexity is advanced as an umbrella term reflecting sensemaking, organizing and storytelling for our time. People in and out of organizations increasingly find themselves facing novel circumstances that are suffused with dynamic complexity. To make sense through processes of organizing, and to find a plausible answer to the question ‘what is the story?’, requires a fusion of sufficient complexity of thought with simplicity of action, which we call simplexity. This captures the notion that while sensemaking is a balance between thinking and acting, in a new world that owes less to yesterday’s stories and frames, keeping up with the times changes the balance point to clarifying through action. This allows us to see sense (making) more clearly.

Exploring the relationships between network change and network learning

This paper relates the concept of network learning - learning by a group of organizations as a group - to change and notions of change management. Derived initially from a review of literature on organizational learning (OL) and inter-organizational networks, and secondary cases of network learning, the concept was evaluated and developed through empirical investigation of five network learning episodes in the group of organizations that comprises the English prosthetics service. We argue that the notion of network learning enables a richer understanding of developments in networks over extended periods of time than can be afforded through more established concepts of change and change management alone.

A Study in Studying Corporate Boards Over Time: Looking Backwards to Move Forwards

This paper is based on data collected in the late 1980s and again in the late 1990s from interviews with chairmen, chief executives and board members in 12 large UK organizations such as Hanson, Marks & Spencer, Prudential and Glynwed. Although the primary focus is on theorizing and theory over time, this also leads us to question matters of method and methodology. The first section considers some of the study design issues raised by conducting this sequel study, noting that it was not possible to ‘repeat’ the first study for a number of important reasons. The second section observes that while our earlier analytical metaphor of organizing as explaining endures, the nature of the explanations has changed: ‘strategic focus’, ‘shareholder value’ and ‘corporate governance’ are now the contemporary watchwords although were unheard of in our interviews a decade earlier. The following section develops on this, concluding that in making judgements about future shareholder value, the primary evidence is drawn from events already past and interpreted through current explanations. We conclude on the importance of time to our theorizing, where there appears to be a confluence between time and person, in part, created and in part, supported by particular (judgements of) explanations of organizing prevailing at that time.

Board Task‐Related Faultlines and Firm Performance: A Decade of Evidence

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: To what extent can group faultlines and their potential value-destroying effects be detected on corporate boards? Task-related attributes of the type of directorship, education, board tenure, and financial background of board members are considered as directors’ characteristics that give rise to the faultline phenomenon. The impact of task-related faultlines on firm performance as well as the moderating effects of busy boards, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)tenure, executive directors’ (EDs) compensation structure, and the average non-executive directors’ (NEDs) involvement in board committees are examined. Research Findings/Insights: Using a panel of FTSE 350 companies from 1999 to 2008, we find a strong negative effect of task-related faultlines on firm performance. Further exploration of the moderating effects demonstrates that the condition of a busy board and CEO tenure exacerbate the negative effects of faultlines. At the same time, the executive pay contingency is found to have a remedying effect on boardroom cohesiveness, whereas the involvement of NEDs in board committee work is not likely to make the adverse effects of board faultlines less pronounced. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Based on the arguments of social identity theory, this study shows that task-related faultlines on corporate boards have strong negative value-creating implications. The positive moderating impact of the executive compensation structure renders support to agency theory predictions about executive incentive alignment. This work also underlines the usefulness of the concept of faultlines in the corporate governance literature, because unitary boards, where NEDs and EDs share board responsibility, exhibit pre-existing factions, similar to top management teams of family-controlled firms and teams managing international joint-ventures. Practitioner/Policy Implications: This research points to the importance of a careful selection process of directors by nomination committees. It also underlines the role for active leadership on boards, who should be aware of available strategies to ameliorate the negative consequences of board schisms, such as accentuating superordinate board identity and/or informal meetings

Corporate Boards, Investors and Their Relationships: accounts of accountability and corporate governing in action

This paper argues that constructive relationships between investors and boards have become crucial to running large organisations. Comparing interview data from Chairmen, Chief Executives and board members in 1987–89 and 1998–2000, this paper also considers the changing role of NEDs and influence of board culture which may constrain NEDs’ ability to perform effectively. While the board’s influence on shareholder value may be significant, the inability to account for its effectiveness or contribution appears surprising. The paper concludes that as shareholders exercise their “absolute rights” to question management, this may encourage more covert rather than overt behaviour, raising questions of accountability.

Changing Scenes In, From and Outside the Board Room: UK corporate governance in practice from 1989 to 1999

This paper is about changes in ‘corporate directing’, observed from interviews spanning the last ten years with Chairmen, Chief Executives, executive and non-executive directors in nine large UK organizations. Not only has the economic, political and social context changed, the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of boards has also changed. This paper seeks to illustrate some of these changes, both inside and outside the board room, where the role of fund managers has also changed. It concludes that the Chairman and Chief Executive relationship provides a powerful axis around which board room culture (r)evolves and corporate governing takes place.

Organizing to Counter Terrorism: Sensemaking amidst dynamic complexity

Organizations increasingly find themselves contending with circumstances that are suffused with dynamic complexity. So how do they make sense of and contend with this? Using a sensemaking approach, our empirical case analysis of the shooting of Mr Jean Charles de Menezes shows how sensemaking is tested under such conditions. Through elaborating the relationship between the concepts of frames and cues, we find that the introduction of a new organizational routine to anticipate action in changing circumstances leads to discrepant sensemaking. This reveals how novel routines do not necessarily replace extant ones but, instead, overlay each other and give rise to novel, dissonant identities which in turn can lead to an increase rather than a reduction in equivocality. This has important implications for sensemaking and organizing amidst unprecedented circumstances.