Metaphors in managerial and employee sensemaking in an information systems project
通过长期观察一个公共部门信息系统开发项目，研究项目团队成员和管理者如何使用隐喻来理解项目和工作系统，发现隐喻在不同阶段和人员间有差异，且不当使用会阻碍学习、增加混乱。
Abstract This longitudinal study looks at the metaphors used in a public sector information systems development project from the perspective of cognitive metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, ). We examine the use of metaphors by project team members, including representatives of the users, software developers and the managers guiding the project work. The findings indicate that project team members and managers use a rich set of metaphors to make sense of the project and the records management system they are working on. Notably, distinct sets of metaphors are used in different project phases and among the project personnel and management. As the differences in the metaphors also coincide with key events in the trajectory of the project, we contend that metaphors have significant power in sensemaking, influencing action and project outcomes. In particular, we find that in highly ambiguous, knowledge‐intensive situations, metaphor use with unclear intentions and purpose hinders learning and creates more chaos than order. From a practical perspective, our study highlights the relevance of metaphor use for project management. We suggest that intentional selection of metaphors by management could be beneficial for many complex information systems projects. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd