Prospective sensemaking, frames and planned change interventions: A comparison of change trajectories in two hospital units
通过分析两个医院科室的变革过程，研究了前瞻性意义建构如何影响组织成员对变革的认知框架发展，以及期望的“粘性”如何决定变革成败。
Changing organizations is difficult. In this article, we analyze how sensemaking that follows the initiation of change projects relies on the interplay of prospective and retrospective aspects, and we elucidate how organization members’ frames develop over time based on this interplay. Our data, 38 in-depth interviews with nursing and medical staff held at four different points in time, reveal how expectations impact the dynamics of meaning construction in change processes. Our findings demonstrate that the frames through which actors make sense of change initiatives develop continuously, although the expectations embedded in them are ‘sticky’ to some extent. The degree of ‘stickiness’ depends on expectations that are formed through initial prospective sensemaking, as these expectations influence actors’ tolerance regarding dissonant cues. Change initiatives fail when this tolerance becomes exhausted. Our study contributes to theory on sensemaking and change by elaborating on the undertheorized role of prospective sensemaking during change processes.