Change Narratives: Theoretical Framework of Diverging Narratives Towards Organizational Change

Abstract

The role of narratives is essential during organizational change. When organizations are ready to embrace change, the sense-giver gives a narrative about change. However, employees may  accept it or resist it by making sense out of  that narrative. Some employees show resistance towards the change and a multiplicity of narratives may emerge. Resistance towards change lets employees construct divergent narratives that influence people’s attitudes, and then they may oppose organizational change. This paper proposed a theoretical framework of divergent narratives towards organizational change in the context of sensegiving and sensemaking. The framework is based on the sensemaking theory and discourse-based theory of organizational change. The suggested theoretical framework addresses the issues of i) why employees construct divergent narratives and ii) how to differentiate them meaningfully. This proposed theoretical framework can be used to undertake future research.