Sensing the Momentum: A Process View of Change in a Multinational Corporation

Abstract

In this paper, we show how process thinking enables analysis of change in a world of forces and flows, bringing out the contingent nature of change, the importance of activating inherent forces, the power of heterogeneity of factors, and the temporality of change. We apply an extended sensemaking framework to a concrete case of change in a Multinational Corporation, in which we demonstrate and explain how two separate processes under the same change programme involving the same actors and under the same management achieved significantly different degrees of momentum. Our contribution to the sensemaking literature lies in relating social interacts with commitment and the narratives that underlie the change processes. At a more general level, the analysis shows that what drives organizational change may be the dynamics inherent in the process rather than its initial rationale or its context.

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