The Influence of Social Position on Sensemaking about Organizational Change

Abstract

Traditionally, scholars have examined the influence of actors' sensemaking on context; in this paper, we explore the reverse. Employing Bourdieu's theory of practice we explore how actors' unique contexts, as encapsulated by their social positions, provide the important “raw materials” for their sensemaking about organizational change. Drawing on a case study of three focal actors, located in different social positions in the National Health Service in England, but tasked with enacting a common organizational change, we explore how actors' capital endowments and dispositions shape their sensemaking about organizational change. We conclude by developing a theoretical model of the influence of social position on sensemaking about organizational change and discuss the practical implications of paying closer attention to the social positions of actors engaged as change agents.

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