My dissertation consists of three interrelated empirical papers using data collected from a Fortune 500 retailer attempting to structurally integrate two divisions. Paper one is an explanatory case study using tools from narrative analysis. It explains change implementation as coming from intertwined plots of managers and employees that get enacted to implement strategic change. My findings support two mechanisms which explain strategic change implementation: an enactment mechanism explains how strategic change unfolds from the situated meaning-making and corresponding responses of individuals and a symbolic mechanism explains the relationship between meaning transfer and meaning construction processes. In paper two, I examine the relationship between meaning-making and change implementation behaviors. Formal and informal communication influences how employees make meaning of change, and this meaning-making creates three motivational resources: commitment to change, unit identification and perceived change efficacy. These resources, in turn, explain in-role and extra-role change implementation behaviors. I test my theory with content analysis and survey data using structural equation modeling. For paper three, I use a case study to examine how strategic issues get reconstituted to become ethical issues. I develop a process model of how this meaning-construction occurs: First, managers present starting issues, in which they frame a key business issue in ways that do not emphasize ethical content. Second, trigger points interrupt employees' expectations set by managerially prescribed meaning. Third, ambiguity prevents employees from creating meaning that resolves the interruption in ways consistent with the managerial view. Fourth, given the inability to construct meaning using a managerial view, employees turn to their own perspectives to construct meaning using an employee welfare frame. Collectively, the three papers offer complementary perspectives on the way in which meaning-making explains strategic change implementation. They address different models of meaning-making, the antecedents and outcomes of meaning-making, and variation in meaning making across levels in an organization-all while drawing from a variety of methodologies. A meaning-making perspective explains how organizational members think, feel and act during change implementation, and how these thoughts, feelings and actions affect the process of strategic change implementation.Ph.D.ManagementSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/126825/2/3276297.pd
