Sensegiving for organisational change in neglected workplaces: the case of Japanese call centres

Research on organisational change has regarded the role of middle managers in organisational change as significant (Balogun and Johnson, 2004). Middle managers must influence the sensemaking of both organisational members and top management in the organisational change process to elicit their commitment and support (Rouleau and Balogun, 2011). Therefore, sensegiving by middle managers is a contributing factor to successful organisational change.

In particular, sensegiving can be more important in workplaces that receive little attention and resource allocation, called neglected workplaces herein, because there are no other effective means for change. Moreover, several existing studies (Luo et al., 2015) suggest that middle managers often have to start their organisational change activities without sufficient attention. Therefore, middle managers’ sensegiving in neglected workplaces is worthy of attention in research on organisational change.

However, existing research has paid insufficient attention to middle managers’ sensegiving for organisational change in neglected workplaces. In particular, research on the success factors for organisational change has not consciously focused on such workplaces, as they find it difficult to realise organisational change (Huy et al., 2014). Because existing studies have mainly assumed linear causality and focused on the surface (Heracleous and Bartunek, 2021), they have not actively studied workplaces in which organisational change is less likely to succeed. Therefore, the consequences of middle managers’ sensegiving for organisational change in neglected workplaces has not been explored sufficiently, in spite of its importance. To fill the gap in existing research, we addressed the following research questions:

To answer these research questions, we conducted a case study of organisational change in Japanese call centres. We particularly focused on the behavioural tendencies of managers in neglected workplaces. When given insufficient resources, managers tend to pursue short-term results (Van der Stede, 2000) and prioritise exploitation over exploration (Benner and Tushman, 2003; Lavie et al., 2010). Furthermore, when exploitation is successful, managers focus on it more (Levinthal and March, 1993). Given these managerial tendencies, middle managers in neglected workplaces emphasise sensegiving to employees, which is expected to deliver short-term results. When certain outcomes then result, middle managers avoid sensegiving to top management, which is not easy for them. Consequently, organisational change can be impeded. Hence, we investigated the mechanisms through which middle managers’ sensegiving in neglected workplaces create limitations for organisational change.

The contributions of this study are twofold. First, it contributes to the body of research on the effects of sensegiving on organisational change (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991; Robert and Ola, 2021). This study shows a new problem hidden behind organisational change, which existing research merely regards as independent successes.

The second contribution relates to organisational change in neglected workplaces. Existing research has not focused on the role of middle managers in workplaces with unfavourable conditions for organisational change. By contrast, this study provides new insights into the role of middle managers in organisational change by focusing on their behaviour in neglected workplaces.

Middle managers play the role of “linking pins” in the organisation, linking organisational members (subordinates) and top managers (Heyden et al., 2017). During organisational change, they are in a unique position to respond to demands from both subordinates and top management (Sharma and Good, 2013). Managers can use organisational systems and their managerial power to manipulate the focus of discussions by sensegiving (Schildt et al., 2020) and by directing attention towards certain aspects (Mikkelsen and Wåhlin, 2020). Therefore, the role of middle managers in organisational change is significant (Balogun and Johnson, 2004; Christodoulou et al., 2022).

Existing research suggests two main roles for middle managers in organisational change. The first is to elicit commitment from organisational members. Employees are often reluctant to commit to organisational change because they may feel it disrupts the routines and social relationships important to manage their tasks (Shin et al., 2012). Middle managers often give meaning to organisational roles through employee communication and share stories of what the organisation should look like (Boje, 1991; Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991; Reissner, 2011). Change is a continuous event, and how sensemaking takes place both when individual changes are underway and when they have ended is vital (Balogun et al., 2015; Van Hulst and Tsoukas, 2021). Therefore, sensegiving, which influences the sensemaking of subordinates, is one of the roles required of middle managers in organisational change (Oreg and Berson, 2019).

The second is to elicit support from top management. Top management determines the overall direction and vision of the organisation and allocates resources (Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992; Smith and Tushman, 2005). The strategic allocation of sufficient resources by top managers can facilitate the execution of organisational change by middle managers. However, top management does not pay equal attention to all events in an organisation (Ocasio, 1997; Ocasio et al., 2018). Therefore, during organisational change, middle managers also sell issues to gain top management’s attention to the departments of which they are in charge and the challenges they face (Dutton and Ashford, 1993; Dutton et al., 2001). This attempt influences top management’s sensemaking and elicits the support needed for organisational change (Kezar, 2013).

Thus, existing research indicates that middle managers need to influence the sensemaking of multiple stakeholders, both upward and downward, in the organisational change process (Rouleau and Balogun, 2011). Therefore, sensegiving by middle managers should be considered to be a contributing factor to successful organisational change.

A number of studies have discussed the factors that distinguish between the success and failure of organisational change (Walker et al., 2007), and sensegiving by middle managers has been treated as one of them (Lüscher and Lewis, 2008). However, these studies have mainly assumed linear causality and focused on the surface (Heracleous and Bartunek, 2021). Although organisational change research has recently paid increasing attention to failure cases (De Keyser et al., 2021; Hay et al., 2021; Schwarz et al., 2021), it has traditionally focused on success cases (Mellahi and Wilkinson, 2010). Therefore, existing research has mainly discussed the success factors of organisational change and rarely focused on workplaces with unfavourable conditions for such change.

Neglected workplaces, which are workplaces that receive little attention from top management, are one type of such workplaces (Huy et al., 2014) because top management’s attention determines the allocation of resources within an organisation (Joseph and Gaba, 2015). Even in neglected workplaces, there is pressure to engage in organisational change (Rafferty et al., 2013). Indeed, the fact that several existing studies (Luo et al., 2015) discuss the importance of activities to gain attention from top management suggests that middle managers often have to start their organisational change activities from a situation of receiving insufficient attention from above. Under such circumstances, even though it is important to elicit attention from top management, it is easier for middle managers to elicit commitment from organisational members through sensegiving.

However, extant research on managers’ behavioural tendencies suggests that sensegiving by middle managers to organisational members in neglected workplaces may have different consequences. In resource-constrained situations such as neglected workplaces, managers are known to be short-term oriented (Van der Stede, 2000) and prioritise exploitation (Lavie et al., 2010). Therefore, sensegiving to organisational members, which is easy for middle managers and can be expected to produce short-term results, can be prioritised. Furthermore, as successful exploitation inhibits exploration (Levinthal and March, 1993), if a certain amount of success is achieved in sensegiving to organisational members, middle managers can focus more on sensegiving to organisational members and neglect sensegiving to elicit support from top management. As a result, middle managers may not take the actions necessary for organisational change, which impedes it. However, sensegiving by middle managers to implement change in neglected workplaces has been underexplored and its mechanisms have been inadequately examined in the literature. To fill this research gap, this study investigates the consequences of middle managers’ sensegiving during organisational change in neglected workplaces and clarifies the mechanisms that lead to such consequences.

We obtained data from call centre workplaces in the non-life insurance industry in Japan. There are two reasons for choosing these samples. The first reason is that call centres in Japan are workplaces where organisational change has long been required, as in other countries (Russell, 2008). The second reason is that call centres in Japan are workplaces where it is difficult for middle managers to gain attention from top management. In the 2000s, several Japanese companies (including companies in the non-life insurance industry) considered call centres as cost centres and outsourced call centre functions (Nitta, 2010). Therefore, call centres in Japan are provided with insufficient resources by the head office, making them an appropriate target for this study.

This study focused on three call centres (A, B and C) of the X Group. Company X is a leading non-life insurance Japanese company with several thousand employees. All call centres were either departments directly owned by Company X or its subsidiaries (Companies XS1 and XS2). In addition, all call centres were required to improve their performance in the absence of abundant resources. The basic information on Call Centres A, B and C is summarised in Table 1.

To address our research question, we adopted an exploratory case study methodology in a specific industry for three reasons. First, research on middle managers’ sensegiving involves observing and interpreting their constructions and accounts, which suggests the use of qualitative methods (Maitlis and Lawrence, 2007). Second, research on sensegiving in neglected workplaces is still in the nascent stage; therefore, a case study methodology seems to be the most suitable approach given our open-ended research questions, as it allows a deeper understanding of the phenomenon (Kroon and Reif, 2021). Finally, case study research allows scholars to answer their research questions in the form of “how” and “why” rather than “what” or “how many” (Yin, 2009), as is the case in this study.

Case studies often use multiple methods of data collection (Eisenhardt, 1989). The following methods were used to collect data in this study. First, on-site interviews were conducted with call centre directors, managers and a supervisor from Call Centres A, B and C. The questions asked were related to the status of organisational change in each call centre, the relationship with top management and the relationship with employees and their managers. Each interview lasted over an hour. Call Centres B and C were also observed on site. Further, interviews were conducted with a sales manager working at Company X’s head office and a former manager in charge of training operators. All the interviews were audio-recorded. Table 2 summarises the interviewees’ information.

Managers have the ability to offer sensegiving because of their hierarchical position (Kraft et al., 2015; Sparr, 2018). Therefore, several studies have focused on managers’ behaviours and interpretations (Kroon and Reif, 2021). One of the most effective ways to investigate sensegiving among middle managers is to interview them (Smith et al., 2010). Therefore, we used interviews with middle managers as our primary source of information. Secondary information was also obtained from 12 meetings with consultants who had trained the call centres of Company X for a total of 24 h. In addition, company documents and websites were obtained.

The information on each centre, from published material and interviews, was coded and several concepts were extracted. During coding, both the authors independently verified the data and discussed the codes. This method ensured the reliability of the coding (Plowman et al., 2007). In particular, we captured the following definitions of organisational change and sensegiving in our case study. First, organisational change can be defined as the transformation of “how an organisation functions, who its members and leaders are, what form it takes or how it allocates its resources” (Huber et al., 1993, p. 216). Therefore, this research views organisational change as a change in the roles of employees within an organisation and the systems associated with their work with the aim of improving organisational performance. Sensegiving is defined as “the process of attempting to influence the sensemaking and meaning construction of others toward a preferred redefinition of organizational reality” (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991, p. 442). As our focus is on middle managers’ sensegiving abilities, we considered sensegiving as any activity, approach or message initiated by middle managers that influences the sensemaking of employees.

The following section is divided into three subsections: organisational change through sensegiving to organisational members, the limits of their organisational change and reinforcing sensegiving to organisational members without support from top management.

Although the call centres studied had different objectives for organisational change, they all aimed at improving productivity and quality to achieve their respective goals. Call centre directors needed to transform their call centres into organisations that could provide more efficient and higher quality services.

To achieve change in the organisation, every call centre director first encouraged organisational members (especially operators) to modify their perceptions of the workplace, which is sensegiving to organisational members. Productivity and quality in a call centre depend on the ability of individual operators. The higher the number of operators who can complete more calls accurately and in less time, the better the performance of the call centre. However, we found that operators often became negative about their work and were more likely to leave their jobs before they could perform better. In response to these issues, all call centre directors declared to organisational members that operators play an important role in attending to the voice of the customer and are, therefore, a valued part of the call centre. For example, the manager of Call Centre A (I2) believed, “Operators have a lot of contact with customers, so their voices are the most important”, and let operators create their mission (e.g. a workplace that attracts appreciation). The manager of Call Centre B (I4) said, “For a call centre to work well, it is necessary to delegate authority to operators and for managers to support operators”. Call Centre C had its operators create the motto “listen with your heart, not your ears” to create an employee-friendly company. The manager of Call Centre C (I7) said, “We have focused on [creating] a good working environment for employees”. Through this sensegiving, call centre management aimed to encourage operators to view their work and position in a positive light.

Each call centre had introduced specific measures that symbolised their sensegiving. First, all call centres had created a reward system for their operators. This system was designed to reward operators for their hard work in dealing with customers. Second, all call centres conducted employee satisfaction surveys with their employees, including operators, to understand their situation and meet their requests as far as possible. Third, they actively organised internal events for employees, such as Halloween parties.

Moreover, each call centre made sure that the message of operators being important was conveyed to them in a way that was easily understood. For example, Call Centres A and C referred to their operators as “advisers”; by repositioning the operator’s job as advising customers, the call centres gave operators a positive perception of their job. Call Centre B had strongly expressed respect for its employees by adopting an operational policy that counts and evaluates the “thank-you” suggested by other operators. On its office notice board, Call Centre C had an inverted pyramid organisational chart with operators at the top.

The management policies described above were supported by the following statements from the directors and managers in each call centre:

As a result of these efforts, each call centre achieved a certain degree of organisational change. By motivating employees through sensegiving and improving their skills, they raised their productivity and quality. All call centres achieved a satisfactory level of performance according to the head office. Call Centre A was able to handle operations, even when the number of incoming calls increased because of irregularities such as natural disasters. Therefore, it was positioned by the head office as the first call centre to introduce new initiatives. Call Centre B was only in business for a short time, but had recently begun to be recognised by the head office as having gained competence. Call Centre C received the international certification for call centres and was rated as the best call centre in Company X.

All call centres improved their employee motivation and organisational performance through sensegiving to employees. From this perspective, all cases can be seen as successful examples of organisational change through sensegiving to organisational members.

In spite of these achievements, all organisational changes had reached a certain limit. While each call centre expressed the importance of its employees, operators were dissatisfied with their compensation, which was affecting organisational performance. This situation was recognised by call centre managers, as shown below:

Such negligent treatment of operators led to frustration among them. In all three call centres, the message was sent that employees were important, but the reality remained far from ideal. In other words, call centre directors were not able to create an environment that fully drew on the commitment of operators.

In addition, each call centre did not give discretionary autonomy to operators in their calls. Therefore, it was challenging for operators to respond to customers at their own discretion. The director of Call Centre B made the following statement:

Thus, all call centres faced challenges regarding the compensation and discretionary autonomy of operators. Existing research emphasises the need for these two aspects and points out their relation to call centre performance. For example, Kinnie et al. (2000) found that when changing the organisational structure of a call centre, it is also necessary to revise the compensation structure. Russell (2008, p. 200) suggested that, “in order to provide the services they are called upon to deliver, frontline workers in general and call-centre employees in particular require enhanced levels of decision-making autonomy”. Furthermore, Proenca and Rodrigues (2021) revealed that the compensation and discretionary autonomy of operators are linked to their job satisfaction and customer satisfaction. In addition, all call centre directors understood that issues remained unresolved. Hence, each call centre had room for change.

Operator compensation and discretionary autonomy were not decided by call centre directors. Compensation was based on the budget allocation from the head office, and operators’ discretionary autonomy was decided by the head office partly because of legal compliance. Therefore, it was essential to elicit support from top management to address these limitations. However, each call centre director found it difficult to do so:

This lack of support is attributed to the low attention paid to call centres by the head office:

Thus, they recognised that the lack of support from top management could not be easily changed. Therefore, they reinforced the sensegiving that “operators are important” within the current resources and authority given to them.

After a certain level of performance improvement, Call Centre A did not make any major changes to its policy. It focused on internal events such as award ceremonies and roundtable discussions. More recently, a social event was organised across the various departments within the call centre, because the call centre manager felt it was a good initiative to stimulate organisational members. They prioritised continuing sensegiving to employees over gaining support from head office. Such priorities can be seen in the following conversation.

Behind this prioritisation was the director’s perception of his own situation. He considered that call centres were niche workplaces and, therefore, could not demand resources from the head office. Hence, he perceived his job as sensegiving to employees rather than negotiating with the head office.

Call Centre B did not only motivate its operators but also provided them with more training. This training was meant to give operators a deeper understanding of their work significance. The director of Call Centre B believed that teaching the reasons why operators do the job and the context in which the current job is done would help them feel more comfortable with their work.

The director of Call Centre B was not necessarily satisfied with the head office’s response. He considered those call centres where operators and supervisors were given some discretion as ideal. However, the director of Call Centre B believed that such a situation was still better because he was given some discretion over sensegiving to his employees. Therefore, he did not intend to make strong demands on the head office:

The director of Call Centre C responded differently from the other two call centres. Call Centre C ensured that its sensegiving policy, which did not assume the support of the head office, gained legitimacy within Company X. It explained its policy of organisational change to the head office and has earned a good reputation within the group. However, it does not use its reputation to elicit more support from top management. Call Centre C would rather have top management approve of its way of doing things than receive their support. Such perceptions can be seen from the following conversation:

Because the top management of Company XS2 was transferred from Company X, some people did not necessarily understand the operation of a call centre. However, even though some of the top managers of Company XS2 lacked an understanding of call centres, the director and managers of Call Centre C did not see this as a problem because they could educate these top managers through their manuals. Rather, they aimed to make top management believe that the current state of the call centre was the desired one even though they still faced challenges in organisational change. The director of Call Centre C described these conditions as follows:

As described above, call centre directors, who felt they received limited support from top management, further reinforced their sensegiving to organisational members. The director of Call Centre A did not consider eliciting support from the head office as his job. The director of Call Centre B believed that he would be in a better situation only if he was given discretion over sensegiving to operators. The director of Call Centre C tried to influence top management not to elicit support during organisational change but to gain legitimacy for the call centre. In spite of differences in individual reactions, all directors considered sensegiving to organisational members, which led to certain performance improvements, to be more important and not trying to elicit support from head office, thereby limiting organisational change.

When it is difficult to elicit support from top management, middle managers, who attempt organisational change, first try to elicit support from organisational members through sensegiving. However, afterwards, they do not shift towards eliciting support from top management and choose to strengthen sensegiving to employees. This is because managers tend to lean towards the short-term returns of exploitation (Benner and Tushman, 2003; Lavie et al., 2010) and pay more attention when exploitation is successful (Levinthal and March, 1993). However, middle managers’ unwillingness to obtain the necessary resources for organisational change from the top limits further change.

These cases show that organisational change through sensegiving is not as positive as existing research suggests (Rouleau and Balogun, 2011). Middle managers under resource constraints focus on sensegiving to employees who have achieved results in the past and thus avoid sensegiving to top management to elicit their support necessary for organisational change. The present study suggests hidden aspects of sensegiving that are missed when organisational change through sensegiving is seen as a mere success story.

Furthermore, this study reveals that there are situations in which middle managers themselves are forced to be trapped by sensegiving during organisational change. Sensegiving in organisations is not a one-way process but interacts with sensemaking (Cristofaro, 2022; Kraft et al., 2015). The middle managers themselves are also constrained by their sensegiving activities. When it is difficult to elicit support from top management, middle managers focus more on sensegiving to organisational members, even when receiving support from top management is important for organisational change.

The theoretical contributions of this study are twofold. First, it shows the new problems hidden behind organisational change, which existing research regards as independent successes. Unlike studies dealing with organisational change failure (Raelin and Cataldo, 2011), the case presented in this study shows seemingly successful organisational change initiated by middle managers through sensegiving. However, simultaneously, it can be seen as a process in which the functioning of sensegiving itself results in middle managers becoming trapped within the limits of organisational change.

The second contribution is identifying middle managers’ behaviour during organisational change in neglected workplaces. Instead of previous studies’ focus on the factors necessary for successful organisational change (Oreg and Berson, 2019; Rafferty et al., 2013), this study extends the knowledge of the role of middle managers in organisational change, focusing particularly on their behaviours when success factors are not aligned.

This study’s findings offer practical implications. Even in cases of seemingly autonomous and successful organisational change by middle managers’ sensegiving to organisational members, a lack of top management support may obstruct organisational change. Middle managers’ behaviour tends to be biased towards approaches to organisational change that are likely to yield short-term results, which may hinder further change. Furthermore, this tendency may be stronger when middle managers are subjected to short-term results-oriented pressure from top management.

The first limitation of this study is its specific context. This study considered call centres in Japan to be representative cases of neglected workplaces. However, Japan-specific circumstances (e.g. the low social status of operators) may have influenced these results, and the conclusions of studies dealing with organisations in non-Western countries could differ from those dealing with Western organisations (Muzio, 2022). Therefore, future research in different national contexts is necessary.

The second limitation is that the hidden side of sensegiving identified in this study inadequately examines whether it appears in contexts other than neglected workplaces. This study chose neglected workplaces as representative cases of workplaces with unfavourable conditions for organisational change. However, other conditions (e.g. employee characteristics, organisational culture) also exist. The organisational circumstances under which the hidden side of sensegiving tends to appear is unclear and needs further study.

The third limitation is that sensemaking on the part of employees was not fully captured. In the current study, the main interest was in the sensegiving of middle managers. The hidden side of sensegiving suggested by this study may also affect employees’ perceptions and influence organisational change. Future research is necessary to understand employees’ perceptions affected by sensegiving.

This study focused on sensegiving by middle managers to implement change in neglected workplaces. In such workplaces, middle managers focus on sensegiving to organisational members, which masks the need for further steps (i.e. engaging top management) and thus limits organisational change. Scholars and practitioners must understand that stories of organisational change, through sensegiving by middle managers, may appear to be success stories from one perspective. However, from the other side, they can be failure stories with lost opportunities for organisational change.