Based on the action research model of inquiry, this article is an
interpretive ethnographic case study, exploring the power of narratives
as a sensemaking device for members of a women's resource network
in a large corporation during a time of significant organizational
change, and the influence of storytelling on the networking practices of
its members. Data are based on participant observation, formal and
informal interviews, focus groups, and document analysis, including
presentations, meeting notes, and e-mail correspondence. Drawing on the
concepts of sensemaking, identity construction, and habitus, analysis of
the members' stories suggests three key conclusions: reliance on
collectively constructing stories; use of stories to deal with ambiguity
and anxiety; and use of stories to construct and regulate identity. When
viewed through a narrative lens, these results illuminate the
interconnection of storytelling and networking strategies in a
women's resource network that provides a hybrid of both expressive
and instrumental benefits.
Keywords: action research; identity; narrative; networking;
sensemaking; women
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It was the annual meeting of a women's resource network within
a large American corporation, called here Tritech. Tritech is a US$6
billion Fortune 500 global leader in information technology. The
women's resource network has been in place at Tritech since the
early 1990s and is a registered nonprofit organization (U.S. 501c3
tax-exempt charity) with six chapters, each with its own board of
trustees. (1)
Historically, the main purpose of the network's annual meeting
had been for chapter presidents to briefly review their prior
year's programs as well as the plans for the coming year against
the organization's vision, mission, and objectives:
* Vision: We are recognized as a thought leader and advocate for
women's issues.
* Mission: We exercise our power to effect positive change by
supporting women in their personal and professional growth within
Tritech.
* Objectives: First, we support women in achieving career growth
and advancement through professional development, mentoring, and
networking. Second, we support women in achieving work-life balance
through personal development.
The agenda for this year's annual meeting was a little
different. A presentation handout outlining the leadership profiles of
each chapter board, along with program information, had been distributed
electronically in advance to all network members. At the meeting, a
number of members were participating "live" in the auditorium
of Tritech's headquarters and were treated to homemade cookies and
muffins baked by two local members. Other members of various chapters
participated via an audio link. I was attending the meeting at the
headquarters' location in my role as an executive sponsor (2) of
the network's largest chapter.
The meeting was called to order by one of the chapter presidents.
She jokingly conceded that everyone's reading ability was above an
elementary school level. So, rather than spend time going through the
handout, she indicated that the annual meeting would be spent learning
from a guest speaker how to "take the lead in our lives." She
prefaced her speaker introduction with an account of the difficult
organizational changes that Tritech had undergone in the past year. (3)
Several names of former members were mentioned--many long-term Tritech
employees, who had left the company as a result of "aggressive
cost-cutting actions." I overheard one of the women seated nearby
comment, "This is beginning to feel like a wake. I sure hope things
lighten up soon."
The speaker was introduced, and she started her presentation with a
discussion about choice, and the transformation that occurs when people
move from weighing alternatives to creating and evaluating choices.
Did Anyone Die?
But that presentation is not the story I wish to tell. Rather, it
is the background to the story. The real story of that meeting exists in
my brief narrative encounter with a network member at the conclusion of
the meeting. We were both filing out of the auditorium along with the
other network members, and she remarked that the issue really
wasn't about choices. She stated that she believed she had plenty
of those. The issue for her was about dealing with the consequences--or
as she said, "the what comes next"--of the choices she makes.
As we walked down the hall toward our respective work areas, I asked her
if she had a guiding principle that helped her deal with what comes
next. She replied,
I ask myself, did anyone die? Of course, I've never had to answer
"yes" to that question. So, I figure I can deal with it. How bad
can it really be? ... I've tried to think that way ... think about
what really matters as we've been going through all these RIFs. (4)
It helps put things into perspective.
The directness and pragmatism of her perspective struck me. There
was no sarcasm in her statement. She was not trying to be humorous. She
was merely sharing a story about her basic mechanism for coping with
life choices and, more specifically, with the organizational changes
taking place at Tritech.
We paused at the elevator. Rather than pressing the button, she
leaned against the wall and elaborated on her earlier comments:
I can deal with it, but it doesn't mean I like it. This [women's
resource] network has helped ... the times when I've really been
frustrated with what's been going on ... felt kind of powerless,
this group has helped. When the company seemed pretty
dysfunctional, I knew I'd always find a sympathetic ear [within
this group], and we'd find a way to make sense of it all. Even if I
do lose my job in the next round of RIFs, they [network members]
help me remember that I'm good at my job ... and I'm a good person
too.
She pressed the button for the elevator and, a few moments later,
the doors opened. She stepped in and waved goodbye as I continued
walking to the location of my next meeting.
ACTION RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND BACKGROUND
The "Did Anyone Die?" story underscores the notion that
narrative has a crucial function in our adaptation to and interpretation
of the world in which we live. Past research, perhaps most notably from
a symbolic interactionist perspective, has established the power of the
narrative form and storytelling to create social reality. It is a form
of meaning construction and transmission and, as such, "narrative
can be described as a means of 'making sense' of our social
world, and sharing that 'sense' with others" (Turner,
1999, pp. 78-79). Using narrative theory, this article explores the
networking practices of female executives in the women's resource
network of Tritech and the role narrative plays as a sensemaking device
during a time of significant organizational change.
Research relating to the networking practices of women in
organizations has focused primarily on access, or lack thereof, to
informal interaction networks (Brass, 1985; Fernandez, 1981; Ibarra,
1992, 1993; Kanter, 1977; Lincoln & Miller, 1979; Morrison & Von
Glinow, 1990). Few researchers have explored women's networks
directly (Aldrich, 1989, and his study of networking among women
entrepreneurs is an exception), and none to my knowledge have
investigated specifically women's networking practices through a
narrative lens. Moreover, although the network concepts of tie strength
(Burt, 1992; Granovetter, 1973, 1982; Ibarra, 1997; Krackhardt, 1992;
Marsden, 1990), expressive and instrumental benefits (Blau, 1977; Brass,
1985; Granovetter, 1973; Ibarra, 1993; Kanter, 1977; Lin & Dumin,
1986; Lincoln & Miller, 1979; Marsden, 1988; Seibert, Kraimer, &
Liden, 2001), homophily (Brass, Galaskiewicz, Greve, & Tsai, 2004;
Ibarra, 1992, 1993; Kanter, 1977), and integration, attitudes, and
motivation (Albrecht, Irey, & Mundy, 1982; Moch, 1980) are useful in
assessing networking practices, the majority of the network analytic
literature provides little knowledge for the investigation of
storytelling and its influence on women's networking practices that
I am covering here.
The article is based on an interpretive ethnographic action
research case study that began in 2003, in which I am a participant
observer. Having served for 5 years as an executive sponsor for the
women's resource network at Tritech, I developed a close and
trusting relationship with the membership. I spent time with the women
over extended periods in contexts in which the subjects normally operate
at work. This degree of access is generally difficult for ethnographers
to secure and afforded me dual insider and outsider status.
In the 2003 timeframe, Tritech was facing an unexpected leadership
change. The chief executive officer (CEO) of the past 8 years announced
suddenly that he would resign within a month. The financial fundamentals
of the company had been weak for some time. Tritech had dropped off the
radar screens of most industry watchers when a large telecommunications
corporation, having bought Tritech for more than US$7 billion in the
early 1990s, divested the company 5 years later after losing more than
US$3 billion. Tritech continued to lose money at the rate of US$2
million per day, and there was a real possibility that the company would
continue to languish, if not expire. At the time of the CEO's
resignation announcement, much had been accomplished to transform the
company, but there was a great deal more work to be done.
Although the company was no longer losing money at an alarming
rate, it continued to underperform against Wall Street expectations.
When the new CEO took over, sales were shrinking, infrastructure costs
were out of control, and the company's stock was trading at its
lowest level since the aforementioned divestiture.
A two-pronged financial architecture built around moderate growth
and lower infrastructure costs was undertaken and communicated
repeatedly through a variety of communication vehicles and venues
globally. This architecture involved massive change throughout the
company and included the elimination of more than 1,500 positions.
Membership in the women's resource network began to shrink as a
number of members lost their jobs in the downsizing. Additionally, there
was a "keep your head down" tone in the organization at the
time that made employees apprehensive about involvement in
extracurricular activities such as the women's resource network,
lest it be interpreted as not having enough to do. Understandably, there
was a great deal of uncertainty in the organization during this time.
Given my role in the organization and in the women's network,
action research inquiry allowed me to collaborate with network
participants to "[investigate] reality in order to transform
it" (Fals Borda, cited in Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000, p. 592).
Davydd Greenwood and Morten Levin (2003) argue that action research
"creates the valid knowledge, theoretical development, and social
improvements that the conventional social sciences have promised"
and "does better what academic social science claims to do"
(p. 133). Action research provides the necessary framework for
reflective practice within a bureaucracy, so that the participant
researcher can be the reflective practitioner (Schon, 1983). The process
of reflection-in-action offers an opportunity to reveal relevant
problems and underlying values that may be embedded within the
organization. In effect, this methodology suggests that there may be
"a problem in finding the problem" (Schon, 1983, p. 129) and
that confusion and uncertainty are necessary for significant learning
and change to take place.
Data for the research study on which this article is based were
gathered, according to human research ethics guidelines, from
semistructured interviews, focus groups, and informal conversations with
members of the women's resource network and more than 120 hours of
participant observation. Document analysis of presentation materials,
meeting notes, and e-mail also was undertaken. To protect the anonymity
of the network members who participated in the study and any women they
make reference to, first and last names referenced in this article have
been changed. All recorded interviews were transcribed and sent to each
respective interview subject for personal review and validation.
Borrowing from the process of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss,
1967), themes were inductively discovered through repeated reading,
coding, and sorting of the transcriptions and field notes. Additionally,
follow-up discussions were conducted with interview subjects to further
explore these emerging themes.
In this review process, it became apparent that the transcribed and
captured dialogue was predominantly a collection of stories that network
members shared about their work experiences and the negotiation of role
balance, or what Geert Hofstede (1994) referred to as "life
space" (p. 47). The stories served as a way to reconcile the past
with the present and to project forward to the future with the hope that
positive change would be forthcoming.
Within the framework of narrative theory, my analysis draws on the
concepts of sensemaking, identity construction, and habitus. As Walter
Fisher (1987, 1989) argues, narratives are the basis of all human
communication. We tell stories "to give order to human experience
and to induce others to dwell in them in order to establish ways of
living in common, in intellectual and spiritual communities in which
there is confirmation for the story that constitutes one's
life" (Fisher, 1987, p. 63). Stories not only help us make sense of
the actions of others, they serve to shape our own identities. Paul
Ricoeur (1976, 1990) and others (Browning, 1991; Ezzy, 1998; MacIntyre,
1981; Mead, 1934) suggest that identity is a narrative construction.
Daniel Robichaud, Helene Giroux, and James Taylor (2004) describe
narrative as "language's natural provision for making sense of
both individual experience and social interaction" (p. 619).
Applied to a business setting, the theory that organizations emerge
through the narrative of their members is widely accepted in the
literature exploring organizational communication--and with wide-ranging
perspectives (Boden, 1994; Boje, 1995; Czarniawska, 1997; Gephart, 1991;
Goffman, 1981; Robichaud et al., 2004; Tannen, 1994; Taylor & Van
Every, 2000; Woodilla, 1998). According to Karl Weick (1995, 2001) and
Dennis Mumby (1988), organizations are created and recreated through the
sensemaking of their members in a mutually constitutive relationship and
fundamentally social process.
Thus, storytelling functions as a sensemaking device, and
individual, social, and group identities derive from telling stories.
This blending of storytelling, sensemaking, and identity reveals the
"capacity to generate meaning over time so as to hold past,
present, and future together" (Benhabib, 1999, p. 353). However,
the narrative model of identity does not consist of traditionally
constructed stories with a beginning, middle, and end. As Seyla Benhabib
observes,
Narratives cannot have closure precisely because they are always
aspects of the narratives of others; the sense that I create for
myself is always immersed in a fragile "web of stories" that I as
well as others spin. (p. 348)
The meaning generated by narrative sensemaking occurs in the
context of what Etienne Wenger (1998, 1999) calls "communities of
practice." Essentially, within a particular social community there
are accepted conventions that direct the cultural and communicative
practices of its members. These conventions form an implicit framework
of language, behavior, and symbols that connects members together in a
group identity. And this socially acquired dynamic of "fitting
in" is similarly reflected in the "ontological
complicity" of habitus (Bourdieu, 1981).
Applying Bourdieu's concept of habitus, Mats Alvesson (1994)
explored how the talk of workers in a Swedish advertising agency
supported identity formation in an industry where evaluation of the
product being offered for sale is very subjective. As a result,
advertising professionals struggled for and craved recognition and
legitimacy. In this environment, Alvesson found that habitus played an
important role in safeguarding the value and uniqueness of both
advertising work and workers:
The habitus makes possible a successful use of symbolism. By using
style, ways of expression and means of communicating the message,
one can imply originality, competence and professionalism. (p. 547)
Alvesson (1994) argued that the relationship between habitus and
discourse formed, to some extent, a self-nurturing feedback loop, with
discourse reflecting habitus, discourse producing habitus, and habitus
forming the framework and aptitude for using discourse. Hence, when
networking practices are viewed through a narrative lens, group
acceptance and approval and the coproduction of meaning with group
members form the basis of a storytelling system designed to cultivate
norms (Louis, 1980; Wilkins, 1984) and deal with change (Cohen &
Tyson, 2002; Denning, 2002; Feldman, 1990).
My analysis of the stories the network members told suggests key
conclusions about the role a storytelling discourse strategy played in
the women's networking practices and in their ability to make sense
of their work experiences and provide a degree of empowerment as they
wrestled with perceived challenges going forward. As Yiannis Gabriel
(cited in Smith & Keyton, 2001) states, stories function as
"emotionally and symbolically charged narratives; they do not
present information or facts about 'events,' but they enrich,
enhance and infuse facts with meaning" (p. 150).
Although a case study approach is capable of contributing useful
knowledge to the fields of professional communication and organizational
culture, it is important to recognize the limitations of a sample of
one. The real-life and detail-rich environment of a case study is best
applied to furthering the understanding of complex phenomena rather than
making generalizations. As Kathryn Rentz (1999) suggests, "They
[detailed narrative case studies] have more knowledge-making power than
the researcher can control" (p. 54). As my goal is understanding
and not control, I do not attempt to present a unique theoretical
contribution in this article.
Having said that, I do believe I am stepping into a gap in the
research area, as this case study concerns a women's resource
network embedded in a male-dominated setting. Most sensemaking studies
are not gendered, nor do they focus on how significant narrative might
be to women's sensemaking. Additionally, there have not been many
investigations of the kind of mentoring, information dissemination, and
support network that I present in this article.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: SENSEMAKING, IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION, AND HABITUS
What follows is a discussion of networking as a narrative process
in which stories are used to construct meaning and the three key
conclusions that emerged as a result of deconstructing the stories told
by members of the women's resource network. First, the networking
practices of these women demonstrate a reliance on collectively
constructing stories. Second, these women use stories as a coping
strategy to deal with ambiguity and anxiety in a male-dominated
organization. And third, they use stories to both construct and regulate
their identities within their social network.
Collectively Constructing Their Own Stories
The first finding is a reliance on collectively constructing
stories, a narrative discourse that Daphne Jameson (2001) calls
"storybuilding" (p. 477). The storybuilding process helped
members of the women's resource network order disparate facts,
events, and experiences. Order unified the network by creating a shared
understanding of the past and an ability to better cope with what the
future may hold. This preference for collectively constructing and
telling stories contributed to the strength of network ties
(Granovetter, 1973; Marsden, 1990) among members.
Through the process of collectively constructing and telling
stories, network members were better able to cope with the uncertainty
of their current work environment. As well, this layering of narratives
in the storybuilding process served to provide additional historical
perspective for network members with less than 5 years of service with
Tritech and a more positive problem-solving atmosphere for all network
members.
The "Left to the Wolves" story. An illustrative example
of storybuilding occurred during an informal lunch meeting of several
network members at which I was present. Following about 15 minutes of
conversation about each other's children, the discussion turned to
the subject of employee turnover undoubtedly triggered by a recent CEO
communication. In their own words,
Sandy (5): I was surprised by those figures, (6) but as I'm
getting closer to that, you know, time period [5 years of service], I
can see that. When I came on board I was kind of left to the wolves. So
finding an organization like [the women's resource network] where
you have people you can talk to and get to know was helpful.
Karen: Well, hold on! I just celebrated my 9th anniversary [at
Tritech]. I can remember Susan Brockman encouraged me to get involved
with [the women's resource network]. We were like teammates. I went
to some of the meetings and she would talk