Coping with an unexpected event: Project managers' contrasting sensemaking in a stakeholder conflict in China
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business
ISSN: 1753-8378
Article publication date: 22 June 2010
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the sensemaking processes leading to project managers' responses to an unexpected event in an international project setting. High uncertainty and unexpected events are prevalent in international projects conducted in challenging and complex environments. The paper analyzes how an unexpected event and the ways to cope with it were made sense of by a Finnish and a Chinese project manager in a system supplier's delivery project in China.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds on a qualitative case study of the two project managers' sensemaking processes in the face of a single unexpected event. Narrative interviews were used as the method for data collection. The actantial framework by Greimas was used in analyzing the interview narratives.
Findings
The paper shows how the project managers' sensemaking processes, even within the same project management team, are highly subjective, leading to the coexistence of multiple, and highly divergent responses to the unexpected event. The paper also highlights how these sensemaking processes create the coexistence of multiple, divergent systems of project structures and boundaries for coping with the unexpected event.
Originality/value
While the existing project management literature has distinguished various tactics used by project managers for responding to unexpected events, of lesser attention have been the actual sensemaking processes underlying and producing these responses. The paper especially stresses how the sensemaking processes between project managers coming from culturally different backgrounds can yield highly contrasting interpretations and responses to the same event.
Keywords
Citation
Tukiainen, S., Aaltonen, K. and Murtonen, M. (2010), "Coping with an unexpected event: Project managers' contrasting sensemaking in a stakeholder conflict in China", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 526-543. https://doi.org/10.1108/17538371011056129
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited