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The purpose of this paper is first, to test the validity of a new scale measuring the construct of meaning‐making, defined as the ability to integrate challenging or ambiguous situations into a framework of personal meaning using conscious, value‐based reflection. Second, to explore whether meaning‐making is distinct from other personal resources (self‐efficacy, optimism, mastery, meaning in life), and coping (positive reinterpretation, acceptance). Third, to explore whether meaning‐making facilitates work engagement, willingness to change, and performance during organizational change.

Cross‐sectional survey‐data were collected from 238 employees in a variety of both public and private organizations.

Confirmatory factor analyses showed that meaning‐making can be distinguished from other personal resources, coping and meaning in life. Regression analyses showed that meaning‐making is positively related to in‐role performance and willingness to change, but not to work engagement, thereby partly supporting the hypotheses.

The paper focuses on meaning‐making that has not yet been studied empirically in organizational change settings. It shows that the new construct of psychological meaning‐making is related to valuable employee outcomes including in‐role performance and willingness to change. Meaning‐making explains variance over and above other personal resources such as self‐efficacy, optimism, mastery, coping and meaning in life.

Relationships are socially constructed by companies in interaction. This study explains the dynamic character of business-to-business relationships with the aid of rules theory, a theory borrowed from the communications field. Two forms of rules are identified: constitutive rules guide the interpretation of the other's acts, and regulative rules guide the appropriate response to the interpreted act. Rules theory asserts that companies act as if applying these rules. Relationships provide not only the context in which the parties’ acts are performed but are also the result of such acts. Thus, relationships are potentially reshaped each time one party performs an act and the other party gives meaning to that act and reacts.

By drawing on the need to belong theory, the paper aims to propose a moderated mediation model to examine the role of workplace belongingness and meaning-making in the positive relationship between inclusive leadership and employee change participation.

Participants were 155 employees from 31 teams from a branch of a multinational pharmaceutical company located in an EU country. The company faces constant legal, regulatory and technology-related changes after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak. Data were collected in three waves, approximately three weeks apart between March 2020 and May 2020. To test the mediating effect of workplace belongingness were performed first – a series of regression analyses – and second, bootstrapping to assess the statistical significance of the indirect effect (Preacher and Hayes, 2008).

Workplace belongingness mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employees change participation. Further, the research findings provide support that meaning-making moderates the relationship between workplace belongingness and change participation as well as the indirect relationship between inclusive leadership and change participation through workplace belongingness such that the positive relationships are stronger when meaning-making is higher.

The results indicate that should leaders and change management practitioners manage to influence positively employees' workplace belongingness by employing inclusive practices and procedures; leaders and change management practitioners will increase the level of participation during change and further the results note from an applied perspective the importance of mean-making as a facilitating factor during change in organizational settings. Relevant suggestions are made.

The findings provide new insights into how inclusive leadership and workplace belongingness can affect employees' change participation. Further, the research findings note the significant moderating role of meaning-making regarding both the relationship between workplace belongingness and change participation as well as the indirect relationship between inclusive leadership and change participation through workplace belongingness.

The purpose is to inspire a more Bakhtinian perspective of conversations in change communication. Inspiration is drawn from Bakhtin and argue that change management has, for too long, focused on monologic implementation of predetermined change, i.e. how to develop the “best plot”. Change agents need to consider their anthropology are argued and ask themselves whether the people in their organizations are the objects of communication or subjects in communication. Furthermore, the argument about one's anthropology and one's espoused communication theory are intrinsically intertwined: how one communicates depends entirely on whether one views people as participating subjects in the process or as objects of the process.

Consensus‐as‐monologue and consensus‐as‐dialogue are distinguished. Under the former, the notion of a single speaker is emphasized (expectations of response are low). But under the latter, consensus becomes saturated with the self as the other (polemic, but born between people).

Change agents need to consider their anthropology are argued and ask themselves whether the people in their organizations are the objects of communication or subjects in communication.

Seeing conversation among people as a never‐ending process. A different perspective on participation – a perspective whereby one person's message joins with that of another and one person's meaning joins with that of another is offered.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact on communication of changes in an accounting standard arising from the transition to International Financial Reporting Standards. It investigates inter and intragroup differences in measured connotative meaning of the old and new definitions of “cash”, as held by three key groups of parties to the accounting communication process (preparers, auditors and users); and determines the effect of changes in connotative meaning on decision behaviour (outcomes).

The study adopted a between‐participants 2×3 factorial design whereby the first factor reflected the definition type: old vs new definition of the concept “cash”; while the second reflected three financial reporting groups: preparers, auditors and users. The semantic differential technique developed by Osgood, Suci and Tannenbaum was used to measure connotative meaning.

The study finds that the three financial reporting groups do not share the same meaning of the concept “cash” and that the introduction of the new definition has changed the interpreted connotative meaning for these three groups. A link between measured meaning and the decisions made by the participants was also established.

The explanatory power of the typical three (evaluative, potency and activity) factor structure should be acknowledged; these factors typically explain 50 per cent of the total phenomena known as “meaning”. The study's findings make an important contribution to the earnings management and creative accounting literature.

The findings are particularly relevant to standard‐setters and regulators as a lack of shared meaning may lead to unnecessary misunderstandings and tensions among the many parties to the reporting process.

The study extends prior measurement of meaning studies in accounting through first, the inclusion of all three major groups of parties to the accounting communication process; second, examination of an accounting concept which is defined differently by two accounting standards in the same jurisdiction; and last, investigation of the impact on decision behaviour (outcomes) resulting from changes in meaning brought about through the introduction of a new standard across the three groups.

This paper aims to explore how varsity football athletes and coaches negotiate meanings when faced with the unmet expectations of a new head coach brought into lead a turnaround process. It also aims to pay particular attention to the role of history in this meaning making process.

This paper draws on semi‐structured interviews with players and coaches at two points in time. To preserve the richness of their experiences and illuminate the historical aspects of change, it focuses on the stories of three players and one supporting coach.

Numerous symbols of change emerge that have multiple and contradictory meanings. The meanings around success and failure are renegotiated over time as individuals struggle with the unmet expectations of change. Moreover, individuals are unable to shed the failures of the past and move forward.

Change is a complex and messy process of managing multiple meanings. Understanding change entails more than a snapshot picture of an organization. New leaders have no control over the past, yet they need to be aware of how individuals experienced the past in order to increase the likelihood of success in the present.

Success and failure are experienced as an ongoing process as athletes and coaches experience, reflect on and interact with others. In illuminating the role of history in how change is experienced in the present, the paper demonstrates that the past can serve as both an immobilizing force, as well as a comparative point enabling individuals to rationalize their emotions.

Microfoundations of institutions are central to constructing place – the interplay of location, meaning, and material form. Since only a few institutional studies bring materiality to the fore to examine the processes of place-making, how material forms interact with people to institutionalize or de-institutionalize the meaning of place remains a black box. Through an inductive and historical study of Boston’s North End neighborhood, the authors show how material practices shaped place-making and institutionalized, or de-institutionalized, the meaning of the North End. When material practices symbolically encoded meanings of diverse audiences into the church, it created resonance and enabled the building’s meanings to withstand environmental change and become institutionalized as part of the North End’s meaning as a place. In contrast, when the material practices restricted meaning to a specific audience, it limited resonance when the environment changed, was more likely to be demolished and, thus, erased rather than institutionalized into the meaning of the North End as a place.

In markets, audiences generally discount offerings that fail to fit established product categories, but when misfit offerings change category meaning, the effects of conformity and deviation can reverse so that previously overlooked or unappealing offerings become popular while previously appealing products fall into disfavor. After introducing the idea of category currency to explain how the value of conformity changes with ongoing meaning construction, we use it to make sense of the emergence of nanotechnology. In conclusion, we argue that category currency is useful for explaining the changing value of conformity both in and beyond markets.

The design of a job is deeply consequential for employees’ psychological experiences at work. Jobs are collections of tasks and relationships that are grouped together and assigned to an individual (Ilgen & Hollenbeck, 1992), and scholars have long been interested in the way these elements come together to constitute the experience of a job (Griffin, 1987; Hackman & Oldham, 1980). Research in this area has traditionally built on a core assumption that managers design jobs in a top-down fashion for employees, which places employees in the relatively passive role of being the recipients of the jobs they hold.

Despite a legacy of research that emphasizes contradictions and their role in explaining change, less is understood about their character or the mechanisms that support them. This gap is especially problematic when making causal claims about the sources of institutional change and our overall conceptions of how institutions matter in social meanings and organizational practices. If we treat contradictions as a persistent societal feature, then a primary analytic task is to distinguish their prevalence from their effects. We address this gap in the context of US electoral discourse and education through an analysis of presidential platforms. We ask how contradictions take hold, persist, and might be observed prior to, or independently of, their strategic use. Through a novel combination of content analysis and computational linguistics, we observe contradictions in qualitative differences in form and quantitative differences in degree. Whereas much work predicts that ideologies produce contradictions between groups, our analysis demonstrates that they actually support convergence in meaning between groups while promoting contradiction within groups.