The Handbook of Public Sector Communication

10Change Communication: Developing the Perspective of Sensemaking and the Perspective of Coworkers

Charlotte Simonsson and Mats Heide

Introduction

This chapter focuses on communication‐centered change research and its implications for public sector organizations. Traditionally, public sector organizations have been regarded as quite stable entities—they have even been criticized for being too inert and not very good at keeping pace with new demands and conditions. That seems no longer to be the case. Constant changes and continuous improvements are now part of the dominant norm of how public organizations should be managed (White, 2000). In spite of this, there is not much change research that specifically addresses public sector organizations (Kuipers et al., 2014) or change communication in organizations of this kind. It should also be noted that existing public management research on change focuses mainly on the sectoral or national level rather than change as an organizational process (Van der Voet, Kuipers, & Groeneveld, 2016). However, in this chapter, the focus will be on the organizational level and the communication processes through which changes are enacted. We will depart from communication‐centered change research in general and discuss its possible implications for public sector organizations. Special attention will be given to coworkers and how they make sense in times of changes. While previous research has concentrated on managers and how they can be helped ...