Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis concerns the responses of a European oil and gas company and its expatriates during the Arab Spring in Libya and Egypt. I analysed 13 interviews with expatriates by using membership categorisation analysis to establish how the organisation managed the events. In doing so, I highlighted how the expatriates used categorisation devices to voice their uncertainty perceptions, sensemaking and resilience to navigate through the crisis. \nFor each concept, I demonstrated how membership categorisation plays a crucial role as a construction mechanism. People use their category devices as instruments for their sensemaking, uncertainty experience and expression and as resources and capabilities for resilience creation. \nI observed how people described their states of uncertainty and constructed them as reflective narratives of a crisis situation. Regarding sensemaking, the category devices function as instruments for sensemaking to simplify the world while the creation of the ‘other’ category device, as a relational pair, helps to redefine oneself in the wake of a crisis. \nLast, I demonstrated how participants generated resilience while aligning decision-making with changes occurring in their environment. I cautioned that in the event that resilience is enforced as an ‘entrapment’ of employees, it has the potential to cause in employees adverse cognitive and behavioural consequences towards the organisation.
Author: Canan Katrin Akpolat-Ertuna
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3080174335