Navigating organizational change in Saudi Arabia: a case study on employees’ sensemaking during planned change

Purpose This study explores how employees engage in sensemaking during planned organizational change by examining their experiences and perspectives in constructing meaning throughout the change process. It further aims to identify mechanisms that support employee sensemaking during organizational transformations, offering insights into culturally sensitive change management strategies. Design/methodology/approach This study employs a qualitative grounded theory approach to explore employees’ sensemaking during organizational change. A sensemaking lens was applied to analyze how employees interpret and respond to change. Data were collected through 25 semi-structured interviews. The Gioia method guided data organization, with open and axial coding used to identify themes and develop aggregate dimensions. Theoretical sampling ensured diverse employee representation across departments and levels. Constant comparison techniques and member-checking enhanced the study’s rigor, offering nuanced insights into organizational change and development in a non-Western context. Findings The analysis reveals three key aspects of employee sensemaking as they recount their experiences amid organizational change. Anticipatory meaning construction marked by feelings of loss, emotional overwhelm and nostalgic comparisons. As change progresses, employees grapple with identity and role reconstruction, performance pressure, technological adaptation and collective uncertainty. Their retrospective sensemaking generates a model for effective sensemaking management through four dimensions: creating coherent change narratives, equipping employees with the necessary resources, facilitating collective understanding and motivating sustained engagement. These findings underscore the complex cognitive and emotional processes employees experience during change, highlighting the importance of supporting sensemaking at every stage. Research limitations/implications Focusing on one organization in a specific regional context limits generalizability but offers valuable qualitative insights into employee perceptions of change. Future research should examine organizational change across diverse cultural and institutional settings involving employees from multiple organizations and industries. Practical implications This study highlights that employee sensemaking is fundamental to successful organizational change, emphasizing the need for organizational change dynamics theories to integrate bottom-up perspectives and collective meaning-making processes. Practically, managers should actively shape and influence employee narratives beyond top-down strategies by developing mechanisms that support individual and collective sensemaking. Culturally sensitive change management is essential, particularly in non-Western contexts where local cultural factors shape sensemaking. The study’s model, focused on creating narratives, equipping employees, facilitating understanding and motivating engagement, provides managers with structured, evidence-based tools for effectively guiding employee sensemaking during organizational transformations. Originality/value This study offers original insights by examining employee sensemaking during organizational change in a non-Western context, an area often overlooked in organizational change research. It presents a novel model that highlights employees’ cognitive and emotional processes during change, emphasizing the importance of culturally sensitive approaches. Unlike other studies focusing on managerial perspectives, this research centers on employees’ lived experiences, providing valuable insights into bottom-up change processes. Its findings offer theoretical contributions to the sensemaking literature and practical tools for managers to support employee sensemaking.