Cultures of ambiguity: design, emergence and ambivalence in the introduction of normative control

摘要

Organizational actors involved in cultural change programmes have a consciousness and experience that is often fragmented, contradictory and ambivalent. Studies documenting ambivalence have, however; tended to assume that there is a relatively dear and unambiguous change programme about which employees are ambivalent. This article argues that the nature of such programmes is more uncertain and ambiguous than this suggests. Drawing on a six-year study of the introduction of a cultural change programme in the coke-making plant of an integrated steelworks, this article details how cultural ambivalence intertwines with practical ambiguities in the course of such programmes to create complex cultures of ambiguity.