Making and Giving Sense in Sudden External Disruptions: A Qualitative Case Study of Epiroc

Sammanfattning

Sudden external disruptions confront senior managers with a distinctive challenge: they must interpret rapidly unfolding events, communicate emerging understandings to others, and coordinate organisational responses before reliable information is available. While existing research establishes that disruptions trigger breakdowns in meaning, the interpretive processes that unfold in the earliest moments when cues are weak, frames are unstable, and understanding is still forming remain poorly understood. This thesis examines how senior managers engage in sensemaking and sensegiving during sudden external disruptions, with particular attention to the role of cross-functional dynamics and institutionalised uncertainty in shaping early interpretation.Drawing on fifteen semi-structured interviews with senior managers across Sweden, Chile, the United States, and Poland, the study adopts a qualitative, abductive case study design centred on Epiroc, a global manufacturing firm continuously exposed to geopolitical volatility, supply chain instability, and technological change. Data were analysed through a multi-stage coding process informed by sensemaking theory, sensegiving, cross-functional collaboration, and organised uncertainty.The findings reveal that early sensemaking unfolds not as a progressive move toward clarity but as a period of interpretive turbulence, in which meaning is provisional, contested, and continuously revised across functional boundaries. Managers do not simply notice cues and construct narratives; rather, what becomes noticeable is itself filtered by functional logics, emotional pressures, and accountability expectations. Early sensegiving emerges as exploratory rather than directive managers test interpretations, probe reactions, and adjust their frames in response to others, using communication as much to discover meaning as to shape it. Cross-functional negotiation proves central to the process, transforming competing interpretations into workable shared understandings that enable coordinated action.These findings extend sensemaking theory by offering a more granular account of interpretive turbulence in the earliest stages of disruption, refining the concept of sensegiving to capture its dialogic and tentative character under uncertainty, and demonstrating that cross-functional collaboration is fundamentally an interpretive challenge rather than a structural one. The thesis contributes to a richer understanding of managerial work in turbulent environments and points to the practical importance of building organisational capacity for real-time, cross-functional interpretation.