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A Grounded Model of Organizational Schema Change

During Empowerment
Giuseppe Labianca, Barbara Gray, Daniel J. Brass,

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Giuseppe Labianca, Barbara Gray, Daniel J. Brass, (2000) A Grounded Model of Organizational Schema Change During
Empowerment. Organization Science 11(2):235-257. http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.11.2.235.12512

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 A Grounded Model of Organizational Schema
Change During Empowerment
Giuseppe Labianca • Barbara Gray • Daniel J. Brass
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A.B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118-5669, glabian@tulane.edu
Department of Management and Organization, The Smeal College of Business, The Pennsylvania State University,
403 Beam BAB, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, b9g@psu.edu
Department of Management, Gattan College of Business & Economics, University of Kentucky,
Lexington, Kentucky 40506, dbrass@pop.uky.edu

Abstract cognitive explanations for failure. This paper describes

We analyzed employee resistance to an organizational change
project in which employees were empowered to participate in
the design of a new organizational structure. What emerged
from our analysis was the importance of cognitive barriers to
empowerment. Employees’ resistance appeared to be motivated
less by intentional self-interest than by the constraints of well-
established, ingrained schemas. Resistance was also fueled by
skepticism among the employees about management’s com-
mitment to the new decision-making schema, especially be-
cause employees judged managerial actions to be inconsistent
with their new espoused framework. A grounded model of
schema change is developed for changes in organizational
decision-making schemas during empowerment efforts. Theo-
retical implications and suggestions for improving organiza-
tional change efforts are proposed.
(Organization Change Process; Organizational Sche-
mas; Empowerment; Resistance to Change; Cognition)
Despite increased organizational efforts to empower em-
ployees through mechanisms such as participation in de-
cision making, empowerment projects frequently encoun-
ter resistance from employees and are often unsuccessful
(Griffin 1988, Locke and Schweiger 1979, Wagner 1994).
Explanations for these failures have focused on structure
(the form of the change), process (the implementation of
the change) (Cotton et al. 1988, Cotton 1993, Lawler
1988, Neumann 1989), and context (Neumann 1989). Or-
ganizational change efforts, including empowerment ef-
forts, have also been conceptualized as cognitive pro-
cesses (Bartunek 1984, Conger and Kanungo 1988,
Thomas and Velthouse 1990), but few accounts provide
an empowerment effort to increase employee participa-
tion in decision making that came very close to failing.
We discuss the cognitive origins of resistance to the
change effort and the implications for future efforts to
increase participation.
Although many organizational change efforts do not
require members to change their schemas or mental
frameworks (Fox-Wolfgramm et al. 1998), efforts to in-
crease employees’ voice in decision making often involve
this type of second-order change in schemas for how de-
cisions are made (Argyris and Schon 1978, Bartunek and
Moch 1987). Schemas are cognitive frameworks that give
meaning to experience. An important schema about or-
ganizational change and development specifies that ‘‘em-
ployee participation and shared responsibility for deci-
sions lead to more effective organizational functioning’’
(Bartunek and Moch 1987, p. 486). For most empower-
ment efforts to succeed, managers and employees must
transform their beliefs about who exercises influence in
the organization—specifically, that decision-making in-
fluence will now be shared among individuals who are
otherwise hierarchical unequals. Because this process of-
ten involves radical change in the beliefs and values of
organizational members, such empowerment efforts typ-
ically require a second-order change in the decision-
making schema (Argyris and Schon 1978, Bartunek and
Moch 1987).
This study analyzes a two-year organizational devel-
opment project involving redesign of a health care orga-
nization’s structure, team building, and increased partic-
ipation of lower-level employees in decision making.
Two of the authors served as process consultants to the
organization’s management, while the first author served
as an observer and interviewer throughout the project. We

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1526-5455 electronic ISSN Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000, 235–257
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
observed, interviewed, and collected questionnaire and
archival data over two years (before, during, and after the
redesign project). From this data, we induced an iterative,
four-phase model of when and how decision-making
schemas were revised during empowerment. Neither the
use of the schema concept nor the development of a phase
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model had been planned prior to the study, but instead
grew out of our preliminary content analysis. Once this
grounded model had been formulated, we went back
through our data to track changes in the decision-making
schema of both management and employees.
The results suggest that the change recipients’ failure
to revise old decision-making schemas and to enact new
schemas during a pivotal period in the empowerment ef-
fort created resistance to change. This pivotal period was
during the existence of a joint management/employee
committee that was created to redesign the organization’s
structure. In this paper, we focus on how the employees
themselves interpreted management’s efforts to empower
them and, in particular, why management’s attempts to
include workers were met with so much skepticism. We
refer to this cognitive resistance, and associated emotions
and behaviors, as ‘‘barriers’’ to empowerment.
The paper proceeds as follows. In the next section we
discuss previous explanations for resistance to change,
define the type of empowerment effort we studied, ex-
plain schema theory, and then use this theoretical lens
to present our grounded model of how empowerment ef-
forts unfold. We then describe the research setting and
our methodology. A first-order analysis reflecting the
participants’ views (Van Maanen 1979) is followed by a
second-order analysis which explains the data using the
conceptual model that emerged. Although grounded the-
ory is normally presented at the end of a study, we present
our model at the beginning in order to provide a frame-
work for the reader. This model is grounded in and
emerged from the first-order analysis. We conclude with
suggestions for designing change efforts to overcome
schema-based barriers.
Although this model was developed in the setting of an
empowerment effort, some of the findings and implications
may be applicable to other types of organizational change
efforts. The process of organizational schema change de-
tailed in this model may generalize to any change effort
where organizational members need to undergo second-
order changes in the way the work is accomplished (e.g.,
total quality management). One purpose of supplying a
‘‘thick description’’ in the first-order analysis is to pro-
vide the reader with enough background to determine the
generalizability of the findings to other settings (Van
Maanen 1979).
236
Theoretical Background
Empowerment
Although the term ‘‘empowerment’’ is a fairly recent
construction, organizational researchers have tradition-
ally studied such empowering management practices as
changing the organizational structure to allow workers to
have a greater say in their jobs (e.g., Kanter 1979, Neilsen
1986, Pfeffer 1982). Recent redefinitions have argued that
empowerment should be described in terms of motiva-
tional processes, and not in terms of the relative power
or decision-making abilities of organizational members.
Conger and Kanungo (1988) focus on self-efficacy;
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) focus on changes in job
design and intrinsic task motivation; Spreitzer (1995)
looks at psychological empowerment. We take the more
traditional approach of conceiving of empowerment in
terms of relative decision-making power in the organi-
zation. But we argue that this view is incomplete without
a cognitive component. We believe empowerment also
requires a change in the collective sense making of the
organization (Bartunek 1984, Donnellon et al. 1986, Gioia
1986, Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991, Gray et al. 1985). Em-
powerment involves the development of a shared organi-
zational schema for how decisions are made in an orga-
nization—specifically that organizational decision-making
will be shared among hierarchical unequals.
Resistance to Organizational Change
Any effort to change an organization (including an effort
to increase power sharing among employees and man-
agement) typically encounters resistance (Schein 1988,
Coch and French 1948). There are many explanations for
resistance to organizational change, including organiza-
tional politics (Pfeffer 1982), strong socialization and cul-
tural norms (Neumann 1989), insufficient information,
and poor timing and/or lack of necessary resources (Kot-
ter and Schlesinger 1993, Lorsch 1985). What emerged
from our grounded research was the critical role of cog-
nitive barriers to empowerment. We believe employees’
resistance to change may stem as much from difficulties
in revising the well-established, ingrained decision-
making schema as from intentional self-interested behav-
ior. Despite their potential, cognitive explanations for re-
sistance to organizational change have not received much
research attention within the organization development
literature (Armenakis and Feild 1993, Bartunek 1995).
Bartunek’s and her associates’ work stands as the main
research examples of the difficulties of schema change
and their effect on the success of organizational change
efforts (Bartunek 1984, 1988, 1993, Bartunek and Louis
1988, Bartunek and Moch 1987, Bartunek and Reid 1992,
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model

Moch and Bartunek 1990), although other researchers
have recently contributed to this research stream (e.g.,
Poole 1998, Reger et al. 1994).
Schemas
Schemas are generalized cognitive frameworks that give
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are of particular importance because they provide a com-
mon orientation toward information and events (Bartunek
and Moch 1987, Moch and Bartunek 1990).
A major underlying concern in the research on orga-
nizational schemas is the extent to which they are shared.
All organization members may not share organizational

form and meaning to experience, and contain general

schemas and the behaviors they guide, especially when
knowledge about a domain. They are a collection of re-
some subgroups in the organization feel that their inter-
lated ideas and specific examples about the domain. One
ests are being slighted (Gray et al. 1985, Martin and Mey-
of their chief functions is to help a person identify incom-
erson 1988, Meyerson and Martin 1987). People in dif-
ing stimuli. Schemas provide hypotheses about these in-
ferent groups (Donnellon et al. 1986, Meyerson and
coming stimuli and plans for interpreting the stimuli and
Martin 1987), functional areas (Strasser and Bateman
gathering further schema-related information (Taylor and
1983), or hierarchical or status levels (Smith 1982) often
Crocker 1981, see also Bartunek and Moch 1987, Gioia
see what is apparently the same event very differently.
and Poole 1984, Markus 1977, Markus and Zajonc 1985,
For example, employees in different functional areas per-
Miller et al. 1960, Minsky 1975, Poole et al. 1989, Schank
ceive strike initiatives very differently (Donnellon et al.
and Abelson 1977, Tesser 1978). Some types of schemas
1986). Similarly, Moch and Bartunek (1990) found that
also provide a basis for the anticipation or initiation of
management change schemas did not coincide with em-
sequential action in social situations. These schemas are
ployee change schemas during a quality of work life im-
usually referred to as ‘‘scripts’’ (Schank and Abelson
provement effort. Despite a tendency for organizational
1977, Gioia and Poole 1984).
schemas to persist, these differences among groups can
Once schemas are established, they tend to endure and
be a source of change in organizational schemas (Bartu-
are resistant to change, even when disconfirming infor-
nek 1984, Gray et al. 1985), as are significant challenges
mation is presented (Taylor and Crocker 1981, Nystrom
posed by the organization’s environment, changes in key
and Starbuck 1984, Reger and Palmer 1996, Ross et al.
decision makers’ values and assumptions (Lyles and
1977). However, they can change over time, particularly
Schwenk 1992), and top management changes (Tushman
if the information environment is dramatically altered (Is-
and Romanelli 1985).
enberg 1987) or if an organizational leader articulates a
This study presents a unique opportunity to study an
new vision for the organization (Bartunek et al. 1992).
organizational schema—the schema for how decisions
This paper investigates one particular type of schema—
are made—change in real time. At the inception of the
the schema for how decisions are made in an organiza-
study, the schema-in-use (Argyris and Schon 1978) for
tion. Because schemas are thought to be organized hier-
decision making was understood by both management
archically with more abstract or general information at
and employees of the organization. This schema-in-
the top and categories of more specific information nested
use assumed that management should retain control of
within the general categories (Abelson 1976, Bower et al.
events and decision making. Although accustomed to this
1979, Taylor and Crocker 1981), we can view this schema
decision-making schema, employees wanted more input
as being composed of at least two categories. The first is
into organizational decision making. A change in lead-
about decision making—that is, the sequence to follow
ership provided the opportunity for the organization to
when making a decision. The second is about changes in
begin such a shift. Because the new director’s espoused
decision making—the expected sequence to follow in or-
decision-making schema was a much more participative
der to change decision-making processes within the or-
one, a formal program of empowerment was initiated.
ganization (e.g., Aronson and Carlsmith 1962, Moch and
As this program developed, we witnessed the break-
Bartunek 1990, Taylor and Crocker 1981).
down of the previous organizational schema to a tempo-
Organizational Schemas rary state where there was little shared perspective among
Although schema theory was originally oriented toward organizational members. As the change process contin-
the individual, more recently researchers have argued that ued, however, members engaged in a process of social
schemas can be shared among organization members influence and negotiation that began bringing these dis-
through a process of social influence and negotiation parate perspectives back together in the pursuit of a new
(e.g., Bartunek 1984, Lord and Foti 1986, Bartunek and schema that included more employee involvement. Thus,
Moch 1987, Poole et al. 1989). As with an individual’s we witnessed an organization moving from a period of
schemas, organizational schemas guide and give meaning schema consensus to divergence, and eventually begin to
to the everyday activities of organization members. They converge again on a new organizational schema.

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000 237

 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
Change Model for Decision-Making Schema
To capture the process by which schema revision oc-
curred, a four-phase model of change for decision-making
schemas emerged from our analysis (Figure 1). The
model illustrates how an old decision-making schema is
either changed or retained through a process of compar-
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ison, and how barriers to empowerment can reinforce the
old schema.
In the first phase, the motivation to change phase, or-
ganizational members are presented with evidence in-
tended to disconfirm a previous decision-making schema.
Although employees or union leaders initiate some em-
powerment projects, others begin with management
announcements directed toward changing the organiza-
tion’s decision-making schema. Based on their interpre-
tations of management’s announcements, employees are
stimulated to imagine a new schema that is more partic-
ipative—one in which they have greater voice and re-
sponsibility.
This first phase is similar to Lewin’s (1951) and
Schein’s (1988) unfreezing phase. In it, the old scheme
Figure 1 Change Model for Organizational Decision-Making Schema
238
is disconfirmed (or there is a lack of confirmation), in-
dividuals are induced to feel uncomfortable about cling-
ing to the old scheme, and some psychological safety is
created by reassuring the change targets, providing sup-
port, and attempting to convince them that the ultimate
outcomes of changing are desirable. These mechanisms
create motivation to change and overcome resistance to
change. However, unlike Lewin and Schein, our analysis
suggested that resistance is not overcome in this initial
phase, but only that disconfirmatory information is pre-
sented.
During the second phase, new schema generation, or-
ganizational members form new decision-making sche-
mas and develop expectations about how these will be
enacted. While we term these ‘‘new schemas,’’ they are
similar to what Isabella (1990) referred to as an ‘‘in-
progress frame of reference’’ – an assembly of tenuously
connected pieces that a person draws on in novel situa-
tions when behavior is unscripted. Our ‘‘new schemas’’
include in-progress frames that guide behavior, as well as
in-progress frames that guide and give meaning to the
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
entire empowerment effort. For example, employees may
hold an in-progress frame for what the term empower-
ment means (e.g., how decision making will be conducted
in this organization in the future), as well as an in-pro-
gress frame for how they imagine the empowerment ef-
fort will proceed.
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During new schema generation, organizational mem-
bers simultaneously retain the old schema while begin-
ning to construct the new one. According to Schein
(1988), this occurs in his change phase. During this time
a process of cognitive redefinition occurs in which or-
ganizational members entertain alternative assumptions
and beliefs simultaneously.
In the third phase, the schema comparison phase,
organizational members compare the old and new deci-
sion-making schemas as the organizational change is im-
plemented. As new data about the change becomes avail-
able, it is weighed against both the old and the new
schemas. Bartunek and Moch (1987) refer to this as di-
alectical consideration of schemas. Despite motivation to
adopt the new participative decision-making schema, the
old schema continues to act as a filter for selecting and
interpreting incoming information. This stage may be
characterized by ambivalent feelings and anxiety, and
schema-based barriers may be manifest as emotional ex-
pressions and/or in disruptive behaviors (e.g., skepticism,
cynicism, lack of responsibility to follow through on
tasks, sabotage, reluctance to initiate, questioning of man-
agement’s intentions, or outright refusal to accept re-
sponsibility or to act).
We found that the comparison phase was a particularly
pivotal period in the process of changing decision-making
schemas. The comparison process stimulates a search for,
and attention to, any data that reflects on the two schemas.
Data about the way the empowerment effort was pro-
gressing, and management practices and actions during
this time, either confirmed the new schema or reinforced
the old schema (Poole 1998). Our model emphasizes that
actions that reinforce the old decision-making schema
generate barriers to change.
During this period of uncertainty, even minor discrep-
ancies in management action may take on added signifi-
cance as employees actively search for information to
prove or disprove the veracity of the new schema. Be-
cause a well-established schema is not easily discon-
firmed, schema change takes considerable time. Any
deviation from the new schema during implementation
may not only cause reversion to the old schema, but also
reinforce it.
The schema comparison phase is long and iterative—
the evaluation process continues to occur over time. Sub-
sequent management and employee actions continue to
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
be judged against the old schema and against the new
in-progress frames of reference until one is supported and
the other discredited (Pondy and Huff 1988). If the new
schemas continue to be reinforced through social inter-
action, negotiation, and confirmatory behavior, employ-
ees’ and management’s divergent schemas will begin to
converge into a new shared organizational decision-
making schema.
Finally, during the stabilization phase, organizational
members either consistently revert to the old schema
(hence, schema change has failed) or increasingly rely on
the new schema, signaling success. This phase corre-
sponds to Lewin’s and Schein’s refreezing phase.
The development of a four-phase process model was
influenced by two factors: 1) Lewin’s (1951) and Schein’s
(1988) previous phase models; and 2) our roles as ob-
servers and consultants in this organization, which lead
us to bracket our experience into a discrete beginning,
middle, and end. Alternatively, this phase model could
be conceived as a continuous process of action and
schema revision, or as a punctuated equilibrium process
in which periods of fervent schema divergence occur be-
tween periods of relative equilibrium around a convergent
organizational schema. However, because we only had
data for one ‘‘cycle’’ of schema change, the phase model
best captures our data.
Methodology
Research Setting
The setting for this research was a university health center
(UHC) located in the Northeast. UHC was going through
the process of updating its services for students, replacing
traditional inpatient services with preventative services.
Additionally, an independent external review of UHC
conducted in late 1989 had recommended that, among
other things, UHC ‘‘promote teamwork in UHC activities
by ‘flattening’ the organizational structure and involving
staff in decision making.’’ Concurrently, UHC’s leader-
ship was shifting away from a triumvirate [consisting of
the vice president of student services (‘‘Ed’’), the medical
director (‘‘Betty’’), and an associate director (‘‘Bill’’)] to
a single directorate with Betty at the helm. Bill was leav-
ing the organization for other employment, and Ed was
assuming other responsibilities unrelated to UHC.
Both Betty and Ed agreed that UHC needed to adopt a
new structure. They were also aware that employees cur-
rently perceived that top management did not heed their
input. Additionally, Betty had a vision for UHC that in-
cluded building a more empowered organization in which
more decisions were made at lower levels. Ed concurred
with her proposed changes, and together they initiated an
239
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
organizational development project to help the organi-
zation change its structure and approach to decision mak-
ing. The organization development project began in Feb-
ruary 1993 and concluded in April 1995. The study was
conducted throughout this 27-month period, and resulted
in the model shown in Figure 1. The organization devel-
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opment process is outlined in Figure 2.
Research Questions and Data Collection
The purpose of this study was twofold: First, we wanted
to understand why efforts by management to empower
workers are often met with so much skepticism and re-
sisted by employees. Second, we sought to learn how em-
ployees themselves interpreted management’s efforts to
include them in decision making. Our major objective
was to understand and experience events as they occurred
from the perspective of the ‘‘native’’ organizational
members (Van Maanen 1979). We provide data that re-
flect how activities associated with the change effort were
perceived, interpreted, and legitimated by those involved
(Morey and Luthans 1984).
We selected a methodology that could go beyond the
surface of organizational activity to uncover the organi-
zational schemas in use by both management and work-
ers. The first author generated a thick description of the
empowerment process based on unstructured and semi-
structured ethnographic interviews (Spradley 1979) with
Figure 2 UHC Organization Development Process
240
employees, observation in the organization over the 27-
month period, and observation and interviews of a com-
mittee charged with organizational redesign. Meanwhile,
the second and third authors acted as consultants on the
organization development effort, which also involved
semistructured interviews of nearly all of the 112 em-
ployees in the organization, administration of question-
naires, collection of archival data, and facilitation of and
record keeping about teambuilding efforts.
The researchers constructed an initial diagnosis of the
organization between March and July 1993 based on ex-
tensive interviews with employees either individually or
in small groups (see Appendix 1 for the original interview
protocol), relevant archival data, and questionnaires mea-
suring job attitudes. This diagnosis was fed back to all
employees in a series of meetings in July 1993. It revealed
that employees believed they had challenging jobs, but
little input into decision making, and that organizational
policies constrained their ability to perform their jobs.
Working in small groups, the employees were asked to
review, reject, embrace, or modify the researchers’ di-
agnostic conclusions and to propose suggestions for
change. These groups reported widespread agreement
about the diagnosis and confirmed the trustworthiness of
the conclusions (Lincoln and Guba 1985).
As a result of the diagnosis, two separate activities were
undertaken: a series of within and cross-departmental
team building activities and the formation of a committee,
referred to as DARE (Design and Reorganization Effort).
This study focuses primarily on the activities of the
DARE committee because of its pivotal role in this
change effort. DARE was charged with analyzing current
functional alignments, reporting relationships, and rec-
ommending a new organizational structure. The commit-
tee was comprised of 13 members: Betty (who chaired
the meetings), Ed, three other managerial employees, and
eight nonmanagerial employees nominated by their de-
partments and selected by management. Participants were
chosen so that each department was represented. DARE
met for four- to five-hour meetings twice a month over
five months (August to December 1993). Two of the re-
searchers were process consultants to the committee,
while the first author observed this committee and con-
ducted interviews with four DARE members (see Appen-
dix 1 for the DARE interview protocol).
While this study focuses on DARE, data from the
larger organizational development project were also util-
ized in our analysis. For example, initial interviews with
Ed and Betty provided data on management’s initial sche-
mas. The interviews and initial questionnaires provided
evidence of employees’ original schemas. Follow-up
questionnaires at the end of the restructuring phase of the
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model

organization development (OD) project (June 1994) and
open-ended questionnaires created by the employees
themselves (October 1994) provide evidence of employ-
ees’ new schemas. We included items from the Job Di-
agnostic Survey (Hackman and Oldham 1975) in the
questionnaires distributed in March 1993 and June 1994
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interviews, conversations, and nonverbal communication,
as well as reflexive thoughts, totaling over 300 pages of
written material. In addition, more than 250 pages of ar-
chival material were collected, including an external as-
sessment, strategic plans, the results of October 1994
questionnaires created by organizational members, and

to measure task autonomy, skill variety, task identity, task documents from the DARE meetings.
significance, task feedback, and job satisfaction. Addi-
Trustworthiness of the Research
tional items were included to measure growth opportu-
Trustworthiness in interpretive research is ensured by at-
nities (four items, e.g., ‘‘My job allows me a great deal
tending to four criteria: credibility, transferability, de-
of personal growth and development.’’), input (two items,
pendability, and confirmability (Lincoln and Guba 1985).
e.g., ‘‘I feel that I have influence over decisions made
Several steps were taken to guarantee that these criteria
within UHC.’’), policies (two items, e.g., ‘‘Organization-
were met: (1) the data were collected in the natural setting
wide policies and procedures do not significantly impair
and in real time; (2) the researchers had long-term in-
my ability to do my job.’’), teamwork (five items, e.g.,
volvement in UHC and intensive, firsthand observation
‘‘Members of my department collaborate to get the job
of DARE; (3) multiple methods and sources of data were
done.’’), sense of community (four items, e.g., ‘‘I share
used; (4) a detailed first-order analysis, or ‘‘thick descrip-
a common sense of purpose with others at UHC.’’), and
tion,’’ of the setting was provided so that others can judge
job stress (four items, e.g., ‘‘My job is extremely stress-
the plausibility of the findings and their applicability to
ful.’’). Of the 112 employees, 77% completed and re-
other settings; (5) member checks on the initial interview
turned the questionnaire in March 1993 (diagnosis), and
data were conducted by inviting feedback on the diag-
75% responded in June 1994 (evaluation of the redesign
nosis; and (6) an inquiry audit was conducted by two
portion of the project). Fifty-one employees completed
independent auditors who examined the process of in-
both questionnaires.
quiry and reviewed the records (interview transcripts,
Data about the DARE committee were gathered
field notes, reflexive journal, archives, and coding sheets)
through observation of meetings, collecting meeting
to ensure no grievous errors in interpretation were made.
handouts, an evaluative survey of all DARE members at
Because interpretive research implicitly assumes that
the conclusion of their work, and minutes of DARE meet-
every person conducting a research study will have a
ings. In addition, four of the 13 members of DARE (one
unique interpretation of the results, the concept of inter-
manager and three nonmanagers) were interviewed by the
rater reliability cannot be applied (Lincoln and Guba
first author to learn their interpretations of the overall or-
1985). Thus, rather than having multiple raters attempt to
ganizational change project and the DARE committee in
find the same interpretations of our data, an inquiry audit
particular. These informants, chosen to be representative
was performed instead. Much like a financial audit, the
of the entire committee, included a young manager
records from the research project were revealed to two
closely allied with the director, an outspokenly critical
persons not involved with the project. One was a profes-
nonmanager who often spoke for the discontented, a non-
sor of organizational behavior and the other was a gradu-
managerial participant whose department had initially re-
ate student trained in qualitative methods. They con-
sisted participation in the project, and a quiet nonmanager
cluded that the interpretations that the research team made
who seemed reluctant to express her opinions in the meet-
were reasonable, and that they accurately reflected the
ings. Informants were told their statements would be sum-
data.
marized anonymously for the research team to evaluate
DARE’s progress and to propose changes in its internal Content Analysis
process. Content analysis of interview data from UHC employees
Notes from the semistructured interviews conducted (n⳱112) and DARE members (n⳱4) proceeded in five
with all employees and with DARE members were tran- phases: initial reading, coding, pictorial representation of
scribed verbatim from tape recordings yielding 208 pages the themes, creation of first-order general themes, and
of text. Interviews averaged one to two hours in length. finally the creation of a second-order analysis (Van Maa-
Detailed notes were taken in three cases when subjects nen 1979). Strauss’s (1987) open coding technique was
declined to be taped. For all interviews, the researchers used to inductively identify themes in the data. Analysis
reviewed their notes for accuracy immediately after the of interview data to identify themes is a common practice
interviews and before transcription. The first author used in organizational change studies (c.f., Bartunek 1984, Ei-
a journal to record observations, data from unstructured senhardt 1989, Dutton and Dukerich 1990, Yan and Gray

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000 241

 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
1994) and these semistructured interviews are often ef-
fective at generating descriptive information about cog-
nitive schemas and the content of these schema (c.f., Ra-
faeli et al. 1997). However, had we begun this research
with the explicit intent of evaluating the place of the
decision-making schema in participants’ schemata (i.e.,
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the structure of the schema, rather than the content), we
would have used more focused techniques, such as the
repertory grid (e.g., Reger 1990). Initially, 114 themes
were identified from the four DARE interviews and 152
themes from the organization-wide interviews. Basic
guidelines for conducting open coding were carefully ad-
hered to, including labeling themes with in vivo codes to
preserve the informants’ meanings (Strauss and Corbin
1990) (see Table 1 for examples). The three authors and
a fourth researcher who also helped to conduct the inter-
views coded data from the organization-wide interviews.
Each researcher independently identified themes that
emerged from the interviews conducted. Then triangula-
tion (Jick 1979) was used to identify themes that were
common to several informants’ interviews. This process,
which compares data with other evidence on the same
point, has also been called establishing contextual valid-
ity (Diesing 1971).
To create a first-order analysis, the themes are linked
into a network or model of the functional or semantic
relations suggested in the data (Diesing 1971, Spradley
1979). The centrality, or relative importance, of the
themes in the model was determined by the number of
themes and frequency with which they were expressed,
triangulating across informants and the various data
sources (Jick 1979). For example, multiple informants
frequently expressed that ‘‘the DARE committee was not
what I expected’’; hence, this was considered a very cen-
tral theme in the analysis, whereas the theme ‘‘nurses and
clericals are very rigid’’ was only expressed twice by one
informant, and so was not considered central (see Appen-
dix 2 for an example of theme identification). For the four
interviews with DARE members, only the first author
coded this data. It would have been inappropriate for the
process consultants to do so because they had a personal
investment in the outcome of the committee.
In total, 266 themes were identified from DARE mem-
bers and the organization-wide semistructured interviews.
Although we identified other themes (for example, par-
ticular interdepartmental conflicts within UHC and shifts
in values about how patients were treated), this paper fo-
cuses on selective groups of themes about how decisions
were made at UHC and how empowered employees felt.
We chose to focus on decision making and empowerment
themes because they were the most salient (as judged by
the number of people mentioning them and the frequency
242
with which they were mentioned) and consistent across
UHC employees and managers (as judged by the simi-
larity in their statements).
To determine if a significant change had occurred in
the decision-making schema, data from the employees’
own open-ended questionnaires were used as well as be-
havioral data about joint management/employee commit-
tees, employees’ proactive expressions of concerns, and
management support for the latter. Additionally, we re-
visited the data to confirm that decisions were being made
differently in late 1994 as compared to early 1993 and
that employees had input into the decision-making pro-
cess. Returning to the data in this way is not unusual
given the iterative nature of qualitative analysis (Strauss
and Corbin 1990).
The first-order analysis, which tries to faithfully reflect
the events that occurred at UHC through the participants’
eyes (and in their native language as much as possible)
is presented below. This is followed by a second-order
analysis (Van Maanen 1979) in which several themes and
schemas are linked in a model of how change occurred.
In second-order analysis, the researcher offers an inter-
pretation of what transpired that goes beyond that offered
by the informants in the first-order analysis. To simplify
our presentation (and to justify our findings), we have
used first-order data (representative quotes in Table 1) to
support the model in Figure 1 that emerged as our second-
order analysis. Note that each theme and schema in Fig-
ure 1 has corresponding representative quotes in Table 1.
Findings
First Order Analysis
UHC-Wide Introduction and Organizational Diagno-
sis. UHC’s growing pace of change necessitated greater
input from employees on how to structure their work en-
vironment. While the proposed empowerment effort
boosted morale, it also introduced new problems—em-
ployees who had never been consulted on anything were
suspicious of management’s current intentions to solicit
their input. Our initial interviews and questionnaire re-
vealed the widespread belief among employees and man-
agers that employees lacked input throughout the orga-
nization (see Table 1, sections IA and IB). Questionnaire
responses indicated an average rating for input in deci-
sion-making of only 3.43 on a seven-point scale. By com-
parison, average ratings for job satisfaction, autonomy,
task identity, skill variety, task significance, and task
feedback were between 4.72 and 5.77.
When the organizational development project began,
there was a great deal of skepticism from the employees
about the likelihood of real change. Many felt that input
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model

Table 1 First-Order Themes, Second-Order Concepts and Representative Quotes

This table presents the second-order concepts from Figure 1, along with the first-order themes from which they were derived. The table
also includes representative quotes that illustrate the first-order themes.

I.A. EMPLOYEES’ OLD DECISION-MAKING SCHEMA

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1. No one’s asked some people for their opinion for a long time.
‘‘Our receptionist is very willing to give input, and she’s outspoken, but no one asked her opinion for a long time.’’ (March 1993)
2. Decisions were predecided.
‘‘People always feel whenever anyone asked for suggestions, it’s already decided.’’ (March 1993)
3. Lower-level employees stay quiet/don’t feel important enough to speak up.
‘‘I think the [staff-level] members have real hesitations about speaking up.’’ (July 1993)
‘‘But there are people there who have a lot of responsibilities and I think they should say more.’’ (October 1993)

I.B. MANAGEMENT’S OLD DECISION-MAKING SCHEMA

1. Senior administrators think of the employees as ‘‘the workers.’’
‘‘The senior administrators deal with ‘the workers.’ ’’ (January 1993)
2. Input wasn’t sought.
‘‘Input wasn’t sought from workers, but information was later shared with people regarding what and why.’’ (January 1993)
‘‘Mid-levels don’t have chance for input.’’ (January 1993)
3. Communication is unidirectional.
‘‘Information from the Administrative Committee is sometimes shared if we agree that it should be widely shared . . . but it is unidirectional
and I don’t know how many people really read it.’’ (January 1993)
4. Middle-level people rely too much on top management.
‘‘Middle-level people rely too much on Betty, Bill and Ed.’’ (January 1993)

II.A. EMPLOYEES’ EXPECTED NEW SCHEMAS

1. Will create more avenues of communication at UHC.
‘‘But we want to communicate how we feel. We need more avenues of communication. . . . The DARE committee was not at all what we
expected it to be.’’ (October 1993)
2. Will work on team building.
‘‘We want team building . . . we need more effective communication and team-building.’’ (July 1993)
3. DARE as a public relations tool.
‘‘We were going . . . to try to get a better image for UHC, to change our image.’’ (October 1993)
4. Wanted to give their beefs.
‘‘It’s like they wanted to give their beefs. They wanted to tell you ‘What I think is wrong . . .’ or ‘What I think can be changed. . . .’ ’’ (November
1993)
5. Grand plans were being made.
‘‘I got the impression that grand plans were being made. That’s what I told my staff was going to happen. But it turned out that we
approached the problem little by little in the committee.’’ (October 1993)

II.B. MANAGEMENT’S EXPECTED NEW SCHEMAS

1. Make UHC more team-oriented, more collaborative.
‘‘I’d like to see UHC become less competitive, more team-oriented, more collaborative.’’ (December 1992)
2. Empowerment of lower level employees
‘‘I want empowerment of our lower level employees—to feel more in control of their work, have some autonomy. I want people to feel good
about where they work and how they work.’’ (January 1993)
3. Don’t want leadership or change effort to come from the ‘‘top ten’’ senior administrators.
‘‘I don’t necessarily want leadership to come from the ‘top ten.’ Part of the problem may be in this top ten. I don’t want them to become
directors of this project. I don’t want them to become facilitators.’’ (January 1993)
4. Align organizational structure as effectively as it can be.
‘‘The organization is not aligned as effectively as it could be. We want an analysis of functions to understand how to realign with the staff
who are currently there. We want a structure that allows individuals to do their best.’’ (December 1992)
5. UHC will keep its current workers.
‘‘My expectation is that this process is going to help us work with the players we have.’’ (January 1993)

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 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model

Table 1 (Continued) First-Order Themes, Second-Order Concepts and Representative Quotes

This table presents the second-order concepts from Figure 1, along with the first-order themes from which they were derived. The table
also includes representative quotes that illustrate the first-order themes.

6. Will learn to delegate.

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‘‘I wish I were better at delegating.’’ (February 1993)

7. Will share information better.
‘‘We need to have better ways to share information. This is part and parcel of the gossip problem. Gossip would be less if people had
more accurate information.’’ (March 1993)

III. ON-GOING MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE ACTIONS

1. Betty/Ed rude during meetings.
‘‘Betty and Ed are so rude during meetings. Interrupting people. They are always whispering to each other. . . . They’re always slipping
notes across the desk.’’ (October 1993)
2. Betty pushing committee.
‘‘Now she’s pushing the committee to do things faster, and I think that Betty is getting uncomfortable with the committee going on as long
as it has. I think she’s afraid it’s going to come back to haunt her.’’ (October 1993)
3. Betty got impatient.
‘‘I think Betty got a little impatient, and she sped it up a little by saying that we had to be finished by a certain date.’’ (November 1993)

IV. EVALUATION PROCESS

1. Is it already decided?
‘‘Is it already decided? And is this input to see if people agree with it? Or is it really, are we really going to have an effect?’’ (October 1993)
2. Is it really going to make a difference?
‘‘So it’s kind of like you look at it and say, ‘Is it really going to make a difference?’ I mean, we’re hoping it does.’’ (November 1993)
3. What is going to happen from this?
‘‘So I think I guess I don’t know what is going to happen from this, and changes are going to happen. What, then, changes is this going
to make?’’ (October 1993)

V. IF FAILS TO MEET NEW SCHEMA EXPECTATIONS (THREAT RIGIDITY)

1. This isn’t what we signed on for.
‘‘You know, quite a few of us on the committee have been talking afterwards and wondering, ‘What the hell are we doing? This isn’t what
we signed on for.’ ’’ (October 1993)
2. They already know what they want.
‘‘They’ve already decided how they want to reorganize the place. They’ve formed a committee of the most outspoken people in UHC, and
they are going to make us keep doing this exercise until we come up with what they wanted in the first place. That way, when it starts to
get implemented, they can say ‘You have no right to bitch, you could’ve said something during the meetings, but you didn’t, so live with
it. . . .’ This whole committee is mental masturbation, mental gymnastics.’’ (October 1993)
3. DARE is just a way for Betty to be further removed.
‘‘The meetings are a place where Betty and Ed set up because Betty doesn’t want to be involved in the everyday-type things of running
the health center.’’ (October 1993)
4. Fear of layoffs.
‘‘I’m worried. What if they don’t like what I have to say? I want my job. If I make too many waves, what will happen to me during the
reorganization? I don’t want to lose my job.’’ (October 1993)
‘‘The rest of the staff . . . is worried about ‘How’s it going to affect me? Am I going to get laid off?’ ’’ (November 1993)

VI. BEHAVIORAL BARRIERS TO EMPOWERMENT

1. Some consider resigning in protest.
‘‘Then somebody else suggested, ‘Why don’t we all resign from the committee?’ That would send a clear message to them about what we
think of this committee.’’ (October 1993)
‘‘They’d hound us . . . ‘why did you resign . . . why?’ . . . About 50% of the [DARE committee members] are feeling that it doesn’t matter
what we do in the committee.’’ (October 1993)

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 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model

Table 1 (Continued) First-Order Themes, Second-Order Concepts and Representative Quotes

This table presents the second-order concepts from Figure 1, along with the first-order themes from which they were derived. The table
also includes representative quotes that illustrate the first-order themes.

VII. IF MEETS NEW SCHEMA EXPECTATIONS

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1. More representative of needs of the whole UHC.

‘‘Feel outcome represents needs of the whole UHC not just likes from a few individuals.’’ (February 1994)
2. Education of staff members.
‘‘Opportunity for multiple level input and education of staff members who might otherwise not be exposed to issues central to decision
making at this level.’’ (February 1994)
3. Better organizaton structure.
‘‘We’ll get a better organization structure out of this.’’ (January 1994)
4. New information and ideas.
‘‘New information surfaced.’’ (December 1993)
‘‘Willingness to look at new ideas and alternatives and move toward decision regarding reorganization.’’ (December 1993)
5. Made contacts.
‘‘I’ve also appreciated the contacts I’ve made through the meetings. I’ve got to meet a lot of nice people. It’s also good to get out of
Pharmacy to see people. Sometimes we get stuck back behind the partition. . . . ’’ (January 1994)

was illusory—decisions were predecided, and manage-
ment was only engaging in a ‘‘show’’ by seeking em-
ployee opinions. Some employees believed that manage-
ment had already decided on a reorganization plan and
that the project was merely window dressing to gain ac-
ceptance of it. One long-time worker said: ‘‘I’ve had that
happen before where something is already decided and
then they ask for your opinion. . . . A lot of people feel
that even though you come to me and say, ‘How do you
feel about this?’ maybe you’ve already made up your
mind that you’re going to do this this way anyway.’’
Although the two process consultants were hired by
management, the research team made a conscious effort
to ensure that all views were reflected in the diagnosis,
that the study’s findings were presented to everyone, and
that DARE was a representative microcosm of the orga-
nization. Despite this, most employees adopted a wait-
and-see attitude about the project; a few employees in one
department were so skeptical or afraid that they declined
to participate in the initial data collection in March 1993
(although they eventually did participate by July 1993
and sent a representative to the DARE meetings).
The objectives of the overall organizational change
project were explained to the employees during a series
of organization-wide meetings led by Ed in February
1993. (See Table 2 for a chronology of events and Table
3 for a list of objectives.) Employees were reassured that
there would be no loss of jobs, but some employees could
expect to see their job descriptions change as the entire
organization reorganized. Despite these presentations, in-
terviews of nonmanagerial and managerial employees by
the observer indicated that they and others they spoke
with remained unclear about the entire project’s goals.
Staff Feedback. After completing the diagnosis, an-
other series of organization-wide meetings were held in
July 1993 to feed back information gleaned by the re-
search team. Despite earlier concerns that the research
team would do a superficial job, employees reported that
the diagnosis preserved the fidelity of the original com-
ments they expressed during the interviews.
Despite this, the feedback meeting itself contributed to
the staff’s confusion about the DARE committee. Many
issues that had little to do with the task set for the reor-
ganization committee surfaced during the feedback ses-
sions (e.g., workplace discrimination, lack of space, and
better within-team communication). Enthusiasm for tack-
ling all these problems was growing. Employees incor-
rectly assumed that the DARE committee was going to
address all these issues, even though Betty continued to
indicate that it was only a reorganization committee and
that some of these other problems were being addressed
separately (e.g., through within- and between-group team
building). Many volunteered to serve on the committee
in the hope of solving their pet issues. Although all the
ideas involved employee input or empowerment, each
employee came in with a different idea about the purpose
of the DARE committee and what it was going to tackle.
Table 3 shows the stated purpose and some of the expec-
tations that DARE members had. Since the stated purpose
was sufficiently vague, members could easily superim-
pose their individual expectations on the group (see Table
1, § IIA).

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 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model

Table 2 Chronology of Events

Predating study
1. Triumvirate of outside director (Ed), medical director (Betty) and associate director for administration (Bill) leads UHC.
2. Consultants are invited in to help UHC become more collaborative (December 1992).
3. Ed promotes Betty to be sole director of UHC.
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Diagnosis and feedback phases of study begin (February to August 1993)

4. Diagnosis phase (February to June 1993). Extensive interviewing of all UHC employees, along with questionnaire distribution. Observer
involved in semistructured interviews of employees; begins unstructured interviews and observation of UHC employees in March 1993.
5. Feedback meeting held with all UHC employees (July 1993). Reorganization committee (DARE) announced, its purpose is explained,
and volunteers are requested.
6. Transition from triumvirate to sole Director completed (August 1993).

DARE committee formed (August 1993)

7. DARE committee formed. Team building begins in selected departments.
8. DARE committee collectively creates mission statement for the group. Members indicate that their expectations for DARE are confirmed.
9. DARE committee creates a matrix detailing all problematic interactions between departments (August to October 1993). Committee
members begin to realize that their expectations of DARE’s purpose are inaccurate.
10. Hypothetical organizational structures begin to be drafted by the DARE committee (late October 1993). Nonmanagerial committee mem-
bers are in full-blown panic. Panic spreads to other nonmanagerial employees not on the committee. Rumors of layoffs begin spreading
throughout UHC.
11. Betty attempts to speed up the process by setting a Thanksgiving deadline (late October 1993). This move sparks increased cynicism
among DARE’s nonmanagerial employees.
12. Nonmanagerial members of DARE meet secretly to discuss resigning from DARE committee in protest.

Process intervention (November 1993)

13. Process intervention initiated by team of researchers (early November 1993). Betty postpones Thanksgiving deadline and reassures
DARE members that their opinions on the reorganization will be heard. The DARE committee’s purpose is readdressed and clarified.
Once process issues are resolved, reorganization options continue to be developed.
14. Three reorganization options are presented by managerial and nonmanagerial DARE members in a series of meetings with all UHC
employees (December 1993). Using feedback from employees, a reorganization plan is selected.
15. Implementation of reorganization plan (January to February 1994).

Evaluation of reorganization (February to August 1994)

16. DARE members complete questionnaire on their DARE experience (February 1994).
17. Follow-up questionnaire distributed to all UHC employees (June 1994).
18. Feedback meeting held with UHC employees (August 1994).

Creation of new joint management/employee committees throughout UHC (March 1994 to present)
19. Joint management/employee clinical services committee formed (April 1994).
20. Committee creates and distributes questionnaire assessing the clinical services committee (October 1994).
21. Nurse becomes chair of clinical services committee (December 1994).

Continued team building (August 1994 to April 1995)

22. Team building continues in and between selected departments through April 1995.
23. Observer terminates unstructured employee interviews and observation.

Formation of the DARE Committee and DARE Cri-
sis. The first major task of the DARE committee was to
create a matrix of cross-departmental relations detailing
all problematic interactions, a tedious process lasting
nearly two months (August to October 1993). By Octo-
ber, interviewees perceived that Betty was growing im-
patient with the pace, and that management attributed the
slow progress to employees’ lack of knowledge (see Ta-
ble 1, § III). Additionally, members began to realize that
the DARE committee was not what they had ‘‘signed on
for’’—that DARE was not going to address interpersonal
problems or focus on teambuilding (see Table 1, §§ IV
and V).
This created confusion and consternation about the role
of DARE in UHC. This confusion escalated to full-blown
panic when the committee turned its focus to creating a
new organizational structure in early November 1993.
Despite training in organizational design and invitations

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 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model

Table 3

OFFICIAL OBJECTIVES OF ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT

(Memorandum from Directors to all UHC employees—February 1993)

1. To assess the current workflow patterns between employees to identify critical interactions;
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2. To assist the UHC administration in conducting an organization-wide participative process for redesigning the functional relationships
among UHC staff; and
3. To reach agreement on a new organizational design in approximately ten months’ time.

OFFICIAL PURPOSE OF DARE COMMITTEE

(Memorandum from DARE committee to all UHC employees—August, 1993)
‘‘The purpose of this group is to make recommendations regarding organizational design and the functional/structural relationships within the
organization. This process should be particularly mindful of the organization’s values and beliefs, specifically to the need to:

1. Maximize effective communication throughout the organization;

2. Build teamwork and a sense of shared mission; and
3. Create a more ‘horizontal’ organization.’’

MEMBERS’ EXPECTATIONS OF DARE COMMITTEE’S PURPOSE

1. Create more avenues of communication at UHC.
2. Work on team building.
3. Work on external and public relations.
4. Serve as a place for employees to ‘‘give their beefs.’’
5. Eliminate departments and move to a project team approach.

to all DARE committee members to propose new orga-
nizational structures, the earliest attempts at structural
changes were ‘‘pie-in-the sky’’ versions that came exclu-
sively from managerial employees. These proposed struc-
tures overwhelmed and further confused the nonmana-
gerial employees, who felt inexperienced in viewing
UHC at this level of abstraction.
Exacerbating the problem within DARE was a feeling
by the nonmanagerial employees that they should keep
their mouths shut. Rather than object to the process, the
nonmanagerial employees ‘‘had real hesitations about
speaking up,’’ even though the ground rules encouraged
speaking freely and the consultants continued to invite
them to participate. In interviews with the first author,
they described a great deal of anxiety over the eventual
outcome of the reorganization, and were afraid of whether
and how these huge changes would be presented to the
affected employees. This panic spread to the rest of
UHC’s employees. Stories that the nonmanagerial mem-
bers on DARE were growing increasingly uncertain about
the outcome of the committee fueled rumors of layoffs
throughout UHC (see Table 1, § V).
About the same time, Betty circulated a memorandum
indicating that the reorganization process needed to be
completed in three weeks’ time. Betty’s efforts to set a
Thanksgiving deadline for the committee sparked in-
creased cynicism. That cynicism had reached a crisis
level is evident in this statement by a nonmanagerial
member of the DARE committee to the first author: ‘‘This
isn’t what we signed on for. . . . But who’s got the balls
to stand up and say that this isn’t what we want to be
doing in this committee? We’re being used. But we’re
afraid to say anything because we’ll lose our jobs when
the reorganization comes.’’
Other nonmanagerial employees on DARE also began
to wonder if the committee was a sham—a show for the
employees that would ultimately be inconsequential
when management revealed their ‘‘predetermined’’ re-
organization plan. They speculated that: (1) DARE would
create as many iterations of the structure as needed
to arrive at the one that Betty had preferred all along;
(2) Betty would ignore their recommendations but pub-
licly claim that the committee had reached agreement;
and (3) Betty would prod the committee into producing
a useless report because she had grown uncomfortable
with the suggestions.
These speculations were fueled by note passing and
whispering between Betty and Ed during DARE meetings
(see Table 1, § III). Employees interpreted these behav-
iors as implicit criticism of their ideas, and this fueled the
conclusion that the committee had no real power. After
two months of DARE meetings, mistrust of management
was so rampant that several nonmanagerial employees
were ready to resign from DARE in protest, potentially
the ultimate behavioral barrier to the success of the em-
powerment effort (see Table 1, § VI).

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 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model

Process Intervention. The two process consultants
decided to intercede after learning from the first author
about the employees’ concerns (interviewees agreed to
this disclosure). Consequently, Betty agreed to relax the
Thanksgiving deadline, creating time for DARE to work
on its process. This involved discussing the importance
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its members occurred through open-ended questionnaires
distributed when the committee was disbanded. By this
time, DARE members uniformly felt that the committee
had done a good job, that they had indeed influenced the
reorganization, and that Betty had incorporated their sug-
gestions as promised. One nonmanagerial member had

of both process and content work in successful teams, come to view her participation on the committee as ‘‘a
revisiting the committee’s purpose and ground rules, and privilege, and an honor’’ (see Table 1, § VII).
a candid discussion of the employees’ suspicions and Evaluation and Final Feedback on Reorganiza-
concerns. To give both the managerial and the nonman- tion. The evaluation phase of the larger project culmi-
agerial employees a chance to air their concerns, fears, nated with a feedback session in August 1994. T-tests
and ambivalence about the DARE committee, all DARE conducted on questionnaire responses for those employ-
members were asked to share their assessments of the ees who participated in both the pre- and postconditions
most successful thing about DARE to that point and the (n⳱51) indicated that employees rated their jobs as sig-
worst thing that could happen to DARE. The nonmana- nificantly higher in autonomy (p⬍0.05) and input
gerial DARE employees confronted Betty with their (p⬍0.05), and supported by beneficial organizational pol-
skepticism about DARE’s actual input into the reorga- icies (p⬍0.001) (See Table 4). Many of the questionnaire
nization process. Betty tried to reassure the committee responses (job characteristics, stress, etc.) were not ex-
that they would, in fact, have a great deal of say in the pected to change because the organizational change effort
final structure, although she reserved the right to have the was not intended to change the individual jobs (skill
final word on the matter. variety, task identity, etc.). The lack of significant
The group clarified that DARE’s purpose, which had changes on these items adds credibility to the results we
been collectively drafted two and a half months earlier did obtain, and suggests that halo biases did not occur.
(see Table 3), was ‘‘to make recommendations regarding This analysis of the questionnaire data is not proof that a
organizational design.’’ Committee members were also
second-order, or gamma, change occurred (e.g., Golem-
assured that team building was already underway in the
biewski et al. 1976, Randolph and Elloy 1989). However,
department that had the greatest amount of interpersonal
when triangulated with the behavioral and interview data
problems, and that additional team-building efforts were
collected, it suggests that a second-order schema change
planned for several other departments.
was occurring throughout the organization by mid-1994.
According to informants, it seemed that this interven-
tion dispelled some of the confusion and anxiety sur- Post-reorganization. Changes in the way decisions
rounding the project. While employees still held lingering
fears that their input might ultimately be ignored, they
Table 4 Differences in Means on Questionnaire Items
were at least willing to adopt a ‘‘wait-and-see’’ attitude
(n ⴔ 51)
rather than walking out prematurely. This allowed the
process of developing reorganization options to continue.
March 1993 June 1994
DARE Feedback to Staff and Implementation of New
Organizational Design. After generating several op- Measures Mean S.D. Alpha Mean S.D. Alpha T-test
tions, the committee whittled them down to three that
they presented to the entire staff for feedback and reac- Autonomy 4.88 1.33 0.82 5.18 1.37 0.83 2.33*
tions at a meeting in December 1993. The DARE com- Skill Variety 5.22 1.50 0.80 5.38 1.38 0.85 1.36
mittee decided that all committee members, not just the Task Identity 5.18 1.12 0.74 5.09 1.26 0.69 -0.60
managerial ones, would make the presentations and so- Task Significance 5.89 0.91 0.59 5.64 1.10. 0.64 -1.67
licit departmental input to reassure other UHC employees Task Feedback 4.67 1.30 0.78 4.85 1.21 0.78 0.90
that all opinions were important. This process generated Job Satisfaction 5.40 1.01 0.73 5.51 0.99 0.84 0.73
many additional reactions and input to the reorganization Sense of Community 5.06 1.20 0.79 5.05 1.29 0.88 -0.06
Teamwork 5.78 1.06 0.92 5.63 1.05 0.89 -0.86
options.
Beneficial Policies 4.05 1.40 0.47 5.30 1.05 0.47 6.43*
After changes suggested by the employees were incor-
Growth Opportunity 5.21 1.21 0.87 5.39 1.21 0.88 1.40
porated, Betty chose to implement the most popular op- Input 3.51 1.75 0.66 3.92 1.75 0.67 2.03*
tion. Departmental meetings took place in January and Stress 4.20 1.42 0.85 4.20 1.19 0.78 0.03
February 1994, to explain how the reorganization would
be implemented. Evaluation of the DARE committee by Note: * p ⬍ 0.05

248 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000

 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
were made within UHC became evident after the reor-
ganization, even before the team building ended. In par-
ticular, the formation of numerous joint management/em-
ployee committees throughout UHC to tackle various
issues that had been voiced during the initial diagnosis
indicated that a major change had occurred. One such
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joint management/employee committee was formed to
manage all clinical aspects of UHC, and included repre-
sentatives from groups that had never previously had in-
put in high-level decision making (midlevels and nurses).
This team conducted its own anonymous, open-ended,
evaluative survey of its members and other clinical em-
ployees in October 1994, after it had been in existence
for six months. What was revealing about the results of
the survey was that employees were active in criticizing
what they felt as any infringement on their new decision-
making influence, indicating a more proactive stance than
that taken by DARE members. One employee felt that
‘‘when [this committee] first started, I felt that my rep-
resentative was getting input on topics discussed and giv-
ing feedback—in the past three to four months the tone
has changed back to informing me of changes without or
with little chance of input.’’ Management acknowledged
that the committee was not involving lower-level em-
ployees enough and rededicated itself to soliciting their
input. One way in which this was accomplished was by
making a nurse, rather than a physician, the chair of this
important committee.
Second-Order Analysis
On the surface, the DARE committee meetings appeared
to be effective and tranquil. At the meeting prior to the
first DARE interview in October 1993, the observer noted
that the committee seemed to be working well together,
proceeding toward its announced goal, and the partici-
pants appeared generally satisfied with the process. What
lay beneath the surface, however, was considerable con-
fusion, anxiety, and distrust generated by the process of
managers and employees trying to understand what ‘‘em-
powerment’’ meant operationally in their organization.
The employees’ skepticism that management’s actions
had changed to match management’s espoused theory of
empowerment severely hampered and nearly destroyed
DARE’s effectiveness as several nonmanagerial members
of the committee almost resigned.
By viewing the committee’s work as part of a larger
process of changing the employees’ decision-making
schema, we can shed light on these dynamics through the
use of the schema change framework in Figure 1. The
five months that DARE existed constituted a pivotal
phase in the schema change process in terms of the re-
sistance engendered. Although the organization did not
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
reach the stabilization phase for the new participative
schema during this time, the committee’s ability to over-
come enough of its problems to produce a new organi-
zation structure provided significant reinforcement of the
new participative schema for the entire organization to
move closer towards eventually accepting the new
schema.
Before the project began, UHC members’ existing
schema for making decisions was very consistent: man-
agement only resorted to participation as a ‘‘show’’; input
went into a ‘‘black hole’’; and decisions were ‘‘prede-
cided’’ (see Table 1, § IA). Even top management agreed
that this was the existing decision-making schema and
that years of previous managerial behavior had reinforced
this schema (see Table 1, § IB). As indicated in inter-
views, this schema was affectively laden with employee
mistrust, anxiety, and fear of management. From man-
agement’s viewpoint, this schema was also one of em-
ployee dependency on management. But changes in the
environment, new leadership, and the need for new pro-
cedures prompted management to introduce a new
schema of participative decision making—workers would
be asked for their input through joint management/em-
ployee committees, their input would be seriously con-
sidered, and whenever possible, their suggestions would
be implemented. The introduction of the organizational
development project in the February 1993 meetings
launched the motivation to change phase.
The new schema was so radically dissonant with the
past schema that nonmanagerial workers had a difficult
time making sense of it. As Reger et al. (1994) pointed
out, when the proposed schema is radically different from
the existing schema, it reduces the chances of a successful
change effort. When employees were told they would be
involved in rectifying the problems identified in the di-
agnosis, they formed expectations of what the new par-
ticipation schema would look like and how it would be
enacted (see Table 1, § IIA). When volunteers were re-
quested for DARE, employees eagerly volunteered be-
cause of their own expectations of the purpose of the
committee. Thus, employees’ expectations about how the
new schema was going to be achieved were broader than
what management intended for DARE.
In part, the employees’ resistance to the DARE activ-
ities stemmed from a mismatch between their expecta-
tions and management’s for the scope of work that DARE
would accomplish. While this confusion could be attrib-
uted simply to ineffective communication by manage-
ment and the consultants, a more compelling explanation
lies in what is necessary for effective communication in
this situation. Management’s expectations—no matter
how clearly communicated—must correspond to those of
249
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
employees about their respective roles in the empower-
ment efforts before employees can wholly adopt the new
schema. Resistance to change occurred despite manage-
ment’s attempt to clarify the purpose of the committee
during the feedback session, and despite the fact that
DARE’s nonmanagerial members helped to draft its state-
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ment of purpose (see Table 3) during the first meeting.
Resistance was heightened when managerial behavior
failed to conform to their stated expectations (Poole
1998).
During the schema comparison phase, employees
evaluated all of management’s ongoing actions as to
whether the actions were more consistent with the origi-
nal decision-making schema or with their expected new
participative schema regardless of whether those actions
were major (e.g., how management handled the reorga-
nization) or minor (e.g., if managers whispered to each
other during meetings). Part of the employees’ resistance
may have been due to skepticism that management’s new
espoused theory (stated beliefs, attitudes, and values) was
really the new theory-in-use (that which is actually em-
ployed in their behavior) (Argyris and Schon 1978). But
we found that the distinction between espoused theory
and theory-in-use is insufficiently fine-grained to describe
what we saw in action. Management’s espoused theory
was their theory-in-use, at least from their perspective.
When it came to formal practices, like including employ-
ees in a major organizational redesign, management’s
theory-in-use did match its espoused theory. However,
when it came to more informal, practices (e.g., how man-
agement acted in meetings), management’s espoused the-
ory was not confirmed by their behavior. This disconfir-
matory data is what captured the employees’ attention,
despite management’s belief that their actions confirmed
espoused theory. These contradictions in management’s
actions were sufficient to lead to a difference in interpre-
tation between management and employees on how the
change effort was proceeding (see Table 1, § IV).
When the nonmanagerial workers realized that DARE
would focus on organizational redesign rather than on
other issues, they began to evaluate the process as falling
short of their expectations. The occasional whispering or
note passing between Betty and Ed, and Betty’s efforts
to speed the process along, supported the theory that the
old decision-making schema was still operating (see Ta-
ble 1, § V).
The pivotal point was reached when reorganization op-
tions began to be generated. The fear and mistrust that
permeated the culture drove the nonmanagerial employ-
ees towards a threat rigidity response (Staw et al. 1981)
that was reinforced in their everyday conversations. In-
terviews indicated that employees interpreted the reor-
ganization options being developed as a threat to their
250
jobs (see Table 1, § VI). Stress and anxiety appeared to
have interfered with information processing and fostered
reliance on past schemas. The employees used the old
schema to interpret the DARE committee’s activities and
ended up feeling even greater fear and mistrust towards
management. As this echoed through the whole organi-
zation, the entire empowerment process threatened to
grind to a halt. Cognitive barriers created by the old
schema and their accompanying emotions were manifest
in employees psychologically withdrawing from the com-
mittee, withholding their concerns, and threatening to re-
sign from the committee altogether. These withdrawal be-
haviors also served as ongoing signals to other
employees, both on and outside the committee, that the
old schema was still in effect.
Management assumed the employees would postpone
judgment of the change effort until the reorganization was
implemented. They hoped that employees would evaluate
the new schema by its results. In doing so, they under-
estimated the resilience of the old schema. At the same
time, the employees who developed concerns about the
DARE committee generally assumed that management
was unwilling to hear them and hesitated to test this as-
sumption. This reluctance to express their concerns was
consistent with employees’ roles under the old schema,
and provided further self-reinforcement of it.
The process intervention created a public, symbolic
illustration of the new decision-making schema. By pro-
viding a forum for DARE members to voice their con-
cerns, management was effectively able to model the new
schema. This process intervention did not change the
decision-making schema in one meeting—it just pre-
vented the schema comparison phase from prematurely
stabilizing on the old decision-making schema.
After the DARE nonmanagerial members expressed
their concerns, Betty acknowledged them and reassured
them that she had no preconceived idea for a structure in
mind. She reiterated that the new decision-making
schema meant that employees (DARE members) were be-
ing asked to share responsibility with management for
proposing a new structure for the organization—one that
would help assure that underrepresented groups had
voice. This served to recalibrate members’ expectations
about their role with respect to both its scope and the level
of responsibility that they were expected to adopt in cre-
ating the new structure.
After this point, management’s ongoing actions began
to publicly model the new decision-making schema in an
effort to influence schema change. Betty pushed back the
Thanksgiving deadline for the reorganization options.
Through this visible act, Betty reinforced the new schema
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
by signaling that nonmanagers had a greater voice in de-
cision making in UHC.
Additionally, Betty’s urging that nonmanagerial mem-
bers, and not managers, assume responsibility for com-
municating the reorganization options to the employees
to solicit their feedback, allowed DARE members to en-
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act the new schema. These were very visible, public acts
that allowed the nonmanagerial DARE members to dis-
cuss both the process and the three reorganization options
with all UHC employees, and to confirm the project’s
sincerity. Betty ultimately chose the reorganization op-
tion most popular with employees, and used employee
feedback to make some additional adjustments to it.
These actions provided further evidence of the new
schema that, according to interviews, dispelled much of
the mistrust of management and cynicism that had pre-
viously characterized UHC. These actions tipped the
scale in favor of the new decision-making schema.
The DARE members were formal and informal leaders
within UHC who, because of this assignment, were at the
vanguard of the change in the organization’s decision-
making schema. When they worried about the sincerity
of the DARE committee’s input in October 1993, they
communicated that worry to the non-DARE members,
and the subsequent rumors touched off an organization-
wide panic about layoffs. After the process intervention
and the creation of the reorganization options, however,
the DARE members appeared to have moved further in
their transition to the new schema than had non-DARE
employees. The DARE members had begun to trust Betty
more and seemed to have a better grasp of the potential
afforded by their increased influence over decisions.
Their informal and formal communications with non-
DARE members about DARE’s activities and the reor-
ganization options helped to move non-DARE members
further along the schema comparison phase and towards
a new organizational schema. Data from the DARE eval-
uation and second organization-wide survey, suggested
that many employees and managers had begun to adopt
the new decision-making schema by the spring of 1994
(see Table 1, § VII, and Table 4).
In addition, behavioral data such as the formation in
mid-1994 of new joint employee/management commit-
tees to tackle a wide variety of issues voiced during the
initial diagnosis indicated that significant changes had
begun to occur throughout UHC. These committees used
anonymous surveys to keep track of what their members
and other UHC employees thought about committee
decisions and responsiveness to employee input. For
example, when a survey revealed that lower-level em-
ployees believed their input was being overlooked by the
joint management/employee clinical services committee,
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
changes were quickly implemented to rectify the situa-
tion. That a nurse chaired this powerful committee was
further behavioral indication that the new decision-
making schema was taking hold in the organization.
Implications for Research
We have generated an emergent model of change in
decision-making schemas to understand empowerment
efforts. This model identifies four phases of schema
change, and it adds to our theoretical understanding of
attempts to empower employees when these attempts in-
volve shifts in schemata by highlighting the importance
of a period of testing and comparing action in relation to
the old and new schemas. Until the actions of managers
and employees consistently match the new schema, em-
ployees are likely to be skeptical of the empowerment
effort.
Existing models of organizational schema change de-
pict the process somewhat differently than the one in-
duced from our data. For example, Reger et al.’s (1994)
theory of why planned organizational change efforts (spe-
cifically total quality initiatives) often fail focused on or-
ganizational identity (Albert and Whetten 1985, Dutton
and Dukerich 1991, Fiol and Huff 1992) as a particularly
powerful schematic filter through which individuals un-
derstand, interpret, and react to new management initia-
tives. Because employees consider organizational identity
to be the most central, enduring, and distinctive aspects
of their organization, it serves as an inertial force con-
straining their belief in the necessity for change and/or
their belief in the organization’s ability to change (Reger
et al. 1994). Although overcoming threats to organiza-
tional identity may be necessary before change can occur
in some cases (Dutton and Dukerich 1991, Reger et al.
1994), it was not a primary cognitive barrier to empow-
erment in our case.
Bartunek (1984) argued that schema change occurs di-
alectically through conflict between groups who cham-
pion the old and new interpretive schemes respectively.
The conflict generates a new interpretive scheme that is
a synthesis of the old and new. Our model does not em-
phasize this conflict between groups championing differ-
ent schemas. We instead emphasize a schema comparison
process that occurs at the individual level and in the even-
tual social negotiation of a shared organizational schema.
Our results more closely resemble a replacement of the
old schema with a new schema rather than a synthesis of
the two.
Our results elaborate upon Lewin’s and Schein’s
change theory, which Albert (1992) argued could be in-
terpreted in two ways. One possibility (the replacement
251
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
sequence) is to first detach the organization from the cur-
rent position, and then to eventually create a new position
to which the organization can be reattached. The other
possibility (the relocation sequence) is to first add a new
position on top of the one that already exists and then
relocate the organization from the old position to the new
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one. Our data suggests that the relocation sequence,
which first involves the addition of a new schema and
then the elimination of the old schema, more closely re-
sembles the process of the empowerment change effort
in our case.
Three models have been proposed to explain the pro-
cess through which individuals’ schemas change (Roth-
bart 1981): (1) the bookkeeping model, which suggests
that schema change is a gradual process of incrementally
fine-tuning the schema with each new piece of discrepant
information; (2) the subtyping model, which suggests that
subcategories develop in response to isolated cases that
disconfirm the schema; and (3) the conversion model,
which suggests that schemas resist small changes but can
change massively and suddenly, given sufficient discon-
firmation. Although the subtyping model has received the
most support in laboratory research on individuals’ per-
son schemas (Weber and Crocker 1983), the conversion
model is most consistent with our findings and may play
an important role in organizational schema change during
empowerment. Old schemas resist changes, but signifi-
cant disconfirmatory information may stimulate the crea-
tion of new schemas. If these new schemas continue to
be reinforced during the schema comparison phase, the
new schema will eventually replace the old schema, cre-
ating what appears to be a sudden and massive change.
This study also elaborates on Isabella’s (1990) pro-
posed four-step change process. By asking managers to
retrospectively think about how they construed key
organizational events, Isabella proposed that managers
proceed through the following stages: anticipation, con-
firmation, culmination, and aftermath. Interpretation
reaches a culmination stage where people compare con-
ditions before and after an event and amend their standard
frames of reference. Interpretations in this stage are pep-
pered with ‘‘double exposures’’—interpretational por-
traits that contain images of before and after. Because the
present study’s longitudinal, ethnographic design cap-
tured employees’ thinking about a key organizational
change event as the event was occurring, our study elab-
orates on the middle stages of Isabella’s model and con-
firms the existence of ‘‘double exposures.’’ In our case,
we found that the double exposure comparisons of new
in-progress frames of reference and old schemas were
being evaluated against ongoing actions to determine the
validity of the new schemas. We were able to describe
252
these double exposures in detail, and to articulate the po-
tential for backsliding (and subsequent failure of the pro-
cess) in the absence of sufficient data confirming the new
schema.
Directions for Future Research. As with any theory
grounded in a single case, the generalizability of the
model of decision-making schema change remains to be
determined. We have provided a first-order analysis, a
relatively ‘‘thick description’’ of the setting (Van Maanen
1979), so that readers can judge the applicability of the
second-order model to other settings. In order to be true
to the methodology we were employing, our model con-
tains only the second-order concepts derived directly
from observations, interviews, and archival data.
Some of the particular characteristics of the organiza-
tion, while constraining this grounded model, suggest fu-
ture areas for research. For example, the empowerment
effort in this organization was begun by a management
proclamation (Poole et al. 1989). We need to understand
how the model might differ if the empowerment process
were more emergent, rather than being management
driven. The employees in this organization were not
proactively seeking empowerment, and there was evi-
dence throughout the case that they were being reactive
throughout the process. This reactive role was part of the
old decision-making schema, and it was a difficult one
for employees to abandon. It may also be fruitful to ex-
amine an organization where the old decision-making
schema did not have such a high degree of consensus as
it did among the employees in UHC. This high degree of
consensus limited our ability to look at various subcul-
tures within the organization to understand how decision-
making schemas among members of those subcultures
changed over time.
It should not be assumed that a general model for
schema change, such as the one proposed by Schein
(1988), is preferable to more limited models of change
for specific schemas, like the decision-making schema
change model presented here. It is possible that different
types of schemas change in different ways, and these dis-
tinctions may have important practical implications for
organizations (Walsh 1995). Future research would also
be useful on schema change during different types of em-
powerment, particularly job-level empowerment (e.g.,
Thomas and Velthouse 1990), which was not addressed
in this paper.
Finally, we encourage researchers to look beyond ob-
servable organizational structures and routines to gain a
more thorough understanding of organizational change
processes. For example, future research using structura-
tion theory as a framework for assessing organizational
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
change processes (Chesley and Huff 1998) would be use-
ful in understanding embedded structures in the organi-
zation as well as the relationship between the organiza-
tion and the change agent.
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Implications for Practice
The implications of this study for the design and conduct
of empowerment efforts in organizations are important.
Empowerment is not achieved simply by soliciting em-
ployee input, but by gradual and continual confirmation
of proposed new schemas through enacted behavior by
management and employees. Almost all descriptions of
successful organizational change emphasize the impor-
tance of management support. Our study suggests that
initial statements of ‘‘support’’ for empowerment are
hardly enough. Management and consultants should un-
derstand and anticipate that employees cannot accept
change by proclamation. During the early phases of
change, employees will, at best, weigh confirmatory and
disconfirmatory evidence and withhold acceptance of the
new schema pending sufficient behavioral confirmation.
At worst, employees will actively resist the change if they
have no confidence that management’s intentions are
trustworthy.
In our case, difficulties were encountered in part be-
cause management had the incorrect assumption that the
new schema of empowerment would be automatically ac-
cepted and welcomed by everyone, especially because
employees had voiced their desire for more decision-
making influence in the past. Our data show that while
management was trying to act in accord with the new
schema, employees were still engaged in the conscious
comparison of the new and old schemas. Management
actions that were neither novel nor discrepant from the
old schema were interpreted through the old schema,
thereby perpetuating it and generating resistance to the
new one. The old decision-making schema was finally
challenged by the highly public acceptance by manage-
ment of the DARE committee’s reorganization recom-
mendations in January 1994. These actions were very dis-
crepant and novel in reference to the old schema, and
particularly effective in reinforcing the new participative
schema.
Our study suggests several recommendations for man-
agers and change agents engaged in empowerment efforts
that involve shifts in schemas. First, management and
consultants need to understand the self-reinforcing cycle
that can impede schema change during empowerment ef-
forts, and the strong potential for employees to hold con-
tradictory interpretations of a change effort. Recognizing
this, managers and consultants need to stimulate dialogue
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
with employees about their various interpretations and the
feelings they engender. Equally important to reinforcing
the new schema is the need for bold, visible, and sincere
actions that demonstrate a change in managerial behavior
and thereby reinforce the plausibility and veracity of the
new schema. Additionally, confirmation of the new
schema requires gradual, continual reinforcement and
hinges on a preponderance of evidence that behavior
matches intentions. In cases of prolonged or severe mis-
trust, extraordinary efforts to verify this match may be
needed.
Second, good intentions by management and change
agents simply may not be enough to overcome the cog-
nitive and affective dynamics associated with schema
change. During empowerment efforts it may be necessary
to include procedures that surface dialogue and that deal
with barriers to schema change. Continual checking and
rechecking of employees’ expectations and evaluations
of the project must be conducted to allow for expression
and acceptance of the resistance as a necessary part of
the change process. Management’s efforts to openly give
voice to the resistance send a powerful signal to the em-
ployees that their perceptions count and that a mutual
influence process is at work in the organization. Alter-
nately, managerial actions that ignore or stifle resistance
will only reinforce the old schema that employee con-
cerns are insignificant compared to management’s. Man-
agers may interpret employee resistance as subversive
and become impatient during this process. But such re-
actions fail to recognize that employees see reality from
a different, but also legitimate, vantage point. From their
perspective, skepticism is fully rational and managerial
reactions that deny or reject this reality will fuel addi-
tional skepticism and prove counterproductive. Thus, the
change effort must continually be recalibrated to achieve
its desired results and will almost certainly require be-
havioral change by management as well as by employees.
Third, management must be sensitive to the symbolic
impact of their actions during a change process, particu-
larly during the pivotal schema comparison phase. Their
every action is under an organizational microscope during
this time. Even seemingly minor actions like whispering
during a meeting may unintentionally reinforce an old
schema. Management must be sure to publicly model the
new participative schema through all their actions
(whether they seem major or minor to management) to
ensure that the old decision-making schema is not un-
wittingly being reinforced.
Fourth, it is not likely that management will always be
able to act consistently with the new decision-making
schema, particularly if the old schema was tightly held.
Management should tell employees that they ideally want
253
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
an empowered workforce, but that they don’t fully un-
derstand what that means or what the exact boundaries
will be and that they will be learning these specifics along
with the employees as the process unfolds. Management
should acknowledge that management’s actions might
not always be consistent with everyone’s expectations of
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what empowerment will mean. Mechanisms need to be
created where the employees can bring these inconsistent
actions to light (perhaps anonymously) so that manage-
ment can acknowledge mistakes and so that the new sche-
mas can be socially negotiated without employees fearing
reprisal.
Finally, realistic projections about how readily em-
ployees will embrace schema change are necessary.
When old schemas have been reinforced for many years,
they are not likely to be changed quickly. Employees will
understandably remain skeptical about the schema
change and without ongoing reinforcement of the new
schema may revert to using the old schema. In some
sense, the best that management and consultants can hope
for during the process is to acknowledge and allow both
the new and old schema to remain in place until final
results of the project can be evaluated.
Appendix 1 Interview Protocols
UHC Interview Protocol (March 1993)
1. Introduction
—Purposes of this project
—Confidentiality (tell us if something will identify you)
—What we will do with the information
—Ask if they mind if we tape. Indicate it’s easier for us to pay
attention if we tape. Offer to turn it off if they request it.
2. Administer the Self-Q
We want to ask you to ask questions first before we ask some of
you. We don’t want to influence your ideas about what’s important, so
we’re asking you first about what’s on you mind. After you complete
this, then we’ll proceed with a series of questions of our own.
3. Personal history with UHC
—How long here?
—Tell us what you do (or what your job consists of)
—Who else do you work with?
4. Tell us something about UHC as an organization
—Purpose? Or mission?
—Structure. How is UHC organized?
—Informal structure. Who do you interact with informally?
—Procedures/systems. How does information get around?
5. How does your department interact with the rest of the univer-
sity?
—With Student Affairs?
—With Counseling Services?
—Sports Medicine?
—Dorms/housing?
—Other groups on campus with whom you interact a lot?
6. What are UHC’s major strengths?
254
—What works well here?
—What aspects of UHC would you really like to keep?
7. What are UHC’s major weaknesses?
—What doesn’t work well?
—What prevents UHC from achieving its purpose?
—What prevents you and your department from achieving your pur-
poses?
—What frustrates you the most about doing your job?
—What are the most important problem areas?
Probe: For history of the problem and its affects on performance
8. What changes would you recommend?
—Suppose you could totally redesign UHC. What would it be like?
—If you could change three rules or rewrite the entire procedures
manual, what changes would you make?
—How would you improve the specific situation you described ear-
lier?
9. Is there a question we should have asked you that we didn’t?
—Are there other things we should know?
—What did we forget to ask about?
10. Do you have any questions for us?
Dare Interview Protocol (October 1993)
Interview objective: To gain an in-depth evaluation of the DARE com-
mittee meetings’ effectiveness from the participants’ perspective.
1. You mentioned during the meeting that you have been working
at UHC for a long time. How long has it been? What is your position
here?
2. Have you ever had managerial duties in any other jobs prior to
coming to UHC?
3. How did you come to be on the DARE committee?
4. How did you feel about being a part of the committee? Have
those feelings changed over time?
5. What is your view of DARE’s purpose?
6. How will you decide if DARE is successful? What will it mean
if DARE is successful? How will you know?
7. Has participating on DARE had any impact on you? How much
(i.e., does it extend to day-to-day activities)? What has been the impact
(if any) on your department? On UHC?
8. How much input did you feel you had prior to joining DARE?
Has that changed? Do you think other members of your department
feel that they have more input?
9 .What did you expect DARE would be like when you first heard
about it? Has it been what you expected?
Appendix 2 An Example of Theme Identification
Following is an example of how first-order data was coded into a
theme. This theme was considered moderately to highly central in the
pattern model as three different DARE informants mentioned it, and it
came up a total of four times in the DARE member interviews.
Theme 18: DARE gives you more insight into what’s going on in
other places in the UHC—greater contacts with others.
Informant 1: ‘‘That came out a lot. And I think that all of us feel
even though we want to be involved in other things, because it makes
your job much more interesting, and gives you more insight into what’s
going on in other places, you still can’t be in meetings all the time.
You’ve got a job to do, you’ve got to be available.’’
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE /Vol. 11, No. 2, March–April 2000
 GIUSEPPE LABIANCA, BARBARA GRAY, AND DANIEL J. BRASS A Grounded Model
‘‘Well, it changes my attitude about how I should be. It makes me
feel more like . . . it gives me better insight into how important or how
many things have to be done to keep things running smoothly. Or what
had to be done. Paperwork, we’re working on a big policy manual.
That is a BIG undertaking and I had no idea what was involved in the
policy manual. So all of this is leading towards being accredited.’’
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Informant 3: ‘‘I’ve been positively impressed. I’ve also appreciated
the contacts I’ve made through the meeting. I’ve got to meet a lot of
nice people. It’s also good to get out of the pharmacy to see people.
Sometimes we get stuck back behind the partition and we don’t even
get to see our own customers. . . . we know their names, but wouldn’t
know who they were if they were under our nose.’’
Informant 4: ‘‘DARE’s a little different from all those types of com-
mittees. . . . it’s not a working committee, but not a formal standing
committee, either. I didn’t need to go through all the functional rehash
and the org. development stuff. I’ve had it all before in school. But I
got to see the way people think. And I got new info on different de-
partmental interactions.’’
Note: The same passage could be used to represent two or more
themes. So, for example, the first passage from Informant 1 was used
for Theme 18, as exhibited above, but was also used for Theme 15,
‘‘Why am I at this meeting when I can be caring for patients?’’
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Jean Bartunek, Cyrillene Crichlow,
James F. Fairbank, Denny Gioia, Anne Huff, Ajay Mehra, and the two
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of
this paper. They also extend a special thanks to the anonymous partic-
ipants of the organization studied for their assistance during the project.
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