Sensemaking In The Chinese Context: Managerial Mindfulness Of Middle Managers

Middle managers play very important roles in organizations. According to their positions in the organizational hierarchy and the internal environment of Chinese organizations, Chinese middle managers are working in a highly uncertain situation. How they make sense of their organizational roles and the environment will influence their situational adaptation. From the perspective of sensemaking, this research explores the sensemaking mode of Chinese middle managers in the Chinese context. Specifically, it investigates the conceptualization of managerial mindfulness, its influence on middle managers'situational adaptation (reputational effectiveness, department/team performance, promotability, and job satisfaction as proxy variables), and the moderating effects of situational uncertainty (role conflict and role ambiguity as proxy variables).This research consists of three studies. In the Pilot Study, 24 successful middle managers, working for different companies, were interviewed face to face. The results of content analysis indicate that these middle managers are characterized by managerial mindfulness, whose manifestations are"defining the problem cautiously","being sensitive to the context of the problem","actively seeking problem-relevant information", and"viewing the problem from multiple perspectives".In Study 1, 100 middle managers listed 594 statements describing managerial mindfulness. 38 categories emerged by a three-stage sorting process. A representative statement for each of the 38 categories was selected and the 38 representative statements constituted the original managerial mindfulness scale. Then, 200 middle managers participated in a survey and the exploratory factor analysis resulted in a three-factor solution with five items loading on each dimension. The three factors were labeled as"attentiveness","studying", and"thoughtfulness". Preliminary reliability and validity assessments indicate that the three-dimensional managerial mindfulness scale has good reliability and validity.In Study 2, 100 middle managers and their immediate supervisors answered questionnaires respectively. The confirmatory factor analysis results support the three-factor model of managerial mindfulness scale. Construct validation was conducted further and the results show that managerial mindfulness scale has good reliability and validity. In addition, the results demonstrate that managerial mindfulness has positive effects on situational adaptation, and situational uncertainty moderates the relationship between managerial mindfulness and situational adaptation. In the last section, theoretical contributions, practical implications, limitations, and the directions of future research were discussed.