Stuck in Limbo: how sensemaking discrepancy over strategy-related performance leads to disjointed collaboration in an international joint venture

A major issue in international business is why many International Joint Ventures (IJVs) fail to live up to partners’ expectations. Research into why IJVs underperform centres on differences between partners’ equity, resources, technical knowledge and cultural values, but seldom internal sensemaking conflicts. We address this research gap: specifically, the sense managers make of their own and their partner managers’ perceived performance in relation to strategy practices, and the effects of sensemaking upon collaboration. Some IJV studies examine outright organizational failure, but we focus on a common situation where partner firms’ expectations about each other’s performance are not met. Our case is a major Sino-New Zealand dairy IJV in a Limbo-like state of severe sensemaking discrepancy. Here, managers struggled to perform strategy effectively in a context of mutual misunderstanding and profound miscommunication, rooted in sensemaking differences. Using a strategy practice lens, we explore how this sensemaking discrepancy arose over organizational identity, learning and experience, strategizing, communication and trust. This eroded meaningful cooperation over strategy, leading to disjointed collaboration: a new concept capturing a state of compromised engagement, where the IJV continued operationally, but collaboration became increasingly difficult. We provide a theoretical framework to help understand sensemaking discrepancy in IJVs, based on a reconceptualization of sensemaking discrepancy in terms of own and others’ expected and perceived performance. We also offer essential practice-based insights into cognitive barriers to strategy collaboration.

Disclosures of Cystic Fibrosis-Related Information to Romantic Partners

In this article, we offer insights into how individuals with cystic fibrosis (CF) share information about their disease with a romantic partner. Using communication privacy management as a sensitizing theoretical construct, four themes emerged following 13 qualitative interviews with persons with CF. Themes about sharing CF-related information with a romantic partner include weighing the risks and benefits of sharing information, the role of health-related triggered rules, the motivations for disclosures, and the reactions from outsiders. Implications of the research suggest a need for more nuanced understandings of how privacy rules are communicated in relationships, how the mismanagement of co-owned information influences future disclosures, how the public-private nature of rare genetic illnesses is managed, and how people with genetic illnesses make disclosure decisions.

Towards an understanding of medical student resilience in longitudinal integrated clerkships

BACKGROUND

Resilience is required to succeed academically, overcome challenges during clinical training and cope positively with stress in future professional life. With medical students at high risk of mental illness, socially accountable medical schools are seeking to foster student resilience. This exploratory study proposes a conceptual framework for student resilience in longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs).

METHODS

This qualitative study sought to understand student resilience during the first year of clinical training in a rural LIC where there were consistent anecdotal reports of high student resilience. In-depth interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 19 medical students, professional staff and clinician teachers. An interpretive approach was used to analyse the data with emerging concepts compared to define evolving theoretical constructs, and develop a conceptual framework.

RESULTS

LIC students experienced adversity during the first clinical year of the medical course due to challenges encountered in the learning environment. This distress was moderated by: a secure, supportive learning environment; their profound learning journey; and utilisation of organisational structures to stay on course.

CONCLUSION

This triad of inter-related themes forms a conceptual model that challenges simplistic notions that medical courses should focus solely on providing tangible and emotional supports for students. How LIC programs may contribute to student wellbeing is discussed through the lenses of agentic, reflective and transformative learning.