Jumping the tracks : capability of employeeship during a strategic change

Abstract: Employeeship is a growing organizational resource. Yet many organizations forget to focus on their employees during change processes. In modern society change has become an inherent feature in most organizations and employees are expected to be competent and adapt. They are expected to maintain their capability of practising employeeship during changes. The study aimed at gaining an understanding of how employees experience their capability of employeeship during a strategic organizational change. The study built on a recent development in Denmark as changes where implemented in the Danish public school system. Building on theories about employee capability and employeeship the study examined how teachers experienced their own capability of adapting to and performing during changes. The study examined how employees experience their own employeeship. To analyse the experienced employeeship a qualitative study was carried out with semi-structured interviews of six public school teachers. A hermeneutic approach was applied to the study in order to gain a holistic understanding of the experienced capability of employeeship. The result shows that strategic changes in organizations not only involves changes to organizational structures. It also involves changes to how employees experience their own capability of employeeship. It changes the balance of their lived worlds.