Cultures of ambiguity: Design, emergence and ambivalence in the introduction of normative control

Organizational actors involved in cultural change programmes have a consciousness and experience that is often fragmented, contradictory and ambivalent Studies documenting ambivalence have, however,tended to assume that there is a relatively clear and unambiguous change programme about which employees are ambivalent. This article argues that the nature of such programmes is more uncertain and ambiguous than this suggests. Drawing on a six-year study of the introduction of a cultural change programme in the coke-making plant of an integrated steelworks, this article details how cultural ambivalence intertwines with practical ambiguities in the course of such programmes to create complex cultures of ambiguity