To Örebro University

This paper is concerned with the subject of communication during the financial crisis within three municipal organizations. The research questions aims to shed a light on the communication process between management and employee.

The research questions also aim to explore in which ways the employees interpret and make sense of the messages deduced from this communication. Öbo, Örebro city and Rudbecksskolan are three organization within the municipality of the city of Örebro, and also the subjects of investigation for this study.

The research approach of this paper has got the character of a qualitative study. Within each of the three organizations interviews where conducted with respondents from both the management level as well as the employee level. Thus a total of six interviews where conducted.

The theoretical framework concerns communication in general as well as the different faces or stages of the communication process, such as distortion and channels of communication. This section of the paper also brings up theories concerning sensemaking and the interpretation that individuals embark in during the communication process.

The empirical foundation is based on data deduced from the six interviews conducted with the respondents working at Öbo, Örebro city and Rudbecksskolan.

One conclusion, among others, is that employees in all of the organizations sometimes have troubles understanding the messages that the management are communicating. Another conclusion is that due to the fact that all of the organizations are municipally governed some of the decision-making are politically made. At Rudbecksskolan this has resulted in that corrupted information reaches the employees and not even the headmasters have the knowledge of the full picture of the matter at hand.