Helen Adams hung up the phone slowly and sat at the desk in her home office. She was surrounded by piles of documents relevant to various projects she was organizing for Sales Infomatics, the marketing firm she works for. As an independent contractor, Helen had the freedom to work at home and set her own hours. However, she had traded this flexibility at a cost of limited job security and benefits. And now she was especially concerned about her precarious position. Sales Infomatics, a small family business, had just been acquired by Marketron Inc., a publicly held firm with more than five hundred employees in satellite offices around the country. Helen had just been informed about the sale by Les Kelsey, the longtime owner and manager of Sales Infomatics. Les assured her that her job was safe and that the Marketron people would be contacting her soon with employment information. Although Helen felt a little better with these reassurances, after the phone conversation, she had a multitude of questions swirling through her head. Later that night at dinner, Helen enumerated her concerns to her husband, Glen. “I don’t even know if I’ll be an employee or an independent contractor. And what will working for Marketron be like? It’s not like working for SI when I could just pick up the phone and talk to Les. And will we have to move to one of their office locations? Which office is the best for my work? Which is the best for us? Or for your career? Or should I even work for them? Maybe I could go off on my own or maybe someone else at SI would go with me?”

CASE ANALYSIS QUESTIONS 

1. How would you use Weick’s model of sense making to describe Helen’s experiences since Sales Infomatics was acquired by Marketron? What kind of information environment confronts Helen? And what options does she have to successfully cope with that information environment?  

2. Do Helen’s experiences reflect any of the systems factors identified by theorists using “new science” principles? Or could these principles help Helen change or adapt to the situation she has found herself in? 

3. How does Helen’s role in the communication networks at Sales Infomatics and Marketron influence her ability to cope with life after the acquisition? How would you describe the networks and her roles within them? 

4. Think about Helen’s situation as a cybernetic model in which the goal is enhanced information about life as an employee of Marketron. What kind of feedback is Helen now receiving? And what kinds of mechanisms could she use to enhance her knowledge about the new company?