The purpose of this study is to investigate how victims, survivors and external actors make sense of massive layoffs, and on the role of emotions in their sensemaking and sensegiving process. Public posts on LinkedIn were collected and a discourse analysis was conducted to identify which categories of emotions were displayed and how they might impact organizational actors’ sensemaking and sensegiving of massive layoffs. Results show that the sensemaking and sensegiving process that surrounds layoffs differs depending on the category of actors and centers on emotions and people. For some groups of actors, it also includes considerations of time and rational analyses. This study provides novel insights on layoffs’ sensemaking by investigating how several groups of actors deal with major turmoil in an industry. The focus on emotions makes different phenomena visible for each group of actors.
