Colleen Mills

Colleen E. Mills
Colleen E. Mills
Alma mater	University of Canterbury
	Scientific career
Fields	organisational change and development, communication and sensemaking
Institutions	University of Canterbury
Thesis	Taikyoku: a theory of sensemaking about workplace communication (2000); ;

Colleen E. Mills is a New Zealand management academic specialising in communication and sensemaking in times of disruption. She is currently a professor of management at the University of Canterbury.^[1]

Career

Mills' first career was in teaching and teacher education. She did a Masters of Education with a thesis entitled The nature and variability of tertiary students' learning approaches and test outcomes when learning from text in 1991^[2] before changing her career focus to organisational behaviour and completing a PhD entitled Taikyoku: a theory of sensemaking about workplace communication in 2000. Both qualifications are from the University of Canterbury where she subsequently joined the staff and rose to full professor. She is now also an international faculty affiliate (FIA) at Audencia Business School in France.

Mills' research examines organisational processes and stakeholders' sensemaking about these processes, particularly during periods of heightened ambiguity and uncertainty such as during CEO succession, organisational change, business start-up, and natural disasters. For example, she examined how middle managers can implement a company strategy – "materialize a strategic discourse" – by creating physical structures, texts, and tools for workers.^[3]^[4]

Selected works

Arnaud, Nicolas, & Colleen E. Mills. (2012). "Understanding Inter-Organizational Agency: A Communication Perspective." Group & Organization Management 37(4): 452–485.
Arnaud, N., Colleen E. Mills, Celine Legrand, and Eric Maton E. (2016). "Materialising strategy in mundane tools: The key to coupling global strategy and local strategy practice? British Journal of Management 27: 38–57
Fleming, Neil D., and Colleen Mills. (1992). "Not another inventory, rather a catalyst for reflection." To Improve the Academy 11: 137–155.
Lips-Wiersma, Marjolein, and Colleen Mills. (2002). "Coming out of the closet: Negotiating spiritual expression in the workplace." Journal of Managerial Psychology 17, no. 3: 183–202.
Mills, Colleen E. (2002). "The hidden dimension of blue-collar sensemaking about workplace communication". Journal of Business Communication 39, no. 3: 288–313.
Mills, Colleen E. (2006). "Modeling sensemaking about communication: How affect and intellect combine." Southern Review 38 no. 2: 9–23.
Mills, Colleen E. (2010). "Experiencing gossip: The foundations for a theory of embedded organizational gossip." Group & Organization Management 35(2): 213–240.
Mills, Colleen E. (2011). "Enterprise orientations: A framework for making sense of fashion sector start-up. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research 17, no. 3: 245–271.
Mills, Colleen.E. (2017). "Activity Theory." In C. R. Scott and L. Lewis (eds.) International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication: 10–18. Malden, MA.
Mills, Colleen.E., and Francois Cooren. (Eds.) (2016). Discursivity, relationality and materiality in the life of the organisation: Communication perspectives. Routledge.
Mills, Colleen E., and Kylie Pawson. (2006). "Enterprising talk: A case of self construction." International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research 12, no. 6: 328–344.
Mills, Colleen E., and Kylie Pawson. (2012). "Integrating motivation, risk-taking and self-identity: A typology of ICT enterprise development narratives." International Small Business Journal 30, no. 5 9, 584–606.
Rogers, Peter., Judith Burnside-Lawry, Jelenko Dragisic, and Colleen E. Mills. (2016). "Collaboration and communication: Building a research agenda and way of working towards community disaster resilience" Disaster Prevention and Management 25 no. 1: 75–90.

References

^ "UC Research Profile - University of Canterbury - New Zealand". The University of Canterbury. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
^ Mills, Colleen (1991). "The nature and variability of tertiary students' learning approaches and test outcomes when learning from text". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ Arnaud, Nicolas; Mills, Colleen E.; Legrand, Céline; Maton, Eric (2016). "Materializing Strategy in Mundane Tools: The Key to Coupling Global Strategy and Local Strategy Practice?". British Journal of Management. 27: 38–57.
^ Arnaud, Nicolas; Mills, Colleen E. (2016). "Middle managers play an essential role in executing change". LSE Business Review. Retrieved 1 April 2020.

External links

Colleen Mills publications indexed by Google Scholar
Colleen Mills on LinkedIn
Publications by Colleen Mills at ResearchGate
Institutional homepage
academia

[bio-1] "UC Research Profile - University of Canterbury - New Zealand". The University of Canterbury. Retrieved 1 March 2020.

[2] Mills, Colleen (1991). "The nature and variability of tertiary students' learning approaches and test outcomes when learning from text". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

[3] Arnaud, Nicolas; Mills, Colleen E.; Legrand, Céline; Maton, Eric (2016). "Materializing Strategy in Mundane Tools: The Key to Coupling Global Strategy and Local Strategy Practice?". British Journal of Management. 27: 38–57.

[4] Arnaud, Nicolas; Mills, Colleen E. (2016). "Middle managers play an essential role in executing change". LSE Business Review. Retrieved 1 April 2020.

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