Sensemaking is central because it is the primary site where meanings materialize that inform and constrain identity and action. We use sensemaking theory to explore the role of bureaucratic entrepreneurial action in institutional change. While there is no single theory of sensemaking, many researchers use the concept to study how people understand i. Cq press your definitive resource for politics, policy and people. I believe the gap is the absence, the void, and the alienation where truthmeaningsense should be.
The interplay between theorization, representation, and ongoing event attention can lead to change in institutional logics over an events life course. Sensemaking is therefore never decoupled from the language, institutional routines or imagined expectations of others. Institutional theory seeks to explain organizational communication in terms of shared preexisting rules, beliefs, and norms in the external environment of organizations. Ecological sensemaking academy of management journal. Organizing and the process of sensemaking article pdf available in organization science 164. We then reanalyze data from the mann gulch fire and conclude that ecological. Sensemaking theory the sensemaking theory consists of both the interpretation of information and generating what is interpreted. In this chapter, we explore how the concept of organizational identity has evolved in institutional theory. Sensemaking or sensemaking is the process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences. We address this limitation by exploring the potential of using institutional theory. While its sociological origins rest on the concepts of legitimacy, rational myths, and isomorphic forces in organizational fields. Managing uncertainty in crisis exploring the impact of. A powerful example of institutional effects on sensemaking in crisis is provided by wicks 2002 study of the 1992 westray mine disaster, in which he explores how institutional and organizational logics over time affected organizational members sensemaking in ways that led them to overlook important cues.
This chapter seeks to relate sensemaking and sensegiving processes to their social and institutional context by describing and explaining the effects of diverse metaphors of change used by organizational members during the implementation of lean production and tqm in an internationally operating manufacturing company. Bureaucratic entrepreneurship and institutional change. Sensemaking is the process by which people construct, interpret, and recognize meaningful features of the world. Pdf using institutional theory with sensemaking theory. Sensemaking of a sustainability transition by higher. This article examines the explicit and implicit corporate social responsibility csr framework and its implications for leadership style, in a major banking institution. Assessing institutional support for servicelearning. Institutional theory in political science has made great advances in recent years, but also has a number of significant theoretical and methodological problems. Specifically, we use sensemaking and institutional logics theory as a lens through which to consider and draw insight from the events of ct2. Download sources of national institutional competitiveness.
Weick the teaching of organization theory and the conduct of organizational research have been dominated by a focus on decisionmaking and the concept of. The purpose of this paper is to explore the mental models of top executive team members in a selected retail bank. The most important of these problems is the generally static nature of institutional explanations. Yet, one persistent criticism levelled at his work has been a neglect of the role of larger social and historical contexts in sensemaking. Bringing theories and tools together nikhil sharma school of information, university of michigan, ann arbor address. Its worth reading just for the preface, which is delightfully welcoming for a volume of organizational theory. Organizing and the process of sensemaking organization. Sage reference the complete guide for your research journey. Institutional th eories as applied t o politics posit two distinct f orms of in stitutions influen ce over policy and political action. The leading scholar in this area has been karl weick, who began writing about sensemaking in the late 1960s. Weick, 1995, which, put simply, is how people think sensemaking, and how people attempt to influence how others think sensegiving.
Decoupling between policy and practice through the lens of sensemaking and sensegiving. All these concepts are associated with the process of making art and its role in society as a process that essentially helps us make sense of life and our experiences on an abstract and. Sensemakings dialectical bridge connects theory and its philosophical origins discussed in chapter one with sensemaking in practice explored in chapter three. It emphasizes how norms and cultural conceptions about appropriate reading instruction are constructed and reconstructed over timne.
Gary klein and his colleagues have laid out a theory of sensemaking that might be useful for intelligent systems applications. Sage books the ultimate social sciences digital library. Weick advises novice sensemaking acolytes to expect some confusion. We begin by examining the different ways that organizational identity has been conceptualized and explain the evolving theoretical interests that lie behind the approaches that have been taken.
Lessons from two cases the analytic power of sensemaking has been widely applied throughout the organizational literature. In this paper we take the position that the concept of sensemaking fills important gaps in organizational theory. At root, institutional theory is a cultural approach. The first two of these are theories from different domains. Abstract taking weicks theory of sensemaking as illustrative of a socioconstructionist conception of. Resilience, sensemaking and internal crisis communication. Event attention, environmental sensemaking, and change in. The focus is on how each executive team member makes sense of the market situation and changes with regard to customers and customerbank interactions in the current situation where earlier bank practices are at risk of becoming obsolete. Institutional theory has proven to be a central analytical perspective for investigating the role of social and historical structures of information systems is implementation. An implicit purpose of the paper is to deliberate on how sensemaking theory could be used as an instrument for empirical research.
A case study of organizational sensemaking scott a. We elaborate this analytic model by examining a major institutional change. Karl weicks classic study of sensemaking showed that there is much to be learned from a wildland fire. In simpler terms, the process by which people give meaning to experiences. Sensemaking is the process by which people give meaningtoexperience.
Although retrospective sensemaking is a key property of the weickian approach, sensemaking can also orient to the future. Hence, strategic change, such as st, must be accompanied by a significant alteration of the overall perception of the organisation gioia and thomas, 1996. Sensemaking sensemaking is the process by which people give meaningtoexperience. It illustrates how rigidity, leader dependence, and erratic behavior get in the way of effective sensemaking, and how one might teach sensemaking as a core leadership capability. This chapter outlines ten steps to effective sensemaking, grouped under enabling leaders to explore the wider system, create a map of that system, and act in the. The paradox of sensemaking in organizational analysis. We address this critique by showing how institutional context is a necessary part of sensemaking. Yet, while weicks 1993 seminal article on the collapse of sensemaking in organizations has been widely cited in the educational literature, it has rarely been applied to the problem of. Professor joop koppenjan, erasmus university rotterdam, the netherlands this book has done an excellent job in opening the black box of how organizations make sense of the crisis situations they face and develop strategies to respond. Sense makingwasintroducedtohumancomputerinteraction byparcresearchersrussell,ste.
Evidence for existence of the frameworks key concepts in relation to leadership styles was explored through the selfreported sensemaking of leaders charged with csr programme introduction. Sage video bringing teaching, learning and research to life. Before completing a doctorate that really anchored my work in ethnography, i was trained as a cognitive psychologist, designing and evaluating user. Sensemaking in organisations towards a conceptual framework for understanding strategic change thomas ericson jonkokping international business school, kyrkogatan 15, p. The concept was introduced to organizational studies by karl e.
Sensemaking, a concept first popularized by karl weick, is a heuristic involving seven social psychological properties that can be used to understand how people make sense of the process of organizing. Sage business cases real world cases at your fingertips. Whilethisprocesshasbeenstud iedbyotherdisciplinesunderothernamesforcenturies, theterm sensemakinghasprimarilymarkedthreedis tinctbutrelatedresearchareassincethe1970s. Decoupling between policy and practice through the lens of. This theoretical distance may be related to criticisms of sensemaking that claim the theory overlooks the role of larger social, historical or institutional contexts in explaining cognition. A generic institutional model for analyzing and managing hazards, disasters and crises worldwide.
In addition to theorization, highlighted by prior research, we propose a second mechanism of environmental sensemaking. Metaphors from music composition illustrate the pace and depth of institutional change. Weick in the 1970s and has affected both theory and practice. Sensemaking offers a way of understanding the process by which.
Sensemaking involves turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard into action. According to berthod 2016, the institutional theory of organizations puts institutions at the forefront of the analysis of organizations design and conduct. Sensemaking enables leaders to have a better grasp of what is going on in their environments, thus facilitating other leadership activities such as visioning, relating, and inventing. Professor naim kapucu, director of school of public administration, university of central florida, usa. The seemingly transient nature of sensemaking belies its central role in the determination of human behavior, whether people are acting in formal organizations or elsewhere.
In recent years, institutional theorists have been increasingly interested in institutional change, seeking to understand the contextual factors and agents responsible for alterations to existing institutional arrangements. Institutional theory provides powerful tools for understanding the comiiplicated relationship between schools and their multifaceted environment. Building on this, we discuss how organizational identity research might benefit from closer. In this tradition, we present an ethnographic tale from the subarctic to introduce the concept of ecological sensemakingthe process used to make sense of material landscapes and ecological processes. A case study of information system implementation in healthcare article pdf available in journal of information technology 244. Sensemaking in organizations consists of a preface and eight chapters that set out the origins, principles, and applications of weicks sensemaking concepts.