Communicating Sense: The Role of Inference in Joint Sensemaking in Equivocal Contexts

Abstract

In this paper, we build a conceptual framework that elaborates the communicative mechanisms by which individuals in high reliability organizations (HROs) jointly make sense in order to coordinate in equivocal contexts. We build on past work in cognitive and discursive sensemaking, while also highlighting that past research tends to conflate cognition and discourse by presupposing cognitive effects of discourse. Instead, we submit that sensemaking research would benefit from a focus on how organizational actors make inferences and build shared understanding in context. We provide this analytical focus on inference by borrowing theoretical principles and assumptions from relevance theory, a theory in the neighboring field of pragmatic linguistics, and illustrating these principles with examples from seminal past cases of sensemaking under pressure. Our conceptual framework exposes the communicative processes of ostension and inference by which actors build a mutual cognitive environment. Crucially, our paper underscores the importance of investigating how failed inferences hinder coordinated action. We elaborate the contributions of our conceptual framework to sensemaking research, reexamining the concepts of equivocality, requisite variety, and double interacts from a communication standpoint.