Abstract
Managers and other professionals operating in high velocity environments engage in frequent, simultaneous, iterative and interleaved acts of sensemaking and sensegiving within a network of stakeholders as they confront a stream of potentially significant signals or events. How is collective meaning and action shaped as a result of such interactions? To understand the dynamics of meaning-making in high velocity settings, we conducted a grounded theory analysis of concurrent sensemaking and sensegiving during 83 product innovation projects in the information technology sector as reported by 26 product managers. The innovation projects involved both hardware and software products, and included developing wholly new products as well as modifying existing products in response to a triggering event or signal. We found that dynamic feedback between concurrent sensemaking and sensegiving results in senseshaping – the iterative synthesis and reconstruction of product meaning that satisfices across stakeholders. The presence of feedback and reflexivity implied in senseshaping makes it a new and more complex phenomenon than sensemaking and sensegiving separately. The empirically-grounded findings provide a systemic and parsimonious view of senseshaping – the micro-practices that comprise it, the contingencies that affect it, and the tactics that improve it.
Published Version
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