Temporal Structuring in Sensemaking – How an Entrepreneurial Team Deals with Radical Uncertainty

Abstract

Understanding ways in which teams and organizations manage, negotiate and navigate uncertain futures is paramount, as high uncertainty can significantly harm employee and volunteer engagement. Recently, scholars have taken a keen interest in exploring collective sensemaking in uncertain contexts. Previous studies have examined how teams restore action after disruptive events and retrospectively make sense of the disruptions. However, the strategies teams utilize to deal with dynamic uncertainty “on the ground” have been largely missing. In this study, we examined team-level sensemaking during high uncertainty. We identified three strategies of temporal structuring that helped the team cope with and tame the uncertainty that could cripple their organizing efforts: (1) freezing the future (2) bracketing the future and (3) abstracting the future. Our study contributes to the literature on sensemaking and uncertainty by demonstrating the significance of temporal structuring as a way of moving forward and dealing with uncertainty as well as mitigating the potentially paralyzing effect of radical uncertainty. In addition, our study contributes to the literature on prospective and temporal sensemaking by focusing on the present-future connection and showing how a team constructs sensemaking anchors in the future rather than retrospectively in the past.