Organizational Sensemaking Research Articles

Contextual Analysis for Practical Action (CAPA): a framework for understanding how context works and how to apply it for practical learning and implementing change in complex systems

Background: This concept paper presents Contextual Analysis for Practical Action or ‘CAPA’ as an action-oriented tool to understand and implement interventions in real-life service delivery contexts. Understanding how contexts work is a critical challenge for Health and Social Care Systems seeking to become more integrated. CAPA is a tool for understanding and empowering agents in local contexts. The local context is understood here as a key factor in implementation success. This concept paper offers rich theorising to underpin the translation of systems reform initiatives into meaningful local engagement and change. Methods: Analysis of the ‘implementation conundrum’ highlights the problem, while a review of the organisational learning literature identifies ‘sensemaking in organisation’ as a powerful mechanism to address it. Based on earlier phenomenological research the dynamics of organisational sensemaking are presented. Finally, applications for CAPA are explored and next steps outlined. Results: CAPA makes tangible the implicit and interpretive nature of organisational life as ‘sensemaking in context’. This phenomenon is analysed as a determinant of implementation success. As such, CAPA opens a path to working with contextual complexity by framing it as a dialectic pattern of topical, ecological, dialogical, and pragmatic modes that ‘contextualise’. CAPA is a tool for researchers and practitioners to explore the complexity of local contexts and their implementation challenges, and working-with local agents for learning and change. Conclusions: Health reform needs new approaches for understanding implementation in context. CAPA is a tool for understanding and working-with contextual factors central to the complexity of policy or knowledge translation for example. This paper outlines its rationale, principles, and functionality. Possible applications are explored for co-designed practical learning experiences. It concludes with a call to policy makers, service managers and researchers to use the approach in specific settings so it can be developed and refined.

Ethical Dilemmas in Nonprofit Governance: ARNOVA Governance Section Case Studies for Use in the Classroom and Practitioner Training

The three case studies presented in this issue continues the exploration of contemporary ethical dilemmas in nonprofit governance authored by members of the Governance Section of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Associations (ARNOVA). In the first two case studies in this series, published in recent issues of the Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership, Ruth Bernstein and Toni Aspin explore the challenges of governance when a nonprofit must consider compromising organizational values to provide services to a vulnerable population. In an examination of the collapse of a $40 million nonprofit agency, Yvonne Cafik Harrison considers a failure of board governance to protect critical constituencies and the very existence of the organization. The cases below expand the conversation regarding ethics and nonprofit governance. First, Jeff Aulgur considers the ethical challenges in contemporary presidential searches at public institutions of higher education. His exploration of the University of South Carolina System’s search for a new president in 2019 applies Karl Weick’s theory of sensemaking in organizations to nonprofit governance. Next, Dean Black, through the lens of a networked membership organization, discusses the ethical questions raised by non-financial conflicts of interest and how such disputes may damage a nonprofit’s reputation and legitimacy. In the last case, Louise Coventry explores the efficacy of the universal application of governance best practices and how scholars and practitioners must consider cultural boundaries and cultural appropriateness.

From sensemaking to sensegiving: A discourse analysis of the scholarly communications community's public response to the global pandemic

AbstractThis study examines the scholarly communications community's public response to the global pandemic. A discourse analysis was conducted of press releases, blogs, and website updates across non‐profits, commercial publishers, government agencies, technology companies, and universities to identify (1) the range of support activities immediately undertaken following the proclamation of the pandemic; (2) the language and style of public discourse used, demonstrating how different organizations characterized their responses and roles during the crisis; and (3) specific patterns that emerged among this community related to the process of organizational sensemaking. The findings show that the global community appeared highly adaptive and conceptually aligned in its initial response. Different actors within the community presented distinct identities relative to leadership, advocacy, service, or constituent orientation. More importantly, a majority of organizations demonstrated the use of sensegiving strategies to influence the future state of scholarly publishing, particularly with respect to the expressed desire for greater global collaboration, transparency, quality assurance, and openness. These findings may have implications regarding the future enactment of open and collaborative research publishing, which is especially significant at this stage of the global open science movement's development.

Organizational Sensemaking in ERP Implementation: The Influence of Sensemaking Structure

Organizational sensemaking is crucial to enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation. This is because it enables the focal organization to gain an understanding of the unique contextual issues within and surrounding the organization, and continuous

Quality assurance and accreditation in Afghanistan: exploring sensemaking and sensegiving in policy implementation

ABSTRACT This research investigated the implementation of accreditation at public teaching and research universities in Afghanistan. A qualitative multi-case study design was used to interview 46 individuals from five universities. The findings revealed that participants conceptualise quality assurance and accreditation as organisational sensemaking that emphasises contextual circumstances in exploring meaning construction. Accreditation is a community effort at research universities while engagement with accreditation seemed partial at teaching universities given that only the leadership and quality assurance units were involved in the process. The implications are that (a) a serious involvement of senior leadership in the process maximises employees’ engagement with accreditation and (b) factors such as limited budget and autonomy, scarce resources, lack of awareness and resistance of academic staff challenge accreditation in Afghanistan universities. The study recommends an increased budget and autonomy for universities, management training for university leaders and revision of the accreditation framework to be flexible to teaching and research universities.

Discovering and Managing Interdependence with Customer‐Entrepreneurs

AbstractResearch on inter‐organizational relationships has largely focused on the interdependence between formal organizations. In recent years, firms have encountered a new logic in which interdependent parties are not formal organizations but platform‐based ‘customer‐entrepreneurs’ that create value through illegal means. Drawing on a 5‐year‐long qualitative study, we examine how firms recognize and instantiate this new logic and, consequently, respond to their interdependencies with customer‐entrepreneurs. Viewed through the lens of institutional logic, we find that, with the benefit of hindsight, firms recognize the existence of the logic of customer entrepreneurship, which triggers organizational sensemaking that is made up of three elements: interpretation of legitimacy compatibility; interpretation of efficiency compatibility; and integration of stakeholder perspectives. This sensemaking results in either a determined account concluding on the compatibility calculus in a top‐down manner, or an open‐ended account avoiding the construction of a resolute, synthesized view. A determined account leads to a defiance strategy, by which firms attempt to remove the source of interdependencies with customer‐entrepreneurs, whereas an open‐ended account guides firms to espouse a decoupling strategy, whereby firms covertly resort to efficiency maximization enabled by the interdependence. Our results offer implications for the research on inter‐organizational relationships and institutional logic.

For better or for worse? Handling the side effects of organizational change on workplace discrimination

PurposeOrganizational change (OC) triggers uncertainty and ambiguity, which have side effects for individual and groups. Even though scholars and practitioners have generally conceived OC as a remedy for workplace discrimination (WD), it may determine opportunistic behaviors, which increase the risks of discrimination at work. The article discusses the direct and indirect effects of OC on WD, investigating the moderating role of organizational meaningfulness (OM) and employees' involvement (EI).Design/methodology/approachSecondary data were collected from the Eurofound's European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). The sample included 33,024 European employees. A double moderation analysis based on the bootstrapping method was designed to collect evidence on the direct effects of OC on WD and on the indirect effects moderated by OM and EI.FindingsOC was found to generate greater discrimination at work. People who were not informed about change and those who were not allowed to express their opinion about change were more likely to report discrimination. OM and EI performed as significant moderators of the side effects of OC on WD.Practical implicationsRestructurings and reorganizations are tricky processes. The uncertainty and ambiguity produced by OC might negatively affect interpersonal relationships at work and organizational practices, paving the way for overt and/or explicit discrimination. The construction of clear and shared senses around change is crucial to curb the drawbacks of organizational transitions on workplace discrimination. EI is essential to improve organizational sensemaking of change processes and to establish a positive organizational climate, which prevent the occurrence of WD.Originality/valueLiterature has overlooked the negative implications of OC on WD. The study findings emphasize that organizational transitions may trigger discrimination, creating greater uncertainty and ambiguity in the workplace. OM and EI allow overcoming ambiguity and increase the employees' ability to deal with uncertainty, addressing the side effects of OC on WD.

“A distant mirror”: Sensemaking in the era of Trump

Sensemaking is an ongoing act of constructing a reality to be interpreted. While numerous articles have explored the notion of sensemaking in organizations, far fewer have examined it through the empirical prism of an individual case of sensemaking, with the notable exception of Weick’s seminal contribution and formulation, “The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster” (1993). In this article, we seek to build on the literature of sensemaking in organizations by offering an analysis of the actions of former Republican Senator Jeff Flake, whose leadership interventions we interpret as efforts at sensemaking in the era of Trump. In this context, we focus on the US Senate as an organ of sensemaking established by the framers of the Constitution to be relied upon in times of disruption, confusion, and chaos—a check on presidential power established by the framers of the US Constitution to provide prospective sensemaking for uncharted waters. In analyzing the case of Jeff Flake as sense-maker, we rely on certain definitions of leadership embedded in the era of post-truth. We conclude that Flake’s actions may be seen as a distant mirror (to quote Tuchman, 1978 ) of Weick’s treatment of the storied smokejumper Wag Dodge—a sense-maker whose persuasive powers failed him in the moment, only to be viewed in retrospect as the one who paved the way forward toward survival in the midst of a “cosmological episode.”

Reframing Organizational Contexts from Barriers to Levers for Teacher Learning in Science Education Reform

ABSTRACT A growing body of work regarding teacher learning and implementation of reform has pointed to the significant role organizational contexts play in shaping teachers’ engagement with reform and their implementation decisions. Within science education, the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and standards reflective of the Framework for K-12 Science Education by states in the US and Canada resurfaces a need to attend to teachers’ contexts in designing for the integration of these standards. To date, however, instructional contexts are generally cast as barriers to implementation and there is a scarcity of conceptual tools being utilized that support mature understandings of teachers’ learning and decision-making in context. In this paper, we review prior literature on the relationship between teachers’ organizational contexts and their learning and implementation of reform in science and other disciplines. We then present a conceptual framework rooted in organizational theory that can support nuanced understandings of teacher learning and implementation and guide the development of teacher-learning contexts. We argue that using a lens of organizational sensemaking complicates the teacher–context relationship for learning and implementation of reform and recasts teachers’ contexts and local expertise as important levers for learning. We conclude with a set of practices to guide the design of professional learning contexts that reflects this framing and that may enable deeper engagement and learning of science teachers in the context of reform.

The relationship between organizational attitude and lean practices: an organizational sense-making perspective

PurposePast studies of lean have failed to sufficiently address the importance of social factors for successful lean implementations. This paper aims to broaden and deepen the understanding of lean as a socio-technical paradigm by conceptualizing lean implementation as an organizational change process.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on the organizational sense-making literature to conceptualize and validate lean implementation as an organizational change process that necessitates a focus on the ability of organizational actors to construct a shared meaning of lean. This study posit that this shared understanding shapes the collective behaviour and attitudes of people towards a future desired organizational state such as a successful implementation of lean. Survey data were collected from various manufacturing and services firms to test the hypothesis derived from literature using a structural equation modelling approach.FindingsThe mutual social interactions of organizational actors contribute to an enabling lean organizational attitude that has a dominant effect on the lean practices of employee involvement, internal technical practices, supplier and customer management. This study also established boundary conditions for these relationships by identifying firm size as a moderating variable.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings establish a supportive organizational attitude as an antecedent for lean implementation, which goes beyond the current socio-technical characterization of lean management. This conceptualization draws the attention of researchers and practitioners towards the critical role of the cooperative behaviours of organizational actors in lean implementations.Originality/valueThe statistical results add a novel perspective to the discourse on the social dimension of lean implementation by conceptualizing and validating lean management as a combination of organizational attitude and the process facilitators comprising of employee empowerment, internal technical practices, supplier and customer management.

Shared leadership: Struggles over meaning in daily instances of uncertainty

Research presented in this article advances existing work on shared leadership and organizational sensemaking by an empirical demonstration of the organizing properties of leadership in daily instances of uncertainty. Drawing on conversation analysis combined with ethnographic data collected during 12-month fieldwork, this article spells out the conversational mechanisms and discursive practices used by leadership actors in the process of sensemaking directed towards organizationally relevant goals. Through a fine-grain analysis of an extended troubles-telling sequence in a particular meeting encounter, this study shows how conversation analysis–inspired research can be used to add a more nuanced understanding of a substantive area of social life, such as shared leadership which is achieved in interaction and which involves various leadership actors, regardless of their hierarchical positions and organizational roles.

Ready the Canons: The Role of Canonical Stories in Organizational Sensemaking

This article examines the role of canonical stories in sensemaking. Canonical stories are known by members of a group; storytellers can refer to the shared narratives as repositories of meaning. While the sensemaking literature includes multiple studies of stories and storytelling, no studies have explicitly examined the role of canonical stories in sensemaking. Interviews with 55 top leaders in U.S. Catholic universities confronting a fraught issue in their institutions (undocumented student access) indicate a variety of ways that canonical stories operate in their sensemaking. Respondents referred to community narratives, canonical stories that hold specific meaning for their university communities. They told generic or stereotypical stories and fragments as shorthand in their communication. They also used counterfactuals as referents for their sensemaking. These findings help us better understand the role and importance of canonical stories in organizational sensemaking.

Strategic change and sensemaking practice: enabling the role of the middle manager

PurposeThe critical input of middle managers as they make sense of the organisation's plans is paramount during the process of strategic change. Through the lens of middle manager sensemaking literature, this explorative research identifies key organisational practices that underpin sensemaking. An understanding of these practices will allow organisations better develop and support them, thereby enabling middle managers' contribution to strategic change.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed an innovative diary methodology. 42 middle managers, across three organisations, completed a weekly, online diary for 12 weeks. A qualitative analysis of the final 355 diaries isolated and explained the sensemaking practices in which middle managers engaged as they sought to achieve the shared understanding required to progress strategic change.FindingsThis study identifies the key practice underpinning middle manager sensemaking as formal and frequent discourse opportunities between leaders and middle managers. Through leader participation beyond the initiation stages of strategic change, and the organisation's positive positioning of time and metrics, these discourse opportunities enable a form of sensemaking associated with a number of positive organisational outcomes. These include middle manager sensegiving across the organisation, the successful enactment of strategic change, positive perceptions of change outcomes and organisational climate among middle managers and middle manager well-being.Research limitations/implicationsThis study advances our theoretical understanding of the practice of sensemaking in organisations through the isolation and identification of its key practices. However, given the difficulty in obtaining access for such a lengthy and intrusive methodology, the study is confined to three organisations. Additionally, the focus on the practice of sensemaking did not fully explore any contextual factors within these organisations. Also, middle manager perceptions of successful organisational outcomes are not very reliable performance indicators. While the self-reporting of perceptions is a worthwhile means of gathering data, a measure and comparison of actual business performance indicators would significantly strengthen the findings.Practical implicationsFrom a practitioner perspective, this study not only underlines the importance for organisations of developing critical sensemaking practices for middle managers but also provides a clear pathway to achieving this. In approaching the intangible process of sensemaking from a practice perspective, it provides key stakeholders such as leaders, change agents and the HR department with a guide as to the types and forms of discourse practices which can be enabled. Maybe more importantly, it also highlights the practices which disable middle manager sensemaking. The study also provides organisations with insights into the positive outcomes stemming from middle manager sensemaking that should strengthen their case towards the development of sensemaking practices.Originality/valueThis paper responds to the call for new approaches to the study of sensemaking as an ongoing practice within organisations. The qualitative diary analysis provides rich insights into the specific organisational practices that can enable middle manager sensemaking, while also highlighting those practices that can disable their role during strategic change. These findings provide organisations with clear approaches for developing sensemaking as a practice, thereby engaging and supporting the multiple actors and levels required to deliver successful strategic change.

Sarawak Digital Economy and The Organisational Sensemaking Process of CSR: A Conceptual View

The Sarawak Digital Economy (SDE) is an initiative that was recently implemented by the Sarawak Government in its effort to turn Sarawak into a high-income and developed State by year 2030. Based on this vision, the Sarawak Government has addressed the critical need for an effective collaboration with the local organisations. Since the early 2000s, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become one of the innovative mechanism used by governments of various localities to work with local organisations for the interest of the community. In some regions, CSR has been widely used as a platform to cope with the social challenges such as unemployment and poverty. Based on these common practices, it is reasonable for this study to anticipate the likelihood for similar mechanism of collaboration to take place in Sarawak especially in respective to the joint effort required between the Sarawak Government with the local organisations to ensure successful implementation of SDE. This perspective in turn, puts into emphasis the potential ‘trigger’ effect that SDE may impose on the affected local organisations, including its CSR activities and orientation. Henceforth, the need for this study to view the development and implementation of CSR in an organisation as a sensemaking process. In this respect, this article takes the pioneering step to put present a conceptual view of the organisational CSR sensemaking process, and rationalise as to how CSR should be analysed especially in the scope of Sarawak’s current economic plan and direction. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), sensemaking, Sarawak Digital Economy, organizational sensemaking, CSR sensemaking.

University communications as auto-communication: the NTNU ‘Challenge Everything’ campaign

PurposeThis article offers an in-depth exploration of university communications practice by describing and analysing a publicity and recruitment campaign, called ‘Challenge Everything’, carried out by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2018. By providing insight into internal sense-making around the campaign it contributes to literatures in science communication and communication management.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research uses semi-structured interviews and informal organisational ethnography, mobilising concepts of sense-making and auto-communication to guide analysis. The focus is on how organisation members made sense of the Challenge Everything campaign.FindingsThe analysis focuses on four key themes within organisational sense-making about the campaign: the openness of the campaign meant that it was readily picked up on and personalised by university staff; its meaning was always contextual, shaped by organisation members' roles, interests, and concerns; its controversy seems to primarily derive from questions of representation, and specifically whether organisation members recognised within it their own experiences of university culture; and its development points to the rise of new forms of expertise within university organisation, and the contestation of these.Research limitations/implicationsThe research offers only a partial snapshot of one instance of university communications. However, in demonstrating how public campaigns also operate as auto-communication it has important implications for strategic communication within complex organisations such as universities.Originality/valueThe research has particular value in offering an in-depth qualitative study of university marketing practices and the effects these have within an organisation.

Sensemaking and crisis revisited: the failure of sensemaking during the Flint water crisis

ABSTRACTThis study operationalized Weick’s [(1988). Enacted sensemaking in crisis situations. Journal of Management Studies 25(4), 305–317 and (1993). The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 628–652] theory of enacted sensemaking to examine the communication processes associated with the Flint Water Crisis of 2014–2015. A content analysis of 389 emails and attachments from a total population of N = 37,376 pages of publicly released e-mails and documents pertaining to Flint’s water issues, identified examples of failed sensemaking by government officials. These failures hastened and intensified a growing crisis of lead contamination and an outbreak of Legionnaires disease associated with Flint’s municipal water system. Analysis of email messages suggests that strong commitments by top leaders and limited capacity were important factors as were efforts to create and maintain consensus among officials. The Flint Water Crisis offers an important application of sensemaking theory and its utility for both organizational and risk communication scholars and for practical application. The authors emphasize the importance of questioning previous assumptions and commitments, insuring that communication practitioners are involved in decisions, and avoiding over reliance on image repair as a strategic response.

Public Management in an Era of the Unprecedented: Dominant Institutional Logics as a Barrier to Organizational Sensemaking

AbstractIn an era when unprecedented events are occurring with increasing frequency, public management theory is challenged to consider whether it is possible to better prepare agencies to respond to situations previously neither expected, nor even seriously imagined. In this paper, we consider the case of the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 wildfire that contributed to the destruction of neighborhoods in and around Gatlinburg, TN. We argue this case illuminates a critical gap in extant organizational theory concerning the factors that impede sensemaking processes, which are fundamental to models of high reliability organizations during unprecedented events. Specifically, based on insights from this case considered through an institutional lens, we theorize that the nature of unprecedented events undermines an adaptive response through both structural and cultural/institutional processes. Structurally, we demonstrate how public agencies evolve to the contingencies of their normal task environment, which we should anticipate will be maladapted to the task demands of an unprecedented event. However, we theorize the greater challenge lies in the processes by which these structural features of the agency, over time, create, and reinforce a dominant institutional logic which can delay and weaken sensemaking processes, even when discrepant environmental cues are present. We conclude with a discussion of remedies that may facilitate earlier recognition, and thus more effective agency response, when the unprecedented is occurring.

Sensemaking Reconsidered: Towards a broader understanding through phenomenology

We develop a typology of sensemaking in organizations that reconsiders existing sensemaking research by providing a more coherent and integrative conceptualization of what defines sensemaking and how it is connected with organizing. Drawing on existential phenomenology, we make the following core claims: (1) sensemaking is not a singular phenomenon but comprises four major types: immanent, involved-deliberate, detached-deliberate, and representational sensemaking; (2) all types of sensemaking originate and take place within specific practice worlds; (3) the core constituents of sensemaking within a practice world (sense–action nexus, temporality, embodiment, and language) are played out differently in each type of sensemaking. Furthermore, we elaborate the links between sensemaking and organizing, focusing especially on the connections between types and levels of sensemaking, and the consequences of sensemaking outcomes for organizing. Finally, we discuss how the typology contributes to the existing sensemaking perspective, outline methodological implications, and suggest ways of advancing sensemaking research.

Show it with feeling: performed emotions in critical sensemaking

This article draws attention to emotion in sensemaking within small entrepreneurial organisations. More specifically, it illustrates how performed emotion is related to enactment of a formative context, sensemaking and agency. The article also enriches the critical sensemaking heuristic by exploring a conversation between a leader and employees concerning adoption of a new online service. The analysis is based on videotaped data gathered from a two-year study of a franchise-based rental and real estate company. The contributions of the article are two-fold: 1) it argues that performed emotions are important because they may have an influence on the sensemaking of others and the possibility of exercising agency; 2) it demonstrates that videotaped material is a fertile source of data for studies on critical sensemaking in small entrepreneurial organisations.

A Sensemaking Study of Change Initiative: The Case of A Malaysian Multinational Enterprise

Empirical evidence has emphasized the need for more research to uncover why does change fail and what can organizations do to improve their success rate. The purpose of this article is to provide an in-depth assessment on the implementation of centre-led change initiative in a novel empirical study in a Malaysian-based multinational enterprise (MNE). This study is based on multiple embedded case studies of four subsidiaries of a Malaysian-based MNE. This study urges centre managers tasked with implementing strategic change initiatives to emphasize the behavioral aspect of those involved in change throughout the entire development stage of the change. Any negative cues from change recipients need to be addressed and attended to as quickly as possible. This study is based on a section within the larger context of the MNE which is being researched. The study contributes to the literature of organizational sensemaking in change by extending the knowledge of new sensemaking forms namely communication intensity and resolution to barriers. This study also contributes to the empirical literature in change by providing an in-depth account of a Malaysian based MNE journey in implementing centre-led change initiatives.