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

When fiction trumps truth : what ‘post-truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ mean for management studies

In this essay, we explore the notions of ‘post-truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ for management studies. Adopting a pragmatist perspective, we argue that there is no intrinsically accurate language in terms of which to refer to reality. Language, rather, is a tool that enables agents to grab hold of causal forces and intervene in the world. ‘Alternative facts’ can be created by multimodal communication to highlight different aspects of the world for the purpose of political mobilization and legitimacy. ‘Post-truth’ politics reveals the fragmentation of the language game in which mainstream politics has been hitherto conducted. Using the communicative acts of businessman-turned-politician President Trump and his aides, as a prompt, we explore the implications that ‘alternative facts’ and ‘post-truth’ have for today’s management scholarship. We argue that management scholars should unpack how managers navigate strategic action and communication, and how the creation of alternative realities is accomplished in conditions of informational abundance and multimodal communication

Leadership, the American Academy of Management, and President Trump’s travel ban : a case study in moral imagination

In this essay, I focus on the initial reaction of the then leadership of the Academy of Management (AOM) to President Trump’s travel ban issued in January 2017. By viewing the travel ban in purely administrative terms, AOM leadership framed it as an example of “political speech”, on which they were organizationally barred to take a public stand. I subject this view to critical assessment, arguing that the travel ban had a distinct moral character, which was antithetical to scholarly values. Τhe travel ban, I suggest, should be viewed as a non-prototypical case of political speech, which required AOM leadership to flexibly adapt existing rules in situ: to imaginatively frame the travel ban in order to undertake responsible action. Accordingly, the early 2017 AOM rules about political speech should be seen not as recipes-for-action but as reminders-for-action, thus allowing an imaginative reframing. Finally, exploring the notion of moral imagination, I distinguish between “disclosive” and “incremental” moral imagination and responsibility, and suggest that AOM leadership engaged mainly in the latter

Towards a better understanding of tacit knowledge in organizations : taking stock and moving forward

Tacit knowledge is the knowledge that we draw on in use, but is difficult to have consciousness of, or to express in language. The proliferation in the use of tacit knowledge in management research has generated a diversity of understandings that has reduced the clarity of the concept. In this review, our main goal was to contribute to an integrative theorizing of tacit knowledge. In particular, we aim to grasp the different understandings of tacit knowledge, trace them to the onto-epistemological assumptions researchers make concerning the nature of knowledge and action, and suggest a framework that enables researchers to get a coherent understanding of the diverse literature. We identify three perspectives on tacit knowledge: the conversion, interactional, and practice perspectives. We describe each perspective, trace its development to particular ontological and epistemological commitments, and discuss commonalities and differences. Furthermore, we reflect on methodological issues and suggest possibilities for further research, including the relationship between artificial intelligence and tacit knowledge

Introducing the Fourth Volume of “Perspectives on Process Organization Studies”

Abstract: Studying language and communication at work implies that we connect them to the very processes, activities, and practices that constitute organizations or organizational phenomena. We demonstrate in this chapter that language and communication at work can mean many things and that there are a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches that can be used for such analysis. Four characteristic features of such studies are highlighted: (1) interest in the communicative constitution of organization, (2) focus on discursive or communicative practices, (3) emphasis on temporal aspects and dynamics, and (4) placing language and communication in its sociomaterial context. Not all studies can focus on all these aspects, but these features are central in this nascent stream of research

Understanding extended narrative sensemaking : how police officers accomplish story work

Extended narrative sensemaking consists of (a) agents generating actionable stories when faced with unexpected situations to which they need to respond in real time, and (b) emplotting actions that were undertaken and events that occurred during their response, in order to make deeper sense of them afterwards. When sensemakers revisit critical incidents in which there were involved, they join (a) and (b) through story work. In this article, through the study of stories told by police officers in relation to unexpected, impactful incidents, we show how story work is accomplished. We argue that sensemakers simultaneously enact situations, emplot events, and renew identity. Specifically, we demonstrate that police officers strive to accomplish three different things: first, show how, as engaged responders, they were involved in the ongoing enactment of an actionable story (situated agency); secondly, seek to deeper understand, after the event, what happened to them through emplotting their experiences (complexified sense); and thirdly, update their narrative identity by weaving their experience of the handling of the unexpected situation with the rest of their life story (identity renewal). Our account extends current understanding of ongoing narrative sensemaking by showing how agents construct agency, meaning, and identity at once, and how all three are part of an extended, ongoing sensemaking process

On the way to Ithaka [1] : Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Karl E. Weick’s The Social Psychology of Organizing

Karl E. Weick’s The Social Psychology of Organizing has been one of the most influential books in organization studies, providing the theoretical underpinnings of several research programs. Importantly, the book is widely credited with initiating the process turn in the field, leading to the ‘gerundizing’ of management and organization studies: the persistent effort to understand organizational phenomena as ongoing accomplishments. The emphasis of the book on organizing (rather than on organizations) and its links with sensemaking have made it the most influential treatise on organizational epistemology. In this introduction, we review Weick’s magnum opus, underline and assess its key themes, and suggest ways in which several of them may be taken forward

Rethinking Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowledge: From personal knowing to imagined institutions

Half a century after Michael Polanyi conceptualised ‘the tacit component’ in personal knowing, management studies has reinvented ‘tacit knowledge’—albeit in ways that squander the advantages of Polanyi’s insights and ignore his faith in ‘spiritual reality’. While tacit knowing challenged the absurdities of sheer objectivity, expressed in a ‘perfect language’, it fused rational knowing, based on personal experience, with mystical speculation about an un-experienced ‘external reality’. Faith alone saved Polanyi’s model from solipsism. But Ernst von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism provides scope to rethink personal tacit knowing with regard to ‘other people’ and the intersubjectively viable construction of ‘experiential reality’. By separating tacit knowing from Polanyi’s metaphysical realism and drawing on Benedict Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined communities’, it is possible to conceptualise ‘imagined institutions’ as the tacit dimension of power that shapes human interaction. Whereas Douglass North claimed institutions could be reduced to rules, imagined institutions are known in ways we cannot tell