Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking Weick, Karl E; Sutcliffe, Kathleen M; Obstfeld, David
Organization science (Providence, R.I.),
07/2005, Letnik:
16, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Sensemaking involves turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard into action. In this paper we take the position that the concept ...of sensemaking fills important gaps in organizational theory. The seemingly transient nature of sensemaking belies its central role in the determination of human behavior, whether people are acting in formal organizations or elsewhere. Sensemaking is central because it is the primary site where meanings materialize that inform and constrain identity and action. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the concept of sensemaking. We do so by pinpointing central features of sensemaking, some of which have been explicated but neglected, some of which have been assumed but not made explicit, some of which have changed in significance over time, and some of which have been missing all along or have gone awry. We sense joint enthusiasm to restate sensemaking in ways that make it more future oriented, more action oriented, more macro, more closely tied to organizing, meshed more boldly with identity, more visible, more behaviorally defined, less sedentary and backward looking, more infused with emotion and with issues of sensegiving and persuasion. These key enhancements provide a foundation upon which to build future studies that can strengthen the sensemaking perspective.
High reliability organizations (HROs) Sutcliffe, Kathleen M., PhD
Best practice & research. Clinical anaesthesiology,
06/2011, Letnik:
25, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Academic and professional disciplines, such as organisation and management theory, psychology, sociology and engineering, have, for years, grappled with the multidisciplinary issues of safety and ...accident prevention. However, these ideas are just beginning to enrich research on safety in medicine. This article examines a domain of research on system safety – the High Reliability Organization (HRO) paradigm. HROs operate in hazardous conditions, but have fewer than their fair share of adverse events. HROs are committed to safety at the highest level and adopt a special approach to its pursuit. The attributes and operating dynamics of the best HROs provide a template on which to better understand how safe and reliable performance can be achieved under trying conditions, and this may be useful to researchers and caregivers who seek to improve safety and reliability in health care.
Mindfulness in Organizations: A Cross-Level Review Sutcliffe, Kathleen M; Vogus, Timothy J; Dane, Erik
Annual review of organizational psychology and organizational behavior,
03/2016, Letnik:
3, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In recent years, research on mindfulness has grown rapidly in organizational psychology and organizational behavior. Specifically, two bodies of research have emerged: One focuses on the intrapsychic ...processes of individual mindfulness and the other on the social processes of collective mindfulness. In this review we provide a pioneering, cross-level review of mindfulness in organizations and find that mindfulness is neither mysterious nor mystical, but rather can be reliably and validly measured, linked to an array of individual and organizational outcomes, and induced through meditative and nonmeditative practices and processes at the individual and collective levels. Our analysis of the combined literatures further reveals that although each literature is impressive, there is a significant need for multilevel mindfulness research that simultaneously examines individual and collective mindfulness and broadens its conception of context. This research agenda provides a more robust understanding of the antecedents, processes, and consequences of individual and collective mindfulness as well as more definitive evidence maximizing mindfulness and its benefits in practice.
Mindfulness as depicted by Levinthal and Rerup (2006) involves encoding ambiguous outcomes in ways that influence learning, and encoding stimuli in ways that match context with a repertoire of ...routines. We add to Levinthal and Rerup's conjectures by examining Western and Eastern versions of mindfulness and how they function as a process of knowing an object. In our expanded view, encoding becomes less central. What becomes more central are activities such as altering the codes, differentiating the codes, introspecting the coding process itself, and, most of all, reducing the overall dependence on coding and codes. Consequently, we shift from Levinthal and Rerup's contrast between mindful and less mindful to a contrast between conceptual and less conceptual. When people move away from conceptuality and encoding, outcomes are affected more by the quality than by the quantity of attention.
Building on coherence theory and a pragmatist tradition, we offer an inductive model of top-down theorizing that can be a source of new theories of organization. We explain how an initial hypothesis ...is refined to enhance its potential contribution (consistent with abduction). But, unlike abduction, we explain how inquiry begins—how research tensions are carved out of the flux of the vast literature—and how constant comparison facilitates an abductive process.
To describe how communication failures contribute to many medical mishaps.
In late 1999, a sample of 26 residents stratified by medical specialty, year of residency, and gender was randomly selected ...from a population of 85 residents at a 600-bed U.S. teaching hospital. The study design involved semistructured face-to-face interviews with the residents about their routine work environments and activities, the medical mishaps in which they recently had been involved, and a description of both the individual and organizational contributory factors. The themes reported here emerged from inductive analyses of the data.
Residents reported a total of 70 mishap incidents. Aspects of "communication" and "patient management" were the two most commonly cited contributing factors. Residents described themselves as embedded in a complex network of relationships, playing a pivotal role in patient management vis-à-vis other medical staff and health care providers from within the hospital and from the community. Recurring patterns of communication difficulties occur within these relationships and appear to be associated with the occurrence of medical mishaps.
The occurrence of everyday medical mishaps in this study is associated with faulty communication; but, poor communication is not simply the result of poor transmission or exchange of information. Communication failures are far more complex and relate to hierarchical differences, concerns with upward influence, conflicting roles and role ambiguity, and interpersonal power and conflict. A clearer understanding of these dynamics highlights possibilities for appropriate interventions in medical education and in health care organizations aimed at improving patient safety.
Studies show that implementing huddles in healthcare can improve a variety of outcomes. Yet little is known about the mechanisms through which huddles exert their effects. To help remedy this gap, ...our study objectives were to explore hospital administrator and frontline staff perspectives on the benefits and challenges of implementing a tiered huddle system; and propose a model based on our findings depicting the mediating pathways through which implementing a huddle system may reduce patient harm.
Using qualitative methods, we conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups to obtain a deeper understanding of the huddle system and its outcomes as implemented in an academic tertiary care children's hospital with 539 inpatient beds. We recruited healthcare providers representing all levels using a snowball sampling technique (10 interviews), and emails, flyers, and paper invitations (six focus groups). We transcribed recordings and analysed the data using established techniques.
Five themes emerged and provided the foundational constructs of our model. Specifically we propose that huddle implementation leads to improved efficiencies and quality of information sharing, increased levels of accountability, empowerment, and sense of community, which together create a culture of collaboration and collegiality that increases the staff's quality of collective awareness and enhanced capacity for eliminating patient harm.
While each construct in the proposed model is itself a beneficial outcome of implementing huddles, conceptualising the pathways by which they may work allows us to design ways to evaluate other huddle implementation efforts designed to help reduce failures and eliminate patient harm.
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.
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