A longitudinal study of the social processes of organizational sensemaking suggests that they unfold in four distinct forms: guided, fragmented, restricted, and minimal. These forms result from the ...degree to which leaders and stakeholders engage in "sensegiving"--attempts to influence others' understandings of an issue. Each of the four forms of organizational sensemaking is associated with a distinct set of process characteristics that capture the dominant pattern of interaction. They also each result in particular outcomes, specifically, the nature of the accounts and actions generated.
When Karl Weick's seminal article, ‘Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations’, was published in 1988, it caused the field to think very differently about how crises unfold in organizations, and how ...emergent crises might be more quickly curtailed. More than 20 years later, we offer insights inspired by the central ideas in that article. Beginning with an exploration of key sensemaking studies in the crisis and change literatures, we reflect on lessons learned about sensemaking in turbulent conditions since Weick (1988), and argue for two core themes that underlie sensemaking in such contexts: shared meanings and emotion. We examine when and how shared meanings and emotion are more and less likely to enable more helpful, or adaptive, sensemaking, and conclude with some suggestions for future research in the sensemaking field.
Despite the rapid growth of research on organizational sensemaking and an acknowledgment of the critical role of language in the sensemaking process, the literature on sensemaking and language is ...fragmented. In particular, there is no systematic review that explains the roles and functions of different linguistic elements in meaning construction. The purpose of this review paper is to develop an integrative theoretical framework that organizes existing research in a way that allows us to better understand how different linguistic processes shape the construction of meaning in sensemaking. First, we explain how a cognitive linguistic perspective elucidates how language provides the cognitive associations, schema, and frames used in sensemaking. Second, we discuss how a focus on the social practices of language use, as in rhetorical, narrative, or interactionist approaches, illuminates the patterns of meaning-making among organizational members in social interaction. Third, we explain how a focus on discourse helps us to understand how discursive structures enable or constrain sensemaking and thereby reproduce or transform systems of thought. This leads us to turn to the differences in these perspectives and suggest how they can be brought together in an integrative theoretical framework. Finally, we discuss the contributions of our framework and propose an agenda for future research focusing on the multifaceted role of language in sensemaking, intertextual and multimodal links in the language of sensemaking, the agentic and structural role of language in sensemaking, episodic and latent aspects of language use in sensemaking, and the role of power in discursive sensemaking.
•Shows a connection in individuals’ self-narratives between their early parental relationships and their working lives following a forced career transition.•Conceptualizes work as a “transitional ...object”: a soothing entity chosen by a child that stands in for an absent parent.•Identifies three types of self-narrative that link a kind of early parental relationship to a kind of post-transition relationship to work: Immersed-Striving, Oppositional-Seeking, and Supportive-Settling.•Theorizes three relational meanings of work – connection, agency, and direction – that link early parental relationship narratives with post-transition working-life narratives.
Narrative approaches to the self suggest that forced career transitions disrupt individuals’ self-narratives and motivate their efforts to re-establish narrative coherence. To craft and rework their self-narratives, people draw on a range of relational resources, including relationships with family, friends, and other important people in their lives. In this paper, I explore the link, within individuals’ self-narratives, between people’s working lives following a forced career transition and their early parental relationships. I investigate this through a longitudinal narrative study of 21 professional dancers forced to change career after an injury, drawing on three waves of interviews over an eight-year period. I identify three types of self-narrative – Immersed-Striving, Oppositional-Seeking, and Supportive-Settling – that link a kind of early parental relationship to a kind of post-injury relationship to work. In each of these narratives, dance acts as a transitional object with a specific relational meaning – connection, agency, or direction – that was enacted in participants’ early relationships, and that they sought to re-establish through their post-injury working lives.
Posttraumatic Growth at Work Maitlis, Sally
Annual review of organizational psychology and organizational behavior,
01/2020, Letnik:
7, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The phenomenon of posttraumatic growth-the transformative positive change that can occur as a result of a struggle with great adversity-has been a focus of interest for psychologists for more than ...two decades. Research on work-related posttraumatic growth has concentrated primarily on contexts that are inherently traumatic, either through direct exposure to trauma, such as in the military, or through secondary trauma, such as in professions that provide care for traumatized others. There is also an emerging literature on posttraumatic growth in "ordinary" work. Organized into seven sections, this review draws on the research on posttraumatic growth in response to both personal and work-based adversity to build a model of work-related posttraumatic growth. Later sections raise challenges in the study of posttraumatic growth at work and identify critical future research directions. Practical implications for organizations and their members are considered throughout the review and are summarized at the end.
Sensemaking and emotion in organizations Maitlis, Sally; Vogus, Timothy J.; Lawrence, Thomas B.
Organizational psychology review,
08/2013, Letnik:
3, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Emotion is a critical but relatively unexplored dimension of sensemaking in organizations. Existing models of sensemaking tend to ignore the role of emotion or portray it as an impediment. To address ...this problem, we explore the role that felt emotion plays in three stages of individual sensemaking in organizations. First, we examine emotion’s role in mediating the relationship between unexpected events and the onset of sensemaking processes. We argue that emotion signals the need for and provides the energy that fuels sensemaking, and that different kinds of emotions are more and less likely to play these roles. Second, we explore the role of emotion in shaping sensemaking processes, focusing on how emotions make sensemaking a more solitary or more interpersonal process, and a more generative or more integrative process. Third, we argue that sensemakers’ felt emotion plays an important role in concluding sensemaking, particularly through its effect on the plausibility of sensemaking accounts.
An important but largely unexplored issue in the study of strategy‐as‐discourse is how emotion affects the discursive processes through which strategy is constructed. To address this question, this ...paper investigates displayed emotions in strategic conversations and explores how the emotional dynamics generated through these displays shape a top management team's strategizing. Using microethnography, we analyse conversations about ten strategic issues raised across seven top management team meetings and identify five different kinds of emotional dynamic, each associated with a different type of strategizing process. The emotional dynamics vary in the sorts of emotions displayed, their sequencing and overall form. The strategizing processes vary in how issues are proposed, discussed, and evaluated, and whether decisions are taken or postponed. We identify team relationship dynamics as a key mechanism linking emotional dynamics and strategizing processes, and issue urgency as another important influence.
This paper describes the development and validation of a multidimensional measure of organizational climate, the Organizational Climate Measure (OCM), based upon Quinn and Rohrbaugh's Competing ...Values model. A sample of 6869 employees across 55 manufacturing organizations completed the questionnaire. The 17 scales contained within the measure had acceptable levels of reliability and were factorially distinct. Concurrent validity was measured by correlating employees' ratings with managers' and interviewers' descriptions of managerial practices and organizational characteristics. Predictive validity was established using measures of productivity and innovation. The OCM also discriminated effectively between organizations, demonstrating good discriminant validity. The measure offers researchers a relatively comprehensive and flexible approach to the assessment of organizational members' experience and promises applied and theoretical benefits.
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