364:). The aim was to focus attention on the largely cognitive activity of framing experienced situations as meaningful. It is a collaborative process of creating shared awareness and understanding out of different individuals' perspectives and varied interests. Weick described the social and historical context in the late 1960s as being important in this shift from decision-making to sensemaking: "These ideas coincided with a growing societal realization that administrators in Washington were trying to justify committing more resources to a war in Vietnam that the United States was clearly losing. One could not escape the feeling that rationality had a demonstrable retrospective core, that people looked forward with anxiety and put the best face on it after the fact, and that the vaunted prospective skills of McNamara’s “whiz kids” in the Pentagon were a chimera. It was easy to put words to this mess. People create their own fate. Organizations enact their own environments. The point seemed obvious."
436:). In a joint/coalition military environment, sensemaking is complicated by numerous technical, social, organizational, cultural, and operational factors. A central hypothesis of NCO is that the quality of shared sensemaking and collaboration will be better in a "robustly networked" force than in a platform-centric force, empowering people to make better decisions. According to NCO theory, there is a mutually-reinforcing relationship among and between individual sensemaking, shared sensemaking, and collaboration.
62:
individual, a social process or a process that occurs as part of discussion; whether it is an ongoing daily process or only occurs in response to rare events; and whether sensemaking describes past events or considers the future. Sensemaking further refers not only to a process, be it mental or social, that occurs in organizations but also a broader perspective on what organization is and what it means for people to be organized. Overall five distinct schools of sensemaking/sense-making have been identified.
112:
416:). The categories of sensemaking included: constituent-minded, cultural, ecological, environmental, future-oriented, intercultural, interpersonal, market, political, prosocial, prospective, and resourceful. The sensemaking-related concepts included: sensebreaking, sensedemanding, sense-exchanging, sensegiving, sensehiding, and sense specification.
282:). This is a feedback process so even as individuals deduce their identity from the behaviour of others towards them, they also try to influence this behaviour. As Weick argued, "The basic idea of sensemaking is that reality is an ongoing accomplishment that emerges from efforts to create order and make retrospective sense of what occurs" (
443:
organizations at the operational level. At the tactical level, individuals monitor and assess their immediate physical environment in order to predict where different elements will be in the next moment. At the operational level, where the situation is far broader, more complex and more uncertain,
61:
There is no single agreed upon definition of sensemaking, but there is consensus that it is a process that allows people to understand ambiguous, equivocal or confusing issues or events. Disagreements about the meaning of sensemaking exist around whether sensemaking is a mental process within the
324:): "in an equivocal, postmodern world, infused with the politics of interpretation and conflicting interests and inhabited by people with multiple shifting identities, an obsession with accuracy seems fruitless, and not of much practical help, either" (
278:, so Individuals simultaneously shape and react to the environments they face. As they project themselves onto this environment and observe the consequences they learn about their identities and the accuracy of their accounts of the world (
301:). Extracted cues provide points of reference for linking ideas to broader networks of meaning and are 'simple, familiar structures that are seeds from which people develop a larger sense of what may be occurring." (
942:
Rhodes, P., McDonald, R., Campbell, S., Daker‐White, G., & Sanders, C. (2016). Sensemaking and the co‐production of safety: a qualitative study of primary medical care patients.
960:
Stigliani, I., & Ravasi, D. (2012). Organizing thoughts and connecting brains: Material practices and the transition from individual to group-level prospective sensemaking.
987:
Watson, T. J. (1998). Managerial sensemaking and occupational identities in
Britain and Italy: The role of management magazines in the process of discursive construction.
412:
A 2014 review of the literature on sensemaking in organizations identified a dozen different categories of sensemaking and a half-dozen sensemaking related concepts (
360:
The rise of the sensemaking perspective marks a shift of focus in organization studies from how decisions shape organizations to how meaning drives organizing (
49:
in the late 1960's and has affected both theory and practice. Weick intended to encourage a shift away from the traditional focus of organization theorists on
37:
to their collective experiences. It has been defined as "the ongoing retrospective development of plausible images that rationalize what people are doing" (
498:
384:
The sensemaking approach is often used to provide insight into factors that surface as organizations address either uncertain or ambiguous situations (
232:). As people speak, and build narrative accounts, it helps them understand what they think, organize their experiences and control and predict events (
792:
Battles, J. B., Dixon, N. M., Borotkanics, R. J., Rabin-Fastmen, B., & Kaplan, H. S. (2006). Sensemaking of patient safety risks and hazards.
828:
Cohen, M.S., Freeman, J.T. & Wolf S. (1996). Meta-recognition in time stressed decision making: Recognizing, critiquing, and correcting.
900:
Kumar, P. and
Singhal, M. (2012). Reducing change management complexity: aligning change recipient sensemaking to change agent sensegiving.
638:
763:
179:
and identification is central – who people think they are in their context shapes what they enact and how they interpret events (
1070:
439:
In defense applications, sensemaking theorists have primarily focused on how shared awareness and understanding are developed within
679:
332:
Each of these seven aspects interact and intertwine as individuals interpret events. Their interpretations become evident through
859:, U.S. Office of Force Transformation and Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration.
400:, Weick's name has come to be associated with the study of the situated sensemaking that influences the outcomes of disasters (
702:
658:
267:) and the narratives are "both individual and shared...an evolving product of conversations with ourselves and with others" (
720:"Thirty-five years of sensemaking in the business & management research: a bibliometric analysis, review and discussion"
996:
Watson, T. J. (2009). Narrative life story and the management of identity: a case study in autobiographical identity work.
837:
Currie, G., & Brown, A. (2003). A narratological approach to understanding processes of organizing in a UK hospital.
429:
459:). It has been used as a conceptual framework for identifying and detecting high risk patient situations. For example,
882:
Isabella, L. A. (1990). Evolving interpretations as change unfolds: How managers construe key organisational events.
155:
20:
137:
951:
Salancick, G., & Pfeffer, J. 1978. A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design.
122:
933:
Pratt, M.G. (2000). The good, the bad, and the ambivalent: Managing identification among Amway distributors.
19:
This article is about sensemaking in organizations. For sensemaking in information and computer science, see
293:
from the context to help them decide on what information is relevant and what explanations are acceptable (
542:
533: – Process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization
448:
and capabilities, as well as anticipate the (often unintended) effects of own-force actions on a complex
205:
provides the opportunity for sensemaking: the point of retrospection in time affects what people notice (
978:
Watson, T. J. (1995). Rhetoric, discourse and argument in organizational sensemaking: A reflexive tale.
425:
372:
Sensemaking scholars are less interested in the intricacies of planning than in the details of action (
71:
444:
and evolves over hours and days, the organization must collectively make sense of enemy dispositions,
1060:
53:
and towards the processes that constitute the meaning of the decisions that are enacted in behavior.
1041:
Weick, K., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking.
133:
810:
Brown, A. D., Stacey, P., & Nandhakumar, J. (2007). Making sense of sensemaking narratives.
547:
341:
42:
924:& Christianson, M. (2014). Sensemaking in organizations: taking stock and moving forward.
550: – State of balance among a set of beliefs, arrived at by considering general principles
524:
396:), including deep uncertainty. Beginning in the 1980s with an influential re-analysis of the
650:
530:
209:), thus attention and interruptions to that attention are highly relevant to the process (
8:
1023:
Weick, K. (1993). The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster.
515:
480:
440:
1065:
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463:
examined sensemaking and the co-production of safety of primary medical care patients.
864:
Gephart, R. P. (1993). The textual approach: Risk and blame in disaster sensemaking.
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336: – written and spoken – which convey the sense they have made of events (
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as an activity. It was especially the second edition, published ten years later (
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486:
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263:). However, the audience for sensemaking includes the speakers themselves (
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activity in that plausible stories are preserved, retained or shared (
553:
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34:
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Dunford, R., & Jones, D. (2000). Narrative in strategic change.
294:
140:. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.
16:
Process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences
969:
Thurlow, A., & Mills, J. (2009). Change, talk and sensemaking.
959:
801:
Brown, A. D. (2005). Making sense of the collapse of
Barings Bank.
349:
483: – Inference seeking the simplest and most likely explanation
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Debating organization: point-counterpoint in organisation studies
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Sensemaking is central to the conceptual framework for military
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Sensemaking has been studied in the patient safety literature (
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90:, shifting the focus from organizations as entities to organiz
912:(2005). The social processes of organizational sense making.
899:
578:
Brown, Andrew D.; Colville, Ian; Pye, Annie (February 2015).
245:
244:) and reduce complexity in the context of change management (
98:) that established Weick's approach in organization studies.
1014:
Weick, K. (1988). Enacted sensemaking in crisis situations.
783:
Abolafia, M. (2010). Narrative construction as sensemaking.
857:
Network
Centric Operations Conceptual Framework Version 2.0
819:
Bruner, J. (1991). The narrative construction of reality.
220:
the environments they face in dialogues and narratives (
86:). In 1969, Karl Weick played on this title in his book
764:"The empty office: what we lose when we work from home"
355:
718:
Eckstein, G.; Shrestha, A.; Russo, F. (August 2024).
717:
580:"Making Sense of Sensemaking in Organization Studies"
379:
65:
895:. New York: Wiley. Second edition published in 1978.
520:
Pages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
495: – Diagram showing relationships among concepts
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693:Westwood, Robert Ian; Clegg, Stewart, eds. (2003).
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168:Weick identified seven properties of sensemaking (
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697:. Malden, Mass. Berlin: Blackwell. p. 186.
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971:Journal of Organizational Change Management
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556: – Study of signs and sign processes
156:Learn how and when to remove this message
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893:The Social Psychology of Organizations
299:Brown, Stacey, & Nandhakumar, 2007
80:The Social Psychology of Organizations
651:10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.78
527: – American academic (born 1950)
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891:Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1966).
855:Garstka, J. and Alberts, D. (2004).
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312:in accounts of events and contexts (
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33:is the process by which people give
1007:The Social Psychology of Organizing
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430:United States Department of Defense
356:From decision-making to sensemaking
344:and associated material practices (
88:The Social Psychology of Organizing
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877:. Chichester, UK; New York: Wiley.
512: – Method of cluster analysis
380:Uncertainty, ambiguity, and crisis
66:Roots in organizational psychology
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944:Sociology of Health & Illness
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506: – Decision-making framework
41:). The concept was introduced to
21:Sensemaking (information science)
1071:Meaning (philosophy of language)
1025:Administrative Science Quarterly
953:Administrative Science Quarterly
935:Administrative Science Quarterly
414:Maitlis & Christianson, 2014
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904:, Vol. 6, Nos. 3/4, pp.138–155.
637:Kudesia, Ravi S. (2017-04-26),
408:Categories and related concepts
102:Weick's approach to sensemaking
762:Tett, Gillian (June 3, 2021).
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1034:Sensemaking in Organisations
926:Academy of Management Annals
639:"Organizational Sensemaking"
350:Stigliani & Ravasi, 2012
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902:Int. J. Learning and Change
724:Management Review Quarterly
645:, Oxford University Press,
543:Problem structuring methods
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136:the claims made and adding
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873:Huff, A. S. (ed.) (1990).
733:10.1007/s11301-024-00458-5
680:"Sense-Making/Sensemaking"
466:It has been reported that
426:network-centric operations
310:plausibility over accuracy
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875:Mapping Strategic Thought
489: – American academic
434:Garstka and Alberts, 2004
280:Thurlow & Mills, 2009
246:Kumar & Singhal, 2012
207:Dunford & Jones, 2000
193:Thurlow & Mills, 2009
1009:. New York: McGraw-Hill.
794:Health Services Research
597:10.1177/0170840614559259
338:Currie & Brown, 2003
314:Currie & Brown, 2003
269:Currie & Brown, 2003
230:Currie & Brown, 2003
185:Currie & Brown, 2003
368:From planning to action
548:Reflective equilibrium
428:(NCO) espoused by the
342:diagrammatic reasoning
340:), as well as through
43:organizational studies
525:Kathleen M. Sutcliffe
461:Rhodes, et al. (2015)
84:Katz & Kahn, 1966
1043:Organization Science
980:Organization Studies
805:, 58(12): 1579–1605.
785:Organization Studies
584:Organization Studies
531:Knowledge management
457:Battles, et al. 2006
964:, 55(5), 1232–1259.
814:, 61(8): 1035–1062.
796:, 41(4 Pt 2), 1555.
516:Institutional logic
481:Abductive reasoning
441:command and control
189:Weick, et al., 2005
1032:Weick, K. (1995).
1005:Weick, K. (1979).
420:Other applications
394:Weick et al., 2005
374:Weick, 1995, p. 55
121:possibly contains
1045:, 16(4): 409–421.
991:, 35(3): 285–301.
982:, 16(5): 805–821.
973:, 22(5): 459–579.
946:, 38(2), 270–285.
787:, 31(3): 349–367.
704:978-0-631-21693-3
660:978-0-19-023655-7
504:Cynefin framework
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823:, 18: 1–21.
607:10871/16256
493:Concept map
468:remote work
362:Weick, 1993
326:Weick, 1995
318:Brown, 2005
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238:Weick, 1995
181:Pratt, 2000
170:Weick, 1995
96:Weick, 1979
72:Daniel Katz
27:Sensemaking
1055:Categories
666:2024-01-30
562:References
446:intentions
402:Weick 1993
386:Weick 1988
346:Huff, 1990
334:narratives
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1066:Reasoning
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742:2198-1639
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