Acting Intuition into Sense: How Film Crews Make Sense with Embodied Ways of Knowing

• Date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Nora Meziani,Laure Cabantous
• Published date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12619

© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Management Studies published by Society for the Advancement of Management

Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Acting Intuition into Sense: How Film Crews Make

Sense with Embodied Ways of Knowing

Nora Meziania and Laure Cabantousb

a University of Liverpool Management School; b Cass Business School, City, University of London

ABSTRACT This study contributes to a holistic understanding of sensemaking by going beyond

the mind–body dualism. To do so, we focus analytically on a phenomenon that operates at the

nexus of mind and body: intuition. By observing four film crews, we unpack how people act

their intuition into sense – that is, how they transform, through action, an initial sense (intuition)

that is tacit, intimate, and complex into one that is publicly displayed, simpler, and ordered (i.e.,

a developed sense). Our model identifies two sensemaking trajectories, each of which involves

several bodily actions (e.g., displaying feelings, working hands-on, speaking assertively). These

actions enable intuition to express a facet of itself and acquire new properties. This study makes

three important contributions. First, it develops the holistic-relational character of sensemaking

by locating it in the relations among multiple loci (cognition, language, body, and materiality)

rather than in each one disjunctively. Second, it theorizes embodied sensemaking as a trans-

formative process entailing a rich repertoire of bodily actions. Third, it extends sensemaking

research by attending to the physicality and materiality of language in embodied sensemaking.

Keywords: body, embodied knowledge, filmmaking, intuition, sensemaking

INTRODUCTION

Ever since Weick introduced the concept of sensemaking in The Social Psychology of

Organizing (1979), the literature has been marked by a form of logocentrism, viewing

sensemaking as ‘a rational, intellectual process’ (Cunliffe and Coupland, 2012, p. 65;

Introna, 2018). Recently, some scholars have argued that such a focus eclipses other ways

in which meanings are constructed (e.g., through affect and feelings) and risks impov-

erished theorizing about how sensemaking takes place (Maitlis and Sonenshein, 2010;

Journal of Man agement Studi es 57:7 November 2020

doi:10. 1111/jo ms.1 2619

Address for reprints: Nora Meziani, University of Liverpool Management School, Chatham St, Liverpool L69

7ZH, UK (nora.meziani@liverpool.ac.uk).

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution License, which

permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Acting Intuition into Sense 1385

© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Management Studies published by Society for the Advancement of Management

Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Maitlis et al., 2013). In particular, by perpetuating mind–body dualism, and neglect-

ing the deep roots of mind in corporeal experience (Varela et al., 1991), it prevents us

from developing a more holistic and relational account of sensemaking (Sandberg and

Tsoukas, 2015).

So far, the few scholars who have taken a more holistic view of sensemaking have

focused on the body. Their work provides rich descriptions of how the feeling body is im-

plicated in sensemaking – for instance, by investigating how people make sense not only

through cognitive information-processing, but also through feelings and bodily senses

(Cunliffe and Coupland, 2012; de Rond et al., 2019; Hindmarsh and Pilnick, 2007;

Yakhlef and Essen, 2013). Accordingly, these works have enriched research by shifting

the locus of sensemaking from the mind to the body.

In this paper, we offer a complementary perspective on holistic sensemaking that

can help overcome unnecessary dualisms (Tsoukas, 2017). Instead of focusing on any

one locus in particular, we focus analytically on a phenomenon that inherently involves

body and mind together: intuition (Hodgkinson et al., 2009; Petitmengin-Peugeot, 1999;

Sadler-Smith, 2016; Varela and Shear, 1999). Intuition is a rapid, non-sequential, and

nonconscious information processing mode that comprises both cognitive and affective

elements, and which results in an affectively charged judgement (Dane and Pratt, 2007;

Sinclair and Ashkanasy, 2005). It provides an initial sense (an unexplainable feeling that

can be confusing; Blackman and Sadler-Smith, 2009; Dane and Pratt, 2007) that re-

quires further sensemaking (Cunliffe and Coupland, 2012). Accordingly, we ask: How do

people act their intuition into sense1? In other words, we study how people turn an initial

sense (intuition) that is tacit, intimate, and complex into one that is publicly displayed,

simpler, and ordered (i.e., developed sense) (Weick et al., 2005, p. 413).

Inspired by a holistic-relational ontology (e.g., Kuhn et al., 2017), we study how film

crews act their intuition into sense when dealing with shooting and editing. Our study

identifies two sensemaking trajectories, and explains how three bodily actions – display-

ing feelings, working hands-on, and speaking assertively – enable intuition to express a

facet of itself (affect, expertise, and confidence, respectively) and acquire new properties

(detectability, solidity, and authority and commitment, respectively).

Our study makes three contributions. First, we develop the holistic-relational char-

acter of sensemaking, by locating sensemaking in the relations between multiple loci

rather than in each of them disjunctively. Second, by exploring how people make sense

with their intuition, we theorize embodied sensemaking as a transformative process that

entails a rich repertoire of bodily actions – i.e., not just a feeling body, but also one that

thinks, speaks, acts, and so on. Third, we extend past research by attending to the physi-

cality and materiality of language in embodied sensemaking.

The paper is organized as follows. We first explain how sensemaking scholarship per-

petuates the mind–body dualism, and how focusing on a phenomenon that involves body

and mind together – intuition – can help go beyond this heritage. We then account for

our methodology, and subsequently show how film workers act their intuition into sense.

Finally, we conclude our paper with a discussion of how our study contributes to sense-

making scholarship and opens new avenues for research.

1386 N. Meziani and L. Cabantous

© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Management Studies published by Society for the Advancement of Management

Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Beyond the Heritage of Mind–Body Dualism in the Sensemaking

Literature

For many years, sensemaking scholars have accepted the duality between mind and body

(de Rond et al., 2019; Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2015). From this metaphysical stance,

mind and body are distinct and separable, and such phenomena as language and prob-

lem-solving are assumed to be located in the mind. This broadly accepted perspective

has led scholars to consider sensemaking primarily as a process that takes place within

the mind, through cognition and language (Cunliffe and Coupland, 2012; Introna, 2018).

Weick’s early studies, for instance, feature sensemaking as an information-processing ac-

tivity located in the mind: people extract cues from the continuous flow of activities or

events into which they are thrown, and match them with mental schemes resulting from

past experiences (Weick, 1988, 1995). These mental schemes, which may include data

that remain nonconscious (Hill and Levenhagen, 1995; Polanyi, 1966), directly influence

how people make sense of environmental cues (Maitlis and Christianson, 2014). The

more varied people’s mental schemes and experiences, the better they can detect relevant

cues in the environment, and so act adequately (Weick, 1988, 1995).

Since the 2000s, this social-cognitivist account of sensemaking has been complemented

by a constructivist-discursive orientation. This stream argues that sensemaking also oc-

curs through ‘language, talk and communication’ (Weick et al., 2005, p. 409). From this

perspective, people organize thoughts and actions, and arrange confusing cues into more

coherent interpretations of what is going on, through narratives such as stories, accounts,

and reports (Boudès and Laroche, 2009; Brown and Humphreys, 2003; Patriotta, 2003;

Taylor and Van Every, 2000; Weick, 2009). Metaphors also play a part, but their power

resides more in their ability to connect cues and frames (Gioia et al., 1994; Hill and

Levenhagen, 1995), to impart order and familiarity to novel situations, and to provide

justifications for actions (Cornelissen, 2012; Cornelissen et al., 2008).

Recently, sensemaking research has been criticized for having a rather cold and ratio-

nalistic view of how humans construct meaning. Weick (2010), for instance, describes his

own analysis of the Bhopal disaster as ‘cool and cognitive’ (p. 537). In response, some

scholars have called for novel theories that approach sensemaking as more embodied

and holistic (Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2015). For these scholars, mind–body dualism pre-

vents us from investigating the role of the body and affect in sensemaking (Cunliffe and

Coupland, 2012; Hindmarsh and Pilnick, 2007; Maitlis et al., 2013), even though these

phenomena are a significant part of organizational life. In this view, the fact that we have

bodies – or rather, that we are bodies, in a more phenomenological ontology (Merleau-

Ponty, 1945) – is consequential for sensemaking. While this perspective remains nascent,

a few important papers have taken up the challenge of developing a more holistic ac-

count of sensemaking. So far, these attempts have primarily consisted in attending to the

(feeling) body as another locus of sensemaking.

In their research on a documentary about the British and Irish Lions rugby tour,

Cunliffe and Coupland (2012) draw a contrast with traditional perspectives that locate

sensemaking in the mind. Relying on a phenomenological ontology, they argue that pro-

fessionals make sense of themselves and their lives through lived and felt bodily sensa-

tions, and sensory knowing. Thus, we do not necessarily understand meanings; instead,