Making sense of the sensemaking perspective: Its constituents, limitations, and opportunities for further development

• Published date: 01 February 2015
• Date: 01 February 2015
• Author: Haridimos Tsoukas,Jörgen Sandberg
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.1937

Making sense of the sensemaking perspective: Its

constituents, limitations, and opportunities for

further development

JÖRGEN SANDBERG

1

*AND HARIDIMOS TSOUKAS

2,3

1

University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

2

University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

3

University of Warwick, Coventry, U.K.

Summary Through a wide-ranging critical review of relevant publications, we explore and articulate what constitutes the

sensemaking perspective in organization studies, as well as its range of applications and limitations. More

specifically, we argue that sensemaking in organizations has been seen as consisting of specific episodes,is

triggered by ambiguous events, occurs through specific processes, generates specific outcomes, and is

influenced by several situational factors. Furthermore, we clarify the application range of the sensemaking

perspective and identify, as well as account for, the types and aspects of organizational sensemaking that have

been under-researched. We critically discuss the criticism that the sensemaking perspective has received so

far and selectively expand on it. Finally, we identify the main limitations of the sensemaking perspective,

which, if tackled, will advance it: the neglect of prospective sensemaking, the exclusive focus on disruptive

episodes at the expense of more mundane forms of sensemaking implicated in routine activities, the ambig-

uous status of enactment, the conflation of first-order and second-order sensemaking, and the lack of proper

attention to embodied sensemaking. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: sensemaking; sensemaking perspective; organizing; process

Originally developed by Karl Weick, the sensemaking perspective (hereafter: SP)

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has had an enormous influence

on organization studies (Anderson, 2006; Colville, Brown, & Pye, 2012; Hodgkinson & Healey, 2008; Maitlis &

Christianson, 2014; Miner, 2003; Oswick, Fleming, & Hanlon, 2011; Ramos-Rodriguez & Ruiz-Navarro, 2004):

It has inspired the advancement of the social-constructionist, interpretative, and phenomenological perspectives in

the field (Holt & Sandberg, 2011); has been a driving force in the emergence of process organization studies (Hernes

& Maitlis, 2010; Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas, & Van de Ven, 2013; Tsoukas & Chia, 2002; Weick, 2010); and has

had a noticeable impact on the organizational practice literature (Colville, Waterman, & Weick, 1999; Coutu, 2003;

Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001).

However, despite its huge influence, or perhaps because of its deserved impact, surprisingly little scholarly

critique has been directed to SP (Anderson, 2006; Gioia, 2006; for an exception, see Holt & Cornelissen, 2013).

As Anderson (2006, pp. 1684–1685) observed in his citation analysis of Weick’s (1969, 1979) classic The Social

*Correspondence to: Jörgen Sandberg, UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Australia. E-mail: j.sandberg@business.uq.edu.au

1

Although, as Maitlis and Christianson (2014, p. 62) noted, sensemaking, as a particular approach to the study of organizational phenomena, has

been variously described as a “theory,”a“lens,”or a “framework,”here, we follow Weick (1995) and use his term “sensemaking perspective,”

which is also consistent with several other writers in the field (e.g., Drazin, Glynn, & Kazanjian, 1999;Schultz & Hernes, 2013; Vaara, 2000).

According to Google Scholar, the term “sensemaking perspective”is also most frequently used in the field (“sensemaking perspective”received

88 hits when searched “in the title of the article,”“sensemaking theory”15, “sensemaking framework”13, and “sensemaking lens”3). Strictly

speaking, it may be doubted whether sensemaking is a theory proper, rather than a perspective or a framework. As Weick (1995: xii) noted, “the

sensemaking perspective is a frame of mind about the frames of mind that is best treated as a set of heuristics rather than as an algorithm.”As

Weick (1995)further noted, seeing sensemaking as a perspective also allowsconsiderably latitude inits application (which is probably an important

reason for its huge popularity and, as we will show here, ambiguities and contradictions in the use of its key concepts).

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 27 September 2013

Revised 17 April 2014, Accepted 23 April 2014

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 36,S6–S32 (2015)

Published online 5 June 2014 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.1937

The IRIOP Annual Review

Psychology of Organizing, only a handful of researchers have critically engaged with SP, and even fewer have

sought to further develop it by mapping its uses and pointing out likely omissions, inconsistencies, and confusions

(Costanzo & MacKay, 2009; Engwall & Westling, 2004; Gioia & Mehra, 1996).

Admittedly, some reviews of sensemaking research have been conducted (Holt & Cornelissen, 2013; Maitlis &

Christianson, 2014; Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010; Mills, Thurlow, & Mills, 2010; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld,

2005), informatively clarifying the key concepts used, mapping out the empirical topics researched, summarizing

key findings, and offering suggestions for further research. However, useful as such reviews undoubtedly are, they

have largely refrained from simultaneously: (i) critically evaluating the core concepts of SP and their development in

the context of Weick’s entire opus; (ii) conceptually accounting for the gaps in SP (rather than merely highlighting

them); (iii) exploring the tensions and ambiguities inherent in SP; (iv) identifying and evaluating the assumptions

underlying SP; and (v) offering suggestions for further research that do not merely extend SP as it has currently been

developed but help develop it in a new direction. In this paper, we intend to undertake such a comprehensive critical

assessment of the sensemaking perspective.

We contend that, unless the core concepts,constituents, and assumptions ofSP are systematically reviewed and crit-

ically scrutinized,it is unlikely for SP to be creatively advanced. Although, as we will show later, further development

of SP will certainly come from exploring currently under-researched topics (we willpoint out later in the review what

such topics are);it will also, and perhaps more crucially, come fromconceptually accounting for why certain topics and/

or approaches in sensemaking research have been privileged over others. As we demonstrate later, the cognitivist and,

later, the discursive slant in mainstream SP, growing out of Weick’s earlier work, have made it difficult for SP but to

adopt a predominantly intellectualist approach to sensemaking (cf. Weick, 2012, p. 146), thus privileging cognition

and language, at the expense of other related topics, such as the body, perception, and emotion. Although it is useful

to point out the importanceof integrating such underexploredtopics in SP, as Maitlis and Sonenshein(2010) and Maitlis

and Christianson(2014) did, such integrationwill not be coherently achieved,unless (i) we understand why thesetopics

have been neglected in the first place and (ii) revisit the ont o-epistemological underpi nnings of SP, so that such topics

are not seen as mere supplements to sensemaking but as coherently integrated into it.

In other words, underexplored topics in sensemaking research are not merely “under-researched”(in a statistical

sense of the term) but represent also conceptual challenges. To accommodate such challenges, we need to re-work

SP by scrutinizing its core concepts, constituents, and assumptions. This is what we aim to do in this paper. More

specifically, the aims of this review paper are to identify and critically evaluate the major constituents of SP, that

is, the components and assumptions that underlie it. Such an examination will provide a sharper articulation of what

SP stands for, its contributions, and its limitations. Furthermore, it will point to how SP can be further advanced and

how it can extend its application range.

The structureof the paper is as follows. First, as a background to the actualreview, we explore the intellectualaffinity

between SP and Weick’s earlywork on organizing. Such an exploration is important because it will reveal theintellec-

tual roots of SP. Second, inorder to identify and evaluate the major claims and constituents of SP, we criticallyreview

the sensemakingliterature in three steps, with a particularfocus on investigating: (i) in what areasof organization studies

SP has been most frequently applied, (ii) the major constituents that define SP, and (iii) the critique that has been

directed to SP. Importantly, we critically assess that critique and expand on it. Finally, we discuss ways in which SP

can be further advanced and identify a range of new areas in which it may potentially be applied.

Sensemaking and Organizing: Exploring the Links

As a background to our main review, in this section, we briefly describe the origins and development of SP. We

focus especially on the close links between sensemaking and organizing, as it enables us to clarify how sensemaking

has been framed in Weick’s work, with what implications.

MAKING SENSE OF SENSEMAKING PERSPECTIVE S7

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 36,S6–S32 (2015)

DOI: 10.1002/job