Academic literature on the topic 'Symbols and sensemaking'
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Journal articles on the topic "Symbols and sensemaking"
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Walker, Derek, Paul Steinfort, and Tayyab Maqsood. "Stakeholder voices through rich pictures." International Journal of Managing Projects in Business 7, no. 3 (May 27, 2014): 342–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ijmpb-10-2013-0050.
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate, through an example taken from a recent research project, how rich pictures could be used to more effectively evaluate the delivery of projects. It has as its focus a detailed account of the process of identifying, interviewing and co-developing rich pictures with research respondents. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports on research that undertook a soft systems methodology (SSM) combined with an action learning approach. Findings – The authors provided, one of eight rich pictures developed as part of a PhD study that used rich pictures as part of wider SSM study into understanding project management best practice. Key findings pertaining to this paper are summarised as follows: rich pictures provide a sound and holistic means to capture context, meaning and impact of situations that are often very difficult to document; use of the more use of artistic and cultural flow of colour, diagrams and symbols in the rich pictures presented a significantly improved resolution of such intangible aspects on a physical artefact such as a picture simply because colour, flow, models and symbols can act as suitable proxy to understanding and resolution; and researcher needs to have an open mind and be rigorous in questioning and interacting with interviewees. Research limitations/implications – This was based on one study only and serves to illustrate the value of an approach rather than a template to be generally used. Practical implications – This provides practical “how to” guidance on developing rich pictures within a SSM research approach. Social implications – The paper illustrates how to portray participants in a particularly sensitive case resulting from a natural disaster. This approach may help people to better express their experiences and to give them a clearer voice in telling their story. Originality/value – The major new contribution that the paper stress this paper makes is one of not only demonstrating that rich picture development is a powerful sensemaking tool but the paper also illustrates how it can be implemented and the authors demonstrated how it allows stakeholders to have a strong and influential voice in project conception and delivery. In reflecting on the use of this tool the paper suggests that it can be effectively applied or adapted for use in a range of disaster recovery situations and even wider in the resolution of purposeful programme development for all range of challenging projects.
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Shang, Yufan, Jun Xu, Fuli Li, Xinyu Zhao, and Haiyun Li. "How Leaders Generate Meanings For Monetary Rewards." Journal of Applied Business Research (JABR) 34, no. 2 (February 28, 2018): 405–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.19030/jabr.v34i2.10140.
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Scant research has focused on how to increase the value of monetary rewards when they are delivered by leaders to employees. Drawing upon the perspectives of sensegiving and sensemaking, this study explores how leaders generate meanings of monetary rewards perceived by employee recipients in organizational settings. Using a qualitative method design and analyzing qualitative data from 291 incidents, we found that in the distribution process of monetary rewards, sensemaking of employees included strong and weak instrumental meanings as well as symbolic meanings. The results show that leaders adopted a set of sensegiving strategies in distributing monetary rewards including emphasizing money gain/loss and utility, providing feedback, valuing employees, orienting toward the future, guiding values, and publicizing. In the presence of leader’s sensegiving, employee recipients endorsed more positive symbolic meanings of monetary rewards (i.e., recognition and respect). Our research offers a richer view of the role of leader’s sensegiving in making monetary rewards gain more value through employees’ sensemaking, and enriches understanding of monetary rewards, leadership, sensegiving and sensemaking.
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Stevens, John. "Design as communication in microstrategy: Strategic sensemaking and sensegiving mediated through designed artifacts." Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing 27, no. 2 (April 18, 2013): 133–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0890060413000036.
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AbstractThis paper relates key concepts of strategic cognition in microstrategy to design practice. It considers the potential roles of designers' output in strategic sensemaking and sensegiving. Designed artifacts play well-known roles as communication media; sketches, renderings, models, and prototypes are created to explore and test possibilities and to communicate these options within and outside the design team. This article draws on design and strategy literature to propose that designed artifacts can and do play a role as symbolic communication resources in sensemaking and sensegiving activities that impact strategic decision making and change. Extracts from interviews with three designers serve as illustrative examples. This article is a call for further empirical exploration of such a complex subject.
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Lebiere, Christian, Peter Pirolli, Robert Thomson, Jaehyon Paik, Matthew Rutledge-Taylor, James Staszewski, and John R. Anderson. "A Functional Model of Sensemaking in a Neurocognitive Architecture." Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience 2013 (2013): 1–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/921695.
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Sensemaking is the active process of constructing a meaningful representation (i.e., making sense) of some complex aspect of the world. In relation to intelligence analysis, sensemaking is the act of finding and interpreting relevant facts amongst the sea of incoming reports, images, and intelligence. We present a cognitive model of core information-foraging and hypothesis-updating sensemaking processes applied to complex spatial probability estimation and decision-making tasks. While the model was developed in a hybrid symbolic-statistical cognitive architecture, its correspondence to neural frameworks in terms of both structure and mechanisms provided a direct bridge between rational and neural levels of description. Compared against data from two participant groups, the model correctly predicted both the presence and degree of four biases: confirmation, anchoring and adjustment, representativeness, and probability matching. It also favorably predicted human performance in generating probability distributions across categories, assigning resources based on these distributions, and selecting relevant features given a prior probability distribution. This model provides a constrained theoretical framework describing cognitive biases as arising from three interacting factors: the structure of the task environment, the mechanisms and limitations of the cognitive architecture, and the use of strategies to adapt to the dual constraints of cognition and the environment.
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Gioia, Dennis A., James B. Thomas, Shawn M. Clark, and Kumar Chittipeddi. "Symbolism and Strategic Change in Academia: The Dynamics of Sensemaking and Influence." Organization Science 5, no. 3 (August 1994): 363–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.5.3.363.
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Grishakova, Marina, and Siim Sorokin. "Notes on narrative, cognition, and cultural evolution." Sign Systems Studies 44, no. 4 (December 31, 2016): 542–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/sss.2016.44.4.04.
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Drawing on non-Darwinian cultural-evolutionary approaches, the paper develops a broad, non-representational perspective on narrative, necessary to account for the narrative “ubiquity” hypothesis. It considers narrativity as a feature of intelligent behaviour and as a formative principle of symbolic representation (“narrative proclivity”). The narrative representation retains a relationship with the “primary” pre-symbolic narrativity of the basic orientational-interpretive (semiotic) behaviour affected by perceptually salient objects and “fits” in natural environments. The paper distinguishes between implicit narrativity (as the basic form of perceptual-cognitive mapping) of intelligent behaviour or non-narrative media, and the “narrative” as a symbolic representation. Human perceptual-attentional routines are enhanced by symbolic representations: due to its attention-monitoring and information-gathering function, narrative serves as a cognitive-exploratory tool facilitating cultural dynamics. The rise of new media and mass communication on the Web has thrown the ability of narrative to shape the public sphere through the ongoing process of negotiated sensemaking and interpretation in a particularly sharp relief.
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Martin-Rios, Carlos. "Sensemaking of organizational innovation and change in public research organizations." International Journal of Organizational Analysis 24, no. 3 (July 11, 2016): 516–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ijoa-07-2014-0784.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine through a sensemaking lens the transforming nature of scientists’ work role in public research organizations (PROs), resulting from organizational innovations in the form of collaborative culture. Design/methodology/approach Based on a symbolic-functionalist theory of work role transition, the paper uses interview data from a case study to explore scientists’ sensemaking of work role change. Findings Work role transition and identity processes among scientists in traditional PROs reveal tensions regarding organizational restructuring to the extent that organizational innovations are changing scientific work conflict with organizational norms, procedures and reward structures in hierarchical, bureaucratic PROs. Research limitations/implications As the paper is based on only one case study, further research should be carried out on the difficulties involved in transforming the nature of the scientific work role and the way scientists recognize, contradict and make sense of changes. Originality/value The novelty of this paper is in the un-discussed role of organizational innovations in enabling new work roles for scientists in public research centers and how scientists make sense of and react to these innovations. Therefore, this paper could be beneficial for PROs facing pressure to restructure.
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Manolchev, Constantine. "Sensemaking as ‘Self’-defence: Investigating spaces of resistance in precarious work." Competition & Change 24, no. 2 (January 24, 2019): 154–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1024529418822920.
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The plight of workers inhabiting the lowest strata of the occupational hierarchy, their scope for progressive resistance and collectivization is a topic of lasting significance, addressed in a number of seminal studies. Since the advent of neoliberalism and rise of precarious, that is, insecure, atypical, zero-hour, short-term and temporary employment, the matter has, once again captured public attention and led to debates between labour market theorists and policy makers. Researchers have, so far, considered the complex neoliberal causes behind the phenomenon of precarious work and mapped in detail the antagonistic relationship between labour and capital in a variety of organizational contexts. However, there is an ongoing need to study worker resistance at the micro and symbolic levels, exhibited not only through mundane, covert and everyday behaviours but through identity work in defending against subjugation of a worker’s ‘Self’. Applying Weick’s framework in 71 in-depth interviews with workers in low-pay and low-skill industries such as hospitality and care, I identify three types of narratives, retrospective, collective and appreciative, through which participants practice sensemaking as ‘Self’-defence. In doing so, I propose that sensemaking narratives enable participants to orient and interpret the atomized terrain of postmodern work, finding both enjoyment and fulfilment. Through this argument, I contribute to the subjectivity debate by showing that ‘soft’ forms of resistance should not be dismissed as harmless substitutes of the real deal but underscore precarious workers’ lasting ability to construct meaningful ‘Selves’ within postmodern working contexts.
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Koon, Adam D. "When Doctors strike: Making Sense of Professional Organizing in Kenya." Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 46, no. 4 (August 1, 2021): 653–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/03616878-8970867.
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Abstract Little is known about how the health professions organize in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This is particularly troubling as health worker strikes in LMICs appear to be growing more frequent and severe. While some research has been conducted on the impact of strikes, little has explored their social etiology. This article draws on theory from organization and management studies to situate strike behavior in a historical process of sensemaking in Kenya. In this way, doctors seek to expand pragmatic, moral, and cognitive forms of legitimacy in response to sociopolitical change. During the first period (1963–2000), the legacy of colonial biomedicine shaped medical professionalism and tensions with a changing state following independence. The next period (2000–2010) was marked by the rise of corporate medicine as an organized form of resistance to state control. The most recent period (2010–2015) saw a new constitution and devolution of health services cause a fractured medical community to strike as a form of symbolic resistance in its quest for legitimacy. In this way, strike behavior is positioned as a form of legitimation among doctors competing over the identity of medicine in Kenya and is complicating the path to universal health coverage.
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Liff, Roy, and Gunnar Wahlström. "Failed crisis communication: the Northern Rock Bank case." Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 31, no. 1 (January 15, 2018): 237–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/aaaj-08-2015-2159.
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Purpose Although granted funding from government agencies, Britain’s Northern Rock (NR) Bank experienced a depositors’ bank run in 2007. The purpose of this paper is to explore bank managers’ and the Triparties’ communications, in their failed attempt to reassure depositors during the crisis. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on content analysis of information given to depositors by bank managers and the Triparties via mass media. The theoretical concepts of rituals and masking were utilized. Findings Results suggest that nonfinancial reporting supersedes financial reporting. Rather than hidden losses, bank regulators’ and politicians’ discussions of emergency funding for NR was the crucial incident signaling “something going on.” Even positive statements by prominent organizational actors may have signaled serious problems that compromised NR’s “business as usual” stance. Practical implications Collective action manifested in a bank run is triggered by reasons other than numbers in financial reporting. The research results indicate a need to consider how regulatory authorities act during financial crises. Originality/value Previous studies concluded that sensegivers must be consistent in framing communication to sensemakers. Sensemaking requires that the crisis communication is also consistent in the sensemakers’ framing. Because it is difficult for sensegivers to reshape the collective sensemakers’ frame, successful crisis communication requires that sensegivers change their communication to match the sensemakers’ frame, including symbolic actions. Additionally, a bank run is characterized first by loss of trust in financial reporting; second, in nonfinancial reporting; and, finally, in the sensegiving actor: a domino effect.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Symbols and sensemaking"
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Forsberg, Pauline, and Amanda Vogiatzi. "En resa utan slutdestination : En fallstudie om chefers användning av symboler och meningsskapande vid kontinuerlig organisationsförändring." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för organisation och entreprenörskap (OE), 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-56437.
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Inledning: Kontinuerlig organisationsförändring förekommer allt oftare i dagens organisationer, och kännetecknas av att förändringsprocessen inte har någon början ellerslut. I samband med att kontinuerlig organisationsförändring genomförs i organisationer kan det bidra till att anställda upplever en förvirrande och mångtydig känsla, eftersom förändring sker hela tiden. I dessa situationer är meningsskapande en avgörande faktor, vilken är en central aspekt inom symboliskt ledarskap. Studien undersöker därför symboliskt ledarskap i detta sammanhang, och fokuserar främst på hur chefer använder symboler och meningsskapande för att dämpa den tvetydighet som uppkommer. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att utveckla en förståelse för på vilket sätt chefer använder symboler och meningsskapande vid kontinuerlig organisationsförändring. Metod: Genom att använda oss av en kvalitativ forskningsmetod har vi genomfört enfallstudie med en abduktiv ansats. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer och från inspiration av en etnografisk studie. För att skapa en utvecklad förståelse för hur cheferna arbetar i den dagliga verksamheten är studien hermeneutisk. Slutsats: Studien har kommit fram till att symboler används av cheferna för att skapa mening men även för att förmedla samhörighet, trygghet och en gemensam syn. Symbolerna används genom kommunikation, synlighet och genom att arrangera diverse tillställningar. Meningsskapande blir viktigt eftersom det får anställda att känna mening inför de arbetsuppgifter som ska utföras.Introduction: Continuous organizational change is increasing in today's organizations, and is characterized by change having no beginning nor end. In liaison with the ongoing organizational change being implemented in organizations it can cause employees feeling confused and ambiguous, since change occurs all the time. In these situations, sensemaking constitute an essential factor, which is a key aspect of symbolic leadership. The study therefore examines symbolic leadership in this context, and focuses on how managers use symbols and sensemaking to reduce the ambiguity that arises. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to develop an understanding of in what way leaders practice symbols and sensemaking during continuous organizational change Method: By using a qualitative research method, we conducted a case study with an abductive approach. The empirical material was collected through semi-structured interviews and from the inspiration of an ethnographic study. In order to create a developed understanding of how managers are working in the daily activities, the study use a hermeneutic approach. Conclusion: The findings of the study has concluded that symbols are utilized by managers in order to create meaning, but also to transmit togetherness, security and a mutual vision. The symbols are utilized through communication, visibility and by organizing various events. Sensemaking is thus important since it mediates how employees can feel meaningfulness for the tasks to be executed.
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Tosterud, Erik, and Julia Kalthoff. "Strategi genom sensemaking : En studie om hur ledare använder sensemaking i sitt strategiarbete." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-298353.
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Att leda handlar om att ge riktning och vara den som kopplar samman organisationen och strategin. Att forma organisationskultur är ett sätt att göra detta. I ledarskapsperspektivet Symbolic management beskriver Alvesson hur materiella symboler, handlingar, och verbala symboler manifesterar kulturen och påverkar medarbetarnas uppfattning om mening. Här uppmuntras ledare att se på sig själva som människor som hjälper till att skapa och forma denna mening och därigenom vägleda organisationens aktiviteter och handlande. Sensemaking är ett begrepp som används för att studera hur organisationer skapar mening. Sensemakingaktiviteter är de konkreta aktiviteter som ledare använder för att skapa mening. Forskning inom strategi har börjat gå ifrån att se strategi som något en organisation har, till snarare något en organisation gör. Detta perspektiv kallas ‘Strategy as practice’. Det fokuserar på vad som praktiskt görs för att föra en organisation mot dess långsiktiga riktning; dess strategi. Genom studiens ’Strategi i praktiken’-perspektiv, kommer mikronivån av de praktiska aktiviteter ledarskap utmärks av att studeras för att se vad ledarna faktiskt gör för att leda sin organisation i strategisk riktning. För att undersöka detta görs en kvalitativ och explorativ studie i form av intervjuer med elva ledare från olika organisationer. Studien visar att ledare använder sensemakingaktiviteter för att leda sin organisation. Det konstateras att det finns många likheter och skillnader mellan ledarnas användning av sensemakingaktiviteter, och att en variabel som påverkar mycket är organisationens storlek. Vidare presenterar studien en ny underkategorisering av Alvessons organisatoriska symboler. För materiella symboler är de plats och lokaler samt föremål. För handlingar är de personlig kontakt, dramatiska ritualer, digitala aktiviteter, samt icke-handlingar. För verbala symboler är de formella uttryck, metaforer och berättelser, och visionen som symbol. Vidare argumenterar studien för att en gemensam nämnare bakom samtliga ledares sensemakingaktiviteter är visionen; vad organisationen vill uppnå. Strategi är inte tillräckligt entusiasmerande, och därför använder ledarna i större utsträckning sin vision, berättelsen om vad man vill uppnå och varför, för att leda och engagera medarbetarna att arbeta i enlighet med deras strategi. Denna upptäckt utmynnas i en ny syn på hur ledare använder sensemakingaktiviteter; ’Vision as Practice’.
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Abildgaard, Nielsen Søren, and Florian Köhler. "Exploring Organizational Identity as a Potential Process : A multiple case study on employee-oriented companies." Thesis, Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, Företagsekonomi, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-39951.
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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore organizational identity as a potential process. Design/Methodology/Approach: We applied a qualitative method and followed an inductive approach that was applied to a multiple-in-depth-case study for which we conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 members of two organizations, the Swedish consulting company REACH and the Swiss digital agency WONDROUS. Following a narrative approach, both for structuring the empirical findings, as well as conducting the analysis, we used over 16 hours of interviews to create company narratives and subsequently analyzed them in multiple steps in the fashion of a narrative analysis. Findings: Based on our empirical findings and the empirical analysis, we developed a conceptualization, the Flux Model. We contribute to the existing body of literature by proposing that the Flux Model visualizes the dynamics of how organizational members socially construct organizational identity on the premise of their own (self-)perceptions. By presenting the different parts of the model and their multiple layers, the process of how organizational identity is continuously becoming is illustrated. Research Limitations/Implications: The scope of our study is restricted to the two case companies in question. If our abstractions from the cases in form of the Flux Model help to better understand the process of organizing, managers become liberated to make deliberate choices about their organizations’ identities. For research this means an even tighter connection to individual psychology and a deepening of the perspective that organizational identity can not only be viewed as something companies have. Originality/Value: Out of skepticism towards the usefulness of viewing organizational identity as a process, we applied a symbolic interpretivist perspective and allowed for the possibility that we might not find a process after all. The primary value of this study we believe to be found in the extensive presentation of empirical data, together with our narrative analysis and our conceptual contribution (the Flux Model).
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Dandelot, Damien. "La structure de la réalité sociale abstraite inhérente aux sociétés prescrites : La quiddité des liens et des structures de coopérations intra-organisationnels issus de l’activité réelle, dans le cas du processus de co-construction de sens découlant des décisions stratégiques." Thesis, Paris, CNAM, 2012. http://www.theses.fr/2012CNAM0833/document.
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Partant de l’idée que des filiales d’une entreprise sont en mesure de remettre en cause les décisions de la direction générale (maison-mère), l’approche holistique développée dans ce travail part du principe qu’une organisation peut être un « être », laissant entendre ainsi que les informations dont elle dispose seraient extérieures aux individus qui la composent. Ce qui conduit à s'interroger s’il est concevable d’ignorer l’individu dans une telle relation de domination. Cette thèse propose justement un modèle autour de résultats qui montrent la difficile exclusion de l’individu dans un contexte méta-organisationnel (dans lequel les membres seraient des organisations et non des individus). Dans cette veine, ce sont les dynamiques humaines de l’organisation qui sont au cœur de ce travail : il existe par et au travers de l’individu une dynamique issue de l’activité réelle qui permet de faire vivre l’organisation par elle-même, mais également qui permet au prescrit de cette dernière d’évoluer. Bien que les résultats obtenus montrent que l’organisation n’est pas un objet mort et sans force et qu’elle a bien la possibilité de vivre par elle-même, ce sont les individus qui — par leurs engagements conditionnels — permettent cette existence propre de l’organisation comme structure intra-consciente qui impose des droits et des obligations. Dans cette perspective, le modèle proposé vise à dessiner les structures de la réalité sociale abstraite (dénommé dans la recherche menée, l’Entité X) en montrant les forces et les contraintes organisationnelles qui pèsent sur les individus-membres, tout en relevant les capacités humaines à sortir des structures prescrites par la co-construction de liens et de structures transversales de coopérations issus de l’activité réelleBased on the idea that the subsidiaries of a company are able to call into question the decisions of senior management (the parent company), the holistic approach developed in this study assumes that an organization can be a “being”, implying thereby that the information in its possession is external to the individuals who compose it. This raises the question of whether it is conceivable to ignore the individual in such a relationship of domination. This thesis proposes a model based on the results which show the difficult exclusion of the individual in a meta-organizational context (in which members would be organizations and not individuals). Along these same lines, the organization’s human dynamics are at the heart of this research: there exists by and through the individual a dynamic resulting from actual activity that allows the organization to live by itself, while also allowing prescribe to evolve. Although the results show that the organization is not a dead and strengthless object, and it has the opportunity to live by itself, it is the individuals who —through their conditional commitments— allow the separate existence of an organizational structure’s intra-consciousness, which imposes rights and obligations. In this perspective, the proposed model aims to draw the structures of abstract social reality (referred as Entity X in this study) by showing the strengths and organizational constraints that weigh on individual members, while raising the human capacity to emerge from the structures prescribed by the sensemaking of links and transversal structures for cooperation that originate from the actual activity
Book chapters on the topic "Symbols and sensemaking"
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Andriola, Viviana, Wike Been, Marco Cremaschi, Viviana Fini, Anastassios Matsopoulos, Joanie Willet, and Sergio Salvatore. "Policies and Sensemaking." In Symbolic Universes in Time of (Post)Crisis, 271–91. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19497-0_10.
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Cremaschi, Marco, Carlotta Fioretti, Terri Mannarini, and Sergio Salvatore. "Culture as Sensemaking." In Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action, 55–82. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71967-8_3.
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Williams, Tom. "Adventure playgrounds and me: bringing the past into the auto-ethnographic present." In Practice-based Research in Children's Play. Policy Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447330035.003.0004.
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This is a personal study aimed at exploring why adventure playgrounds (APGs) have had such a fascination for the author for over 40 years. It weaves a critical and narrative ethnography with an affect-based auto-ethnography, resulting in various voices (author as researcher, narrator, participant) and approaches. The research involved an immersion in the author’s own history with APGs aided by a process of mutual recollection via email with five participants who shared that history; (re)visiting APGs in London, Copenhagen and Berlin; and a process of observation and reflection. This performative and auto-ethnographical approach aims to contribute something new to articulating the significance of APGs. Four themes emerged from this iterative and intuitive process: the mindful audacity of APGs, APGs as places of drama and unspoken narratives, APGs as spaces that are alive in many ways, and the hope that arises from this process of sensemaking. The interplay between these themes offers a socio-cultural view of APGs as symbolic places of heterodoxic and cultural possibility, at odds with a developmental and progressive view of children’s lives.