Sensemaking in Organizations

Citation

Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations (Foundations for Organizational Science). Sage Publications.

Chapter Summary

The book has eight chapters and about 248 pages in the SAGE edition. It belongs to the Foundations for Organizational Science series and was a finalist for the Academy of Management's George Terry Award. The publisher describes its starting point as the dominance of decision making and strategic rationality in the teaching of organization theory and in organizational research. Weick argues that the rational model overlooks the complexity and ambiguity of real organizations and their environments, and he proposes "sensemaking" as the alternative: the creation of reality as an ongoing accomplishment, which takes form when people make retrospective sense of the situations in which they find themselves. The publisher lists the concept, its uniqueness, its historical roots, its varieties and occasions, its general properties and the future of sensemaking research and practice among the topics covered.

Chapter 1: The Nature of Sensemaking

The opening chapter introduces the concept and what makes sensemaking distinct. It sets the vocabulary for the rest of the book.

Chapter 2: Seven Properties of Sensemaking

The second chapter sets out seven general properties of sensemaking. Later chapters can be read against this list.

Chapter 3: Sensemaking in Organizations

This chapter brings the concept into organizational settings, the point at which the book moves from the general idea to organizations as the setting.

Chapter 4: Occasions for Sensemaking

Chapter 4 asks when sensemaking is called for, in line with the publisher's reference to the "varieties and occasions" of sensemaking.

Chapter 5: The Substance of Sensemaking

This chapter addresses the substance of sensemaking, what it is made of, and prepares the two chapters on processes that follow.

Chapter 6: Belief-Driven Processes of Sensemaking

Chapter 6 covers the processes of sensemaking that are driven by beliefs.

Chapter 7: Action-Driven Processes of Sensemaking

Chapter 7 is its counterpart, covering the processes that are driven by action. Read together, Chapters 6 and 7 present two routes by which sense gets made.

Chapter 8: The Future of Sensemaking

The final chapter looks ahead to sensemaking research and practice.

Key Concepts

• Sensemaking: the creation of reality as an ongoing accomplishment that takes form when people make retrospective sense of the situations in which they find themselves (the publisher's wording of Weick's idea).
• Strategic rationality and decision making: the dominant frame that the book argues against.
• Seven properties of sensemaking: the general properties set out in Chapter 2.
• Occasions for sensemaking: the circumstances that call for sense to be made (Chapter 4).
• Belief-driven and action-driven processes: the two families of process in Chapters 6 and 7.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A clearly organized framework. The eight chapters move from the nature of sensemaking and its properties to organizational settings, occasions, substance, two kinds of process, and the future, so the book can be read as one developing argument.
• A well-placed challenge to the rational model. The publisher presents the book as a response to decision making and strategic rationality that stresses the ambiguity of real organizations. This gives students a counterweight to textbooks that start from rational choice.
• Scholarly recognition. The book was a finalist for the George Terry Award, and the publisher quotes Bob Sutton (Stanford) calling it the clearest, most complete and interesting statement of sensemaking in organizations, and Kathleen Sutcliffe (Minnesota) praising how it constructs the framework so that the general scholar can follow it.
• Compact. At about 248 pages it is much shorter than a full textbook while remaining a book-length treatment.

Limitations

• Aimed at scholars. The publisher describes it as a volume that students, scholars and professors of organization and management studies must have. Readers who want a short, applied guide to managing may find it demanding, and the chapter titles show a conceptual rather than a procedural book.
• Date. It was published in 1995; other work on sensemaking, including the collection of Weick's articles in the course list, extends the ideas.
• Chapter titles are abstract. Several chapters (such as The Substance of Sensemaking) are named at a general level, so it helps to read with the Chapter 2 properties in hand.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within the organizational psychology list, this is the cognitive and interpretive counterpart to the more behavioural textbooks. Spector's Industrial and Organisational Psychology, the OpenStax Organizational Behavior and Furnham's The Psychology of Behaviour at Work describe the main topics of the field, and Chmiel, Fraccaroli and Sverke's text is an introductory collection built around practical questions. Haslam's Psychology in Organisations gives a social-identity theory of organizational behaviour; Weick gives a sense-making one, and the two can be read for contrasting explanations of the same workplace situations.

Weick's later collection Making Sense of the Organization gathers influential articles on the same theme and works as a follow-up. Morgan's Images of Organisation shares Weick's interest in how interpretations shape organizations, through metaphor, and Schein's Organizational Culture and Leadership approaches meaning and shared assumptions through culture.

How to Use This Book

The book suits advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in organizational psychology, management and organization studies. It helps to have taken an introductory course on organizations first.

A practical plan:

• Read Chapters 1 and 2 first, as they supply the concept and the framework.
• Take Chapter 3 next to see the move to organizations, then Chapters 4 and 5 for occasions and substance.
• Read Chapters 6 and 7 as a pair, comparing belief-driven and action-driven processes.
• Finish with Chapter 8 for research and practice directions.
• Test the framework on a real event from your own work or study, writing down how people made sense of it, and compare with how a standard textbook would explain it as a decision.