Sensemaking is defined as “a process through which individuals work to understand novel, unexpected, or confusing events”(Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). When organization members face uncertainty and ambiguity in... [ view full abstract ]
Sensemaking is defined as “a process through which individuals work to understand novel, unexpected, or confusing events”(Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). When organization members face uncertainty and ambiguity in organization, they make attempt to have clear understanding of situation by making interpretations about signs in environment. Through this process of sensemaking, they prepare themselves to interact with this new environment. Sensemaking is different from interpretation. Interpretation explains what it means, sensemaking goes beyond this definition and also involves the construction of events they try to understand. The focus of this research is on sensemaking in organization.
This research study focuses that how management of university and faculty make sense of series of university reforms which have been taken in public sector universities of Pakistan in last 10 years. The main focus of study is on Tenure Track System, a performance based compensation introduced in public sector universities to improve research performance of faculty. There are different contexts of organization which create surprise or confusion among organization members. This research focused on planned change interventions and its relationship with sensemaking and sensegiving. People in organizations experience sensemaking when they face unexpected event which violate their expectations. This event challenges their basic assumptions about how they should act. In some instances, sensemaking is effortful activity which challenges inhibiting and regressive cultures and structures of organization. In these circumstances, sense making paves way for growth and change in organization, and this motivates people to give up their current mental models and abreast new mental models.
This research focuses on embedded nature of sensemaking in organization. This means that relationship between sensemaking process and institutional theory need to be explored. There is a two way relationship between institution theory and sensemaking. At one end, institutional isomorphism restricts process of sensemaking, and institutional theory is also product of process of sensemaking of organization key actors. These include narrative analysis of stories as sensemaking devices in institutional entrepreneurship, analysis of institutionalization of corporate social responsibility within organizational communication, study of relationship between individual and organizational sensemaking in implementation of policy.
There is still confusion about the concept of sensemaking. There is need to study on this process in variety of ways, with different actors, and in different contexts. This research will comprehend more about qualities, tensions and challenges of sensemaking and how does it connect with other processes at different levels in organization.
1. What are influences of university context on process of sensemaking?
2. How sensemaking of university faculty affected process of change in university?
3. How sensemaking of university management affected process of change in university?
The case study method will be used here because it will provide flexibility to use multiple methods and also provide deeper understanding of process, context and forms of sensemaking. Interviews, document analysis, direct observation will be used. All communication data which include letters, reports, presentation, news made to public, reports on website will be analyzed in light of my research questions.
