Sensemaking, Organizing, and Surpassing: A Handoff

In this essay, I reflect on the intellectual influences that led to the genesis of the Social Psychology of Organizing and assess the way forward. I stress that the Social Psychology aspired to provide an outline of an organizational epistemology. I particularly focus on the interplay between experi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of management studies Vol. 57; no. 7; pp. 1420 - 1431
Main Author Weick, Karl E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.11.2020
Subjects
Ambivalence
Aspiration
Epistemology
organizing
process
Sensemaking
Social psychology
understanding
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Summary:In this essay, I reflect on the intellectual influences that led to the genesis of the Social Psychology of Organizing and assess the way forward. I stress that the Social Psychology aspired to provide an outline of an organizational epistemology. I particularly focus on the interplay between experience and understanding, highlighting the following features: self‐validating prophecy, partiality toward similarity, ambivalence between belief and doubt, and understanding as ongoing accomplishment. I conclude with a discussion of the three papers published in this Special issue.
Bibliography:p. 138).
2017
The following discussion includes several quotations. The intentions are to preserve the original context of the idea; to make it easier for readers to develop their own interpretations of the point being made; to document that my ‘evidence’ lies in a lineage of ideas; to preserve abstractions that facilitate generalization; and to avoid the removal of subtleties by rough paraphrase. Walter Benjamin, an avid collector of quotations, put a more spirited spin on the practice when he said that the role of a quotation is not to illustrate but to arrest and disrupt complacent understanding. Quotations “are like wayside robbers who leap out and rob you of your convictions. (Sniedziewski
ISSN:0022-2380
1467-6486
DOI:10.1111/joms.12617