SENSE-MAKING IN AMBIGUOUS AND UNCERTAIN ENVIRONMENTS

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The sense-making theory developed by Karl Weick (1995, 2001) is based on how organizations can understand themselves and their environments. Weick’s research addresses sense-making at the organizational level and is historically motivated by the desire to understand:

- How organizations both adapt to changing environments and contribute for reshaping the environment.

- Which organizational structures and mechanisms facilitate or inhibit this adaptation;

- How these various structures and processes enable the organization to create a “workable level of certainty”, when dealing with situational ignorance and ambiguity.

In his work, Weick begins by a multitude of definitions applied to sense-making in the social science literature and then proceeds to develop a number of basic properties of this process. These basic properties serve as a useful framework for sense-making research and its applications to multiple domains (Leedom, 2001: 10):

- Grounded in identity construction. Making sense of the environment influences and being influenced by one’s self-concept and personal identity. For example, how an organization defines its own mission, vision, strategic intent, and capabilities will…