informs ® doi 10.1287/orsc.1050.0133 © 2005 INFORMS Sensemaking involves turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard into action. In this paper we take the position that the concept of sensemaking fills important gaps in organizational theory. The seemingly transient nature of sensemaking belies its central role in the determination of human behavior, whether people are acting in formal organizations or elsewhere. Sensemaking is central because it is the primary site where meanings materialize that inform and constrain identity and action. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the concept of sensemaking. We do so by pinpointing central features of sensemaking, some of which have been explicated but neglected, some of which have been assumed but not made explicit, some of which have changed in significance over time, and some of which have been missing all along or have gone awry. We sense joint enthusiasm to restate sensemaking in ways that make it more future oriented, more action oriented, more macro, more closely tied to organizing, meshed more boldly with identity, more visible, more behaviorally defined, less sedentary and backward looking, more infused with emotion and with issues of sensegiving and persuasion. These key enhancements provide a foundation upon which to build future studies that can strengthen the sensemaking perspective.

Scholars hold different views about whether organizations consist of things or processes and about variance or process methods for conducting research. By combining these two dimensions, we develop a typology of four approaches for studying organizational change. Although the four approaches may be viewed as opposing or competing views, we see them as being complementary. Each approach focuses on different questions and provides a different--but partial--understanding of organizational change. We argue that coordinating the pluralistic insights from the four approaches provides a richer understanding of organization change than any one approach provides by itself.

Abstract. This paper was prompted by the growing ambiguity about what is meant by the term Community of Practice and what such communities are supposed achieve. Like John Lewis ' famous tag-line "Never Knowingly Undersold", the term "Communities of Practice " has proved to be both durable and capable of holding many levels of meaning and seems like an appropriate metaphor for the way that the term Communities of Practice is used by some. This paper will show how the use of the term has changed from the early exploratory works of Lave and Wenger (1991), through the later, more theoretical, works of Wenger (1998a) to the current, more "business friendly", version propounded by Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002). It will argue that, just as when buying goods from a retailer, when dealing with the Community of Practice, one should also follow the dictum 'let the buyer beware'. 1

On behalf of:

Managed care—the dominant mode of health care organizing and financing today—may threaten physicians ’ satisfaction with practicing medicine, but research has revealed that it is not dissatisfying for physicians in all organizational settings. The institutional theory of organizational communication (ITOC) offers a multileveled explanation of physicians ’ reactions to managed care based on their institutional identifications and communication with managed care organizations. A multileveled analysis of data from physicians (n = 1,049) in practices (n = 492) investigates this explanation. The results suggest that institutional identifications moderate the relationship between the experience of managed care and physician satisfaction, and offer evidence for the importance of the communication between managed care representatives and physicians. The results also provide an example of the applicability of multilevel modeling for organizational and health communication research.

Abstract not found

This paper draws on the need to understand how mobile technology is implemented and used at the organisational level. IT is a general-purpose technology and therefore its use involves a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity. Moreover, IT vendors and system developers tend to be very unambiguous in their rhetoric about mobile technology opportunities. Therefore, managers have trouble to identify the real scope, the functionality and the impact of new mobile applications. However, these three types of uncertainties need to be handled in change management projects where new information technology is involved. Gradual uncertainty reduction at these three different levels, i.e. what technology can do; will technology work; and will users adopt it, is studied in this paper. This is achieved through an analysis of the implementation process of an information system where mobile terminals are used to give service technicians access to the ERP system at BT Europe, a leading supplier of forklift trucks. The analysis shows how the three levels of uncertainty interact, and how the computerised parts of the information system are complemented by mindful intertwining with the non-computerised communication and manual data processing, in order for the information system to work.

guidelines for the creation of institutional repositories at universities and higher education institutions guidelines for the creation of institutional repositories [IR] ENGLISH [ 57] 378.1734 Alfa Network Babel Library Guidelines for the creation of institutional repositories at universities and higher education organisations / Alfa Network Babel

We discuss why surprises, defined as events that happen unexpectedly or expected events that take unexpected shapes, are important to organizations and should be considered in the organizational literature. The concept of organizational surprises is unpacked on the basis of a typology built around the (un)expectedeness of issue and process. This typology uncovers the several types of surprising events that organizations may face, and contributes to the literature by suggesting that different surprises require distinct approaches. 3 In its edition of December 21, 2002, an editorial of the Financial Times, entitled “Learning to live with uncertainty”, announced “A certainty for 2002: economic forecasts will be wrong”. And it continued: “The trouble with forecasting is that the future is uncertain. (...) In 2003, the Financial Times can say, with some confidence, there will be many surprising and unforeseen events. These will be important and prove economic forecasters wrong yet again. That is not to say that the economists should not bother to forecast the twists and turns of economies but everyone should recognize the

As the investments in IT are still growing and organizations are more dependent on IT than ever before practitioners as well as researchers are still lacking theories or models that help and explain if and when IT has to be adapted, partly exchanged or entirely implemented. In this paper we claim that one major reason for IS change lies in the interaction of human agents while using IT to solve tasks. Human agents cooperate within and simultaneously build a social network that is partly selforganizing, dynamic and uncontrollable from the outside. This dynamic can cause unintended pressure on the use and the usability of IT and therefore may force organizations to change the IS. This article discusses the Structurational Model of IT and concepts of the Social Network Analysis and draws several implications of examining the impact of social interaction on IS change.