Patent litigation is notorious for the technicality of evidence and the rhetoric of experts. Citizens selected to serve on the jury have no specialized training and have rarely been exposed to the technology or the patent process. This study provides insight into the field of jury decision-making in complex patent cases by analyzing the cognitive gaps and the tactics used by jurors to minimize them. Additionally, the study examines the justifications for the damage awards jurors provide. This analysis focused on jurors engaged in mock trial patent deliberations. The story model and sensemaking theory serve as the theoretical framework of this research and provide a structure for support and a lens for analysis. The results indicate that jurors rely on three distinct and dichotomous topologies when navigating cognitive gaps. Searching for answers either individually or as a group, relying on lists or stories, and turning to facts or emotions, jurors navigate through their uncertainty. Through the line-by-line analysis of mock jury transcriptions, three continuums regarding damage justifications emerged. Jury members found themselves navigating uncertainty versus certainty, rationality versus irrationality, and facts versus emotions. The theoretical implications broaden the story model to include cognitive gaps in all phases and increase the model's efficacy in patent litigation through the addition of a fourth phase. This study also confirms and enhances the use of sensemaking to describe the jury decision-making process. The results of this study should be applied practically to the field of patent litigation. Results should be used to create a user-friendly environment where the high stakes of litigation demand increased juror understanding and are critical to justice.

The purpose of this study is to find how managers make sense of a future threat that does not have an urgent trigger. The method applied in this study is qualitative case study. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted of managers at the case company. In the context of the case company facing a threat of creative destruction, we study the sensemaking process of the managers we interview. Special focus is dedicated to prospective, future-oriented sensemaking. We apply a Weickian approach in the operationalization of the research. We found that the managers shared a collective sense of the past, but that there was a loss in shared collective sense of the future. The lack of collective sensemaking of the future is caused by the ambiguous nature of the case company’s future. We further found that emotional dedication impeded prospective sensemaking for some of the managers resembling wishful thinking about the future.

Thesis advisor: Mary Ann Glynn / My dissertation examines changes in audience sensemaking by the public and media about Apple’s novel product, iPad. My study begins on December 28, 2009, one-month before the introduction of the iPad by Apple and ends with the anniversary of its retail availability on April 2, 2011, shortly after the launch of the second-generation iPad. Using primarily qualitative methods, I analyze archival data including online forums and news articles to understand audience sensemaking as it unfolds. I investigate how sensemaking by the two audiences a) changes over time, b) changes with different types of material interaction with the product, c) incorporates the use of functional and symbolic frames in their public discourse about the iPad, and d) changes based on the public role of the audience. In doing so, I advance explanations as to how meanings about novel products stabilize. More broadly, I elaborate how nascent product categories can emerge by focusing on the cultural-cognitive processes that undergird product classification systems. As a result, I offer novel pathways for product category emergence. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Management and Organization.

A cultura nacional influencia o processo de tomada de decisão? Quais são os pressupostos da tomada de decisão? Qual a relação entre a cultura nacional do tomador de decisão, seus constructos pessoais, a produção de sentido e a tomada de decisão? Este trabalho buscou desenvolver um raciocínio acerca desta temática, criando um modelo que integra conceitos de culturas nacionais, a teoria dos constructos pessoais e a teoria da produção de sentido. Este modelo de análise foi então aplicado a estudantes universitários de origem alemã, italiana e ibérica no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Foram aplicados dois questionários estruturados, um aberto e um fechado bem como um quase-experimento para chegar-se aos resultados. Aproximadamente 700 pessoas participaram da pesquisa em 6 cidades. Os dados foram então analisados através de análise de conteúdo (para as questões abertas), e técnicas estatísticas como regressão linear e análise fatorial para as questões fechadas. A relação entre cultura nacional, constructos pessoais, produção de sentido e tomada de decisão foi evidenciada parcialmente. Observou-se que os constructos pessoais variaram conforme a origem dos respondentes, porém a diferença entre as culturas italiana, alemã e ibérica não foi significativa para a decisão individual, não influenciando de forma diferente a tomada de decisão e a produção de sentido. Houve no entanto, uma diferença importante entre decisão individual e organizacional, verificando-se a influência da origem cultural (ascendência) no processo de tomada de decisão organizacional, no que tange a percepção da qualidade, sem no entanto alterar a ordem de importância dos atributos (constructos pessoais) de decisão. Estes resultados são importantes pois ajudam a entender o processo decisório, ressaltando a emergência de uma cultura regional (geral), mais forte do que as influências dos países de origem (ascendências). / Does national culture influence the decision-making process? What are the assumptions of decision-making? What is the relationship between the decision maker´s national culture, his personal constructs, his sensemaking and his actual decision? This study aimed to develop an argument about this issue, creating a model that integrates concepts of national culture, the personal constructs theory, and the sensemaking theory. This analysis model was then applied to Brazilian university students of German, Italian and Iberian origins (ancestry) in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). Two structured questionnaires were applied as well as a quasi-experiment to get to the results. Approximately 700 people participated in the survey in 6 cities. The data were then analyzed using content analysis (for open questions), and statistical techniques such as correlation, regression and factor analysis for the closed questions. The relationship between national culture, personal constructs, sensemaking and decision-making was evidenced in part. It was observed that personal constructs varied according to the origin of the respondents, but the difference between Italian, German and Iberian cultures was not significant for the individual decision, not influencing in a different way the decision-making and the sensemaking. There was however, an important difference between individual and organizational decision, showing the influence of cultural origin (ancestry) in the organizational decision making process regarding the perception of quality, without changing the order of importance of the decision attributes (personal constructs). These results are useful to understand the decision-making process, highlighting the emergence of a (general) regional culture, stronger than the influence of countries of origin (ancestry).

Degree awarded (2003): EdDHRD, Counseling, Human and Organizational Studies, George Washington University / Abstract of Dissertation<p>Re-shuffling of employees is a popular method of balancing current mission requirements in fluid organizations. Employee knowledge is a valuable resource lost to downtime as employees make sense after involuntary reassignment. This study served to address the paucity of research on the sensemaking of employees who are involuntarily reassigned within their organizations. This study used meaning making theory to explore the mental models employed by eight Department of Defense employees as they made sense of being involuntarily reassigned. It identifies and describes the content of the mental schemes used by these employees to navigate their environment after the event. The Self-Q interview methodology proposed by Bougon, Baird, Komocar, and Ross, (1990) is used to elicit the constructs of tacit mental models.<p>The major constructs of sensemaking after involuntary reassignment were Identity, Performance, Management, Others (i.e. co-workers, family, supervisors, etc.) and Emotions. Contributions to sensemaking (Weick, 1979; 1995) and adult learning theory (Mezirow, 1991; 2000) are suggested. Five implications for HRD practitioners and organizational leaders are discussed. Five recommendations for future research in theory and practice are offered. / Advisory Committee: Dr. David Schwandt, Dr. Michael Marquardt (Chair), Dr. John Ferriter, Dr. Andrea Casey, Dr. Stephen King

The significance of local and international non-governmental organizations in society has beenincreasing quite rapidly. Nevertheless, the research concerning international NGOs internalactivities has not evolved in phase with the growing roles of NGOs’. The internal communicationand organizational culture have significant role on how NGOs works externally. The aim of thisstudy is to gain knowledge on WWF’s (World Wide Fund for Nature) internal communication andorganizational culture. This is achieved by researching the communicational processes aroundWWF’s global “Engaging hundreds of millions” -objective and reflecting the findings on theapproaches and theories among organizational culture and sensemaking. WWF is one of the world’slargest environmental international NGO with over 5,000 employees worldwide. The study bases onthe experiences of WWF’s managing communicators, and it reveals that a majority of them feel thatthe internal communication in the Network does not work as effectively as they hope. According tothe results, many people feel that the internal communication and participation to differentprocesses is unsatisfactory mainly because clear practices and opportunities to participate arelacking. However, the study also reveals that there is a substantial enthusiasm and will to improvethe practices together within the WWF Network.

Ett företags organisationskultur består av ett gemensamt värdesystem som har en meningsskapande funktion för de anställda i företaget som identifierar sig med organisationen. I en företagsfusion, där två eller flera företag går samman, har det visat sig vara svårt att förena olika organisationskulturer på grund av motstånd från de anställda. Tidigare forskning kring detta har till stor del fokuserat på de anställdas agerande i en fusion. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur anställdas meningsskapande i en fusion påverkades av deras identifikation med organisationen. Med en kvalitativ intervjustudie undersöktes hur anställda i fyra företag hade upplevt en fusion av företagen. Resultatet visade att även om förändringsprocessen hade upplevts negativt av samtliga deltagare varierade upplevelsen av det nya företaget och dess kultur utifrån deltagarnas tidigare bolagstillhörighet. Analysen visade att identifikationen med de tidigare organisationskulturerna påverkade de anställdas menings-skapande i situationen och därmed skapandet av en ny gemensam organisationskultur.

Today’s technological development has shed new light upon the management practiceproduct management and it is considered more important than ever to manage products.Moreover, organisations to a growing extent face external bodies that evaluate them andimpose organisational structures that they need to comply with. Product management isnevertheless characterised with ambiguity, broad definitions and various depictions. Ascattered research field together with practitioners struggle to define the area stress the needto clarify product management structuring. This thesis uses a sensemaking perspective and akaleidoscopic approach in order to capture product management structuring in a fragmentedarea. It means that we investigate what the sensemaking outcome of product management isand why organisational members make sense this way. This thesis has found that productmanagement is understood on two main levels and that the practice comprises bothconsistency and inconsistency on an inter-organisational level. Findings suggest that sharedidentity, strong commitment, cues, metaphors and expectations have influenced consistentunderstandings and crystallised the sensemaking outcome. In addition, product governanceinfluences product management and therefore the sensemaking outcome are inconsistent inseveral structuring elements. The thesis concludes that our contemporary productmanagement practice is comprised with general components that can be structured similarlybut also components that require a customised structuring due to the product governance trait.

Les équipes virtuelles font l’objet de beaucoup d’attention depuis près de deux décennies. Elles font désormais partie des organisations qui ont dû s’ajuster à l’internationalisation des marchés. Elles sont aussi de plus en plus présentes dans les universités qui mettent en place des cours en environnement virtuel pour préparer leurs étudiants aux nouvelles réalités du marché du travail. Elles sont aussi le fruit des modes nées sous l’impulsion de l’approche constructiviste de la pédagogie. Les recherches qui s’intéressent a elles ont des préoccupations principalement téléologiques et utilitaristes qui donnent le point de vue des gestionnaires et des enseignants sur le phénomène. Peu de recherches se sont penchées sur l’expérience vécue par les membres de ces équipes. Par ailleurs, la volonté de dégager les lois générales des équipes virtuelles amène les chercheurs à l’amputer d’une partie de sa complexité. Notre recherche propose d’observer la manière dont des étudiants ont vécu leur expérience de collaboration en équipe virtuelle. Nous adoptons une posture interprétative et une approche narrative pour observer leur «sensemaking». Cette perspective nous permet de tenir compte de la complexité du phénomène. Nos questions de recherche sont : comment les étudiants font-ils sens de leur collaboration? Comment le «sensemaking» individuel contribue-t-il à construire le «sensemaking» collectif? Nos résultats nous renseignent sur l’importance que revêt le «sensegiving», pour les équipes virtuelles, dans la création de «sensemaking» collectif. / Virtual teams have been subject of much attention in the last two decades. Organizations have included them as regular units to adjust with globalization of markets. They are increasingly more common in schools as well. Universities developed virtual learning environments to cope with the market and prepare their students to be competitive. Those environments were also made popular because of the trends instigated by the constructivist approach to learning and educational methods. Researchers have been studying virtual teams most generally with teleological and utilitarian goals giving teachers’ and mangers’ point of view of the phenomenon. In addition, the will to draw general laws of virtual teams lead up researchers to sacrifice a part of its complexity. Our study aims to observe how students made sense of their collaboration experience in a virtual team. We adopt an interpretive perspective with a narrative approach that allows us to access the richness of the phenomenon while studying the sensemaking process. Our research questions are: how do students make sense of the collaboration? And how does individual sensemaking plays a role in constructing collective sensemaking? Our findings show that the sensegiving process is crucial for virtual teams to create collective sensemaking.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates the impact between sensemaking as proposed by Karl Weick and his associates’ school of thought, and ubiquitous electronically mediated informing (UEMI) which is the attention-efficient availability of data, information and electronic computing. At best, Weickian sensemaking theory ignores the potential role of UEMI in sensemaking and at worst, it regards it as more of a hindrance than a help. This dim view of electronic information technology (IT), typified as “spreadsheets on screens”, had merit when first expressed in 1985, but its unchanged position notwithstanding IT’s transformation towards UEMI is increasingly untenable. An interpretation based on the attention-efficiency aspect of Mark Weiser’s vision of ubiquitous computing is harnessed as the foundation to review the progress since 1985 towards true ubiquitous computing and to analyse its increasing impact on sensemaking. Ubiquitous computing (which includes UEMI) still has a long way to go with the accuracy of speech recognition a notable obstacle. Yet, progress has been remarkable, and this thesis employs five current UEMI technologies within a limited aspect of society, namely organisations to evaluate this impact: personal memories, virtual presence, augmented reality, speech recognition and organisational memories. Sensemaking is that which gives meaning to experience. It is a social and on-going process made in retrospect, which seeks congruence with one’s identity, is enactive of an environment which enables further sensemaking, and focuses on the noticing and embellishment of cues to the point where the sense which has been made, is plausible enough to act upon. In addition to these seven process properties sensemaking theory also comprises its substance which involves words, sentences, vocabularies and their mechanics. To make meaning (i.e. sense) a minimum of one cue needs to be linked to one frame. Frames tend to be vocabularies that summarise past experience, whilst cues tend to emerge from current experience. This study introduces four notions. Firstly, attention is viewed as a scarce resource in an economic sense. As an act of attending, sensemaking is viewed as an economic process in which ends (the sense or knowledge made) are achieved with limited means (time and attending capability). Therefore people will pay (i.e. invest) attention to make sense of something only up to a point of plausibility where the perceived cost of paying more attention exceeds the expected benefit of doing so. In line with other economic processes, the productivity of organisational sensemaking may be increased with appropriate organisational structures and procedures, human skills, mindsets and most importantly, any technology which lowers the requirements for scarce attention (i.e. UEMI technologies). Secondly, sensemaking theory’s silence on the consequences of sensemaking is addressed by introducing the notions of risky reality, i.e. those situations where gaps between sensemaking and reality may impact the sensemaker’s welfare or survival. Thirdly, the quality of sensemaking, which determines the size of those gaps, is also addressed. Fourthly, this thesis proposes augmenting words as the building blocks of sensemaking with imagery such as drawings, photos, video footage, animation and augmented reality, both for making sense out of life’s pure duration and for communication. Unlike electronic IT in 1985, current and future UEMI’s inherent attention-efficiency and audio-visual capability enables a higher quality of sensemaking, which is of the essence in situations of risky reality. In addition, UEMI positively impacts all seven process properties of sensemaking, with the highest impact on the properties of plausibility, retrospect, cues and on-going. The impact of sensemaking on UEMI means that the most attention-efficient UEMI technologies will be the most successful in the market. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie ondersoek die impak tussen singewing soos voorgestel deur Karl Weick en sy samewerkers en alomteenwoordige elektronies-gemedieerde informering (AEGI) met ander woorde, die aandag-effektiewe beskikbaarheid van data, informasie en elektroniese rekenaars. Wanneer die teorie oor singewing nie die potensiële rol van AEGI in singewing heeltemal ignoreer nie, word die rol van AEGI as ’n hindernis beskou. Hierdie negatiewe siening van elektroniese rekenaartegnologie, gekenmerk as “spreadsheets on screens”, was wel aanvaarbaar in 1985, maar hierdie onveranderde posisie rakende elektroniese rekenaartegnologie se transformasie na AEGI raak al hoe meer onverdedigbaar. ’n Interpretasie gebaseer op die aandag-effektiewe aspek van Mark Weiser se visie vir alomteenwoordige informasie tegnologie, word ingespan as die fondasie om die vooruitgang vanaf 1985 na alomteenwoordige informasie tegnologie te ondersoek, en die implikasies wat dit vir singewing inhou te hersien. Alomteenwoordige informasie tegnologie (insluitend AEGI) het nog ’n lang pad om te gaan, met akkuraatheid van spraak-herkenning as die grootste struikelblok. Tog is die vooruitgang merkwaardig. Die studie fokus op vyf AEGI tegnologieë binne ’n beperkte deel van die samelewing, naamlik organisasies om die impak op bogenoemde te evalueer: persoonlike herinneringe, virtuele teenwoordigheid, aangevulde werklikheid, spraak-herkenning en organisatoriese geheue. Singewing verskaf betekenis aan ervaring. Dis ’n sosiale en deurlopende proses wat in retrospek uitgevoer word, kongruensie met ’n persoon se identiteit vereis, ’n omgewing tot stand bring wat verder singewing in staat stel, en fokus op waarneming en uitbreiding van leidrade tot die stadium bereik word waar die singewing wat vermag is, geloofwaardig genoeg is om tot aksie oor te gaan. Bo en behalwe die sewe proses eienskappe bestaan die kern van singewingsteorie uit woorde, sinne, woordeskatgroepe en hul meganika. Om betekenis (d.w.s. sin) te maak, moet ten minste een leidraad aan een raamwerk gekoppel word. Raamwerke het die neiging om uit woordeskatgroepe te bestaan wat ervarings van die verlede opsom, terwyl leidrade die neiging het om na vore te kom vanuit huidige ervaring. Die studie steun op vier nuwe idees. Eerstens word aandag as ’n skaars bron beskou in ’n ekonomiese konteks. As ’n optrede van aandagskenking, word singewing gesien as ’n ekonomiese proses waar die einddoel (die sin of kennis wat gemaak word) bereik word met beperkte middele of hulpbronne (die tyd en die vermoë om aandag te skenk). Dus sal mense aandag skenk (d.w.s. belê) om sin te maak van iets slegs tot op ’n punt van geloofwaardigheid, waar die verwagte koste om meer aandag te skenk die verwagte voordeel om dit te doen, oorskry. Soos met ander ekonomiese prosesse, mag die produktiwiteit van organisatoriese singewing vermeerder met die toepaslike organisatoriese strukture en prosedures, menslike vaardighede, ingesteldheid en van kardinale belang, enige tegnologie wat die vereiste vir aandag wat skaars is, verminder (d.w.s. AEGI tegnologieë). Tweedens, word die stilswye van die singewingsteorie rakende die gevolge van singewing aangespreek deur die nuwe konsep van riskante werklikheid – daardie situasies waar die gaping tussen die sin wat gemaak is en die werklikheid die singewer se welvaart wesenlik kan beïnvloed. Derdens, word die kwaliteit van singewing, naamlik dit wat die grootte van sulke gapings bepaal dan ook in hierdie studie aangespreek. Vierdens word daar geargumenteer dat woorde met beelde aangevul kan word as boublokke vir singewing, beide om sin te maak van “life’s pure duration” en van kommunikasie deur middel van tekeninge, foto’s, video-materiaal, animasie en aangevulde werklikheid. Daar word geargumenteer dat anders as elektroniese informasie tegnologie in 1985, die huidige en toekomstige AEGI se inherente aandageffektiwiteit en audio-visuele vermoë, hoër kwaliteit van singewing moontlik maak, wat van groot belang is in riskante werklikheidsituasies. Bogenoemde het dan ook ’n positiewe impak op al sewe eienskappe van singewing, waarvan geloofwaardigheid, retrospek, leidrade en deurlopenheid die grootste is. Dit beteken dus dat die mees aandag-effektiewe alomteenwoordige elektronies-gemedieerde informasie tegnologieë die mees suksesvolle in die mark van die toekoms behoort te wees.