Purpose: Although under the last decade there has been increased interest in management of project-based teams and numerous examples of such relationships exist, relatively little is known about “the dynamics of shorter relationships”. Management of communication between partners involved in short-term project-based relationships and the ways, in which multiparty value is created as a result, form a task for important and necessary research in marketing theory and practice. This study aims to define whether there exists a positive relationship between management activities that can influence the communication environment within project-based groups and effectiveness of collaboration between participants. Research question: In what role management incentives can positively influence communication and collaboration within a network of the external parties involved in a project? Approach: The research design for this study includes a literature review and a longitudinal observational case study. The aim was drawing on and extending important ideas of research on organizational management of project-based teams. On the basis of literature review aspects that have the most influential impact on communication within project-based networks are organized in a integrative framework that gives an image of factors influencing relationships in project-based teams. The theoretical model is proved through a qualitative study of project-based teams performance. Data was collected through the use of meetings observations, email interviewing of participants and informal interviews. Findings: Although sensemaking and relational exchanges are distinct concepts in the extant literature, this study illustrates the ways in which the two are interconnected: the social processes of relational exchanges between project participants engaging in the proceses of sensemaking and the ways of approaching relational exchanges that would facilitate the process of sensemaking. On the basis of the theoretical discussion how projects are operated while being embedded in a context of networks of external participants we elaborated that for successful project performance management of project-based networks should play facilitating and supportive role of creating a framework enabling mindful behaviour and collaborative processes of problem-solving. Research limitations/implications: Even this study highlights previously overlooked connections between literatures on relational exchanges and organizational sensemaking by giving attention to a diverse range of issues concerning project-based business networks, further research in this direction may be useful for deeper understanding of the processes. Firstly, the generalizability of the findings presented here remains to be tested. Secondly, the aspects influencing relational exchanges in short-term project setting identified here may not be exhaustive: they could be supplemented by the discovery of other aspects, perhaps through data collected from project setting of different type. Thirdly, although relational exchanges can vary in sense of communication and collaboration intensity, it was outside the scope of this study to address the issue at this level of analysis. Despite these limitations, this study has made an attempt to draw up the findings that may have some implications for both research and practice. Value of research: As revealed in our study, a set of management incentives may help in creating a positive environment for efficient communication and collaboration within a project. It suggests that management incentives should try to organize a trust like environment that will provide much of incentive for partners to work together non-opportunistically during their relational exchanges and much of the assurance necessary for exchange partners to feel comfortable with this arrangement. The results of the study clearly shows that applying management methods will help shortcut the process necessary to establish the working norms necessary for functional communication and collaboration between participants.

This paper is about sensemaking. By using sensemaking we have derived bankruptcy factors from business leaders’ own statements about their bankruptcies. The focus in this paper is to ensure how business leaders create meaning about the bankruptcies, which is also our research question. To make the study feasible, we used a method that corresponds well to the purpose of our work. The collection of data started with collecting a number of newspaper articles with direct quotes from business leaders. These quotes were, through a model that structures and categorizes empirical datum, aggregated into bankruptcy factors. The factors were then explained with regards to the business leaders’ statements. The factors are also compared with previous studies of bankruptcy factors. Those studies use different approaches then ours, in deriving and explaining their bankruptcies. With regards to that, we found it interesting to analyze similarities and differences in results. The study has shown five bankruptcy factors. These are customer losses, financing, external circumstances, profitability and planning. They are described by a number of underlying causes. The factors we found have shown both similarities and differences with regards to the previous studies.

Noting how organizations today are increasingly dependent on IT for a broad range of organizational activities, the thesis starts from the observation that many IT-related endeavors nevertheless fail. In tracing part of the problem to the inability of many organizations to cope with changes in the surrounding material and social context, the emphasis is put on the processes by which IT-artifacts are adapted and re-adapted, after they have been put into daily use. Assuming human sensemaking as a good basis for coping with the changes, qualitative data from two organizations — a Swedish social services department and a software firm — provides an empirical context for assessing how sensemaking processes affect IT-adaptation. Conceptually, the thesis draws on Karl Weick's thinking, introducing the "double interact" and the "response repertoire" as sensitizing concepts with which to understand the mechanisms generating adaptation of IT-artifacts. Methodologically, the interpretive case study is employed, using the "hermeneutic circle" as the guiding principle for the research process. The thesis draws some specific implications concerning how IT-adaptation can be understood in organizations. The generic IT-adaptation process can be divided into two elementar}- phases, exploration and exploitation. During the exploration phase, several individual interpretations of a particular IT-artifact co-exist, occasioning ambiguity about its meaning in organizational daily activity. During the exploitation phase, the IT-artifact itself is in the background of matters of attention, providing organizational actors, who pursue individual goals and desires, the opportunity to exploit the shared and taken-for-granted meaning they see in the artifact. While the exploitation phase is important for organizational efficacy, there is nevertheless a risk that the meaning exploited becomes outdated by surrounding socio-material changes over time. Among other proposals, the thesis therefore suggests that triggering sensemaking processes can be important for meaningful IT-adaptation. In addition, it suggests the activity of searching for the interlacing areas of professional identity of actor groups, as a means to make IT-artifacts meaningful in organizing endeavors. / <p>[8] s., s. 1-64: sammanfattning, s. 65-168: 6 uppsatser</p> / digitalisering@umu

As a result of the recent findings of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), many women who have been on hormone replacement therapies (HRT) have begun to renegotiate their understandings and strategies of this stage of their lives. The WHI findings suggested that the risks of HRT outweighed the benefits for healthy menopausal women. This study examined women's emerging sensemaking regarding HRT and menopause in light of the WHI findings. Seven women in the Tampa Bay area, who were in various stages of menopause, participated in three focus group sessions and two one-on-one interviews to discuss their lives in menopause. Based upon the women's conversations, I constructed individual stories about each of the women. I included my voice in each step of the process, both participating in the focus group and interview discussions and inserting my voice in the women's stories as an interview and focus group participant. I analyzed the stories to determine categories in the w omen's emerging sensemaking. A theme of change emerged in terms of loss, decay, and decline. The women talked about change while discussing personal issues such as children, their bodies, aging, health concerns, and sex. Throughout their discussions, the women spoke about the contradictions and dilemmas they faced as they tried to sort through the conflicting and sometimes contradictory information they have been receiving about the effects of menopause and HRT on their bodies. Emily Martin's medical metaphors, Michel Foucault's ideas on discourse, and Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch's theory of change helped me understand the women's sensemaking. Many of the women framed their sensemaking within the biomedical model of health care, using what Martin called the body-as-machine metaphor, thereby making a first-order change, even though they changed from one HRT formula to another, from "synthetic" to "natural" HRT, or stopped taking HRT entirely. One woman appeared to make a secon d-order change. Overall, the women felt they had little to guide them as they determined how to take care of themselves in the menopausal stage of their lives.

The purpose of this study is, within the frame of media- and communication science, to find out how a large International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO) forms a consensus among its members within the organization and try to find out how the members interpret the meaning of the organization and why the members interpret messages in a certain way. Furthermore the purpose is to investigate whether there are of importance to have a consensus in an INGO. To analyze the results, theories about communication, sensemaking, culture, and intercultural communication will be used. The selection of theories in this study is based on the assumptions that; communication is the means by which the organization reaches the members; sensemaking (of communication) is made in the context; culture is the context; intercultural communication is a part of the understanding of the culture. The design of the study is a case study within two sections connected to the organization Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). The qualitative methods used in this case study are participatory observations, 19 open-ended interviews, four focus group interviews and a study of organizational external and internal documents. The findings of the study shows that the traditional way of looking at communication and the discussion about that it is a necessity to have a strong consensus in organizations might not be the case for INGOs. The study also shows which intercultural challenges the world's INGOs are facing and why organizations might face problem and frustration.

Des recherches antérieures sur les émotions en contexte organisationnel, notamment autour des notions de travail émotionnel, de contrat psychologique et d'équité, ont souvent soulevé la question de la rationalité et du caractère approprié ou non des manifestations émotionnelles, ainsi que sur les mécanismes utilisés pour contrôler et modérer celles-ci. Cependant, peu de recherche empirique a été effectuée sur la façon dont les employés eux-mêmes font sens de leurs émotions au travail et le processus par lequel ils parviennent à rendre celle-ci compréhensibles et légitimes, à la fois pour eux-mêmes et pour autrui. Au cours des dernières années, un courant de recherche émergent tend toutefois à mettre de côté la perspective normative / rationaliste pour soulever ce type de questions. Ainsi, au lieu d'être considérées comme des expériences strictement subjectives, privées, voire inaccessibles, les émotions y sont envisagées à travers les discours et les mises en récits dont elles font l’objet. Les émotions apparaissent ainsi non seulement exprimées dans le langage et la communication, mais construites et négociées à travers eux. La recherche présente développe empiriquement cette perspective émergente, notamment en faisant appel aux théories du sensemaking et de la narration, à travers l’analyse détaillée des récits de quatre employés chargés du soutien à la vente pour un revendeur de produits informatiques. En demandant à mes sujets de parler de leurs expériences émotionnelles et en analysant leurs réponses selon une méthodologie d’analyse narrative, cette recherche explore ainsi la façon dont les employés parviennent à construire le sens et la légitimité de leurs expériences émotionnelles. Les résultats suggèrent entre autres que ces processus de construction de sens sont très étroitement liés aux enjeux d’identité et de rôle. / Past research into emotions in organizational contexts, notably the research into the theories of emotional labour, the psychological contract, and equity theory, has tended to focus on questions of the rationality and appropriateness of emotional manifestations, as well as mechanisms used to control and moderate emotions. However, little empirical research has been done into how employees themselves make sense of their emotions and the processes by which they legitimize and render these emotions understandable, both to themselves and to others. In recent years, an emerging research perspective has shifted away from the normative/rationalistic perspective to address these questions. Rather than being considered strictly subjective, private, and inaccessible experiences, emotions are now seen as accessible via discourse and narrative. And more that simply being expressed in language and communication, they are understood to be constructed and negotiated by them. This research develops this perspective by drawing on the theories of sensemaking and narrative theory; looking at the detailed narratives gathered from four non-sales employees at an IT reseller. By asking research participants to talk about emotional experiences and analyzing their narratives using a narrative theory methodology, this research hopes to shed some light on how employees make sense of and legitimize their emotional experiences. Among other things, the results suggest that the process of sensemaking is very closely linked with issues of identity.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis provides an interpretation of what happens during Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) adoption in the Public Sector and in particular Local Government using Sensemaking and Complexity Theory. Chapter 1 outlines the background and objective of the thesis including the methodologies used. In Chapter 2 the theoretical foundations of the study are discussed. The theories are carefully meshed together to provide a new angle to interpret and analyse what takes place in ERP adoption. Chapter 3 provides a detailed description of the case study, Programme Phakama. Programme Phakama implemented an Enterprise Resource Planning solution in the City of Johannesburg. Chapter 4 contains an explanation of what happened in other projects with the same mandate within the public service elsewhere in the world. This in comparison to what happened in Project Phakama, to highlight the similarities or differences during the evolvement of the projects. The last two chapters provide the interpretation and recommendations using the conclusion arrived at in Chapter 4 from a Complexity and Sensemaking perspective. There are no right or wrong answers in ERP projects, only good or bad decisions. The number of changes to be managed in ERP projects is overwhelming. Therefore many projects are challenged, regardless of success, failure or abandonment. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis interpreteer aspekte van die implementeringsproses van ‘Enterprise Resource Planning Systems’ (ERP) in die openbare sektor, en in die besonder op plaaslike regeringsvlak. Die interpetasie word gedoen met behulp van die sinmakingteorie van KE Weick en van kompleksiteitsteorie. Hoofstuk 1 bied ‘n oorsig oor die agtergrond en doelstelling van die tesis, sowel as die metodologiese aanpak. In hoofstuk 2 word die teoretiese grondslae van die tesis bespreek. Die teorie word geïntegreer om ‘n nuwe perspektief op die analise van ERP implementering te kan gee. Hoofstuk 3 bied ‘n gedetailleerde beskrywing van die geval wat hier ondersoek word, naamlik ‘Programme Phakama’ wat die implementering van ‘n ERP in die stad van Johannesburg behels het. Hoofstuk 4 span die net wyer om vergelykende gegewens van soortgelyke projekte elders te beskryf. Hoofstuk 5 ontleed die problematiek en toon dat die gebruik van kompleksiteitsteorie en insig in sinmaking help om die verskynsel beter te begryp. Hoofstuk 6 maak gevolgtrekkings vir die bestuur van sodanige projekte.

Thesis (MPhil (Information Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The environment in which all organisations currently operate is undoubtably dynamic. Regardless of the nature, size or geographical location of business, companies are being forced to cope with a rapidly changing world and increasing levels of unpredictability. This thesis tracks the history of software development methodologies leading up to agile development (chapter 2). Agile development has appeared in response to the limitations of traditional development approaches and evolved to address the particular demands of a changing world (chapter 3). The theory of sensemaking is used to gain insight into the functioning of agile development. Sensemaking is introduced and a working definition of this concept is formulated (chapter 4). This research does not argue that agile development is the same as sensemaking, but rather that it can be better understood through sensemaking. Agile development can be seen as a type of sensemaking, but sensemaking is also a generic, universal cognitive ability. The structure and design of agile development is well aligned with sensemaking, and one can understand its nature and the type of management needed to support agile development better from this perspective. In fact, agile development directly supports and facilitates several important elements of the sensemaking process. For successful sensemaking to occur, certain organisational conditions need to be present. The term "managed sensemaking" is introduced to expand this notion. After performing an analysis of agile development (chapter 5), certain pertinent implications and challenges facing organisations are considered (chapter 6). By framing these implications in terms of sensemaking, practical management suggestions can be provided based on a good fit between the problem that agile development is meant to solve and the cognitive requirements of the process leading to a solution. The research conducted in this process opens the door to further research opportunities (chapter 7) and allows for the application of sensemaking in the context of software development methodologies. This study provides insight into the prevalence and functioning of agile methodologies, in software engineering contexts, by leveraging the theory of sensemaking to provide an explanation for the underlying worldview and processes constituting this approach. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die omgewing waarin alle organisasies tans funksioneer in ongetwyfeld dinamies. Maatskappye word genoop om die uitdagings van 'n vinnig-veranderende wêreld die hoof te bied, ongeag die aard, grootte of geografiese ligging van die besigheid. Hierdie tesis volg die geskiedenis van sagteware-ontwikkelingsmetodologiee tot by agile development (hoofstuk 2). Agile development het verskyn as 'n reaksie op die beperkings van tradisionele ontwikkelingsbenaderings en evolueer om aan te pas by huidige uitdagings (hoofstuk 3). Die teorie van sensemaking word gebruik om insig te verkry in die funksionering van agile development. Sensemaking word ingelei en 'n werksdefinisie word geformuleer (hoofstuk 4). Hierdie navorsing argumenteer nie dat agile development dieselfde is as sensemaking nie, maar eerder dat dit beter verstaan kan word deur sensemaking. Agile development kan wel gesien word as 'n tipe sensemaking, maar sensemaking is ook 'n generiese, universele kognitiewe vermoe. Die struktuur en ontwerp van agile development is goed belyn met sensemaking, en 'n mens kan die aard daarvan en tipe bestuur benodig om agile develop- ment te ondersteun beter verstaan vanuit hierdie perspektief. Tewens, agile development ondersteun en fasiliteer verskeie belangrike elemente van die sensemaking proses direk. Vir suksesvolle sensemaking om plaas te vind, word sekere organisatoriese toestande benodig. Die term "managed sensemaking" word ingelei om hierdie idee uit te brei. Na 'n analise van agile development (hoofstuk 5) word sekere dwingende implikasies en uitdagings, wat organisasies in die gesig staar, oorweeg (hoofstuk 6). Deur hierdie implikasies te plaas in sensemaking-terme kan praktiese bestuursvoorstelle aangebied word, gegrond op 'n goeie passing tussen die probleem wat agile development probeer aanspreek en die kognitiewe vereistes van die proses wat lei na 'n oplossing. Die navorsing wat onderneem is in hierdie proses ontsluit moontlikhede vir verdere studies (hoofstuk 7) en skep die moontlikheid vir die toepassing van sensemaking in die konteks van sagtewareontwikkelingsmetodologiee. Hierdie studie bied insig in die voorkoms en funksionering van agile methodologies in sagteware-ingenieurwese omgewings deur die teorie van sensemaking te hefboom om 'n verduideliking vir die onderliggende wereldbeeld en prosesse aan te bied.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis considers the contribution that Karl Weick’s notion of sensemaking can make to an improved understanding of weak signals, cues, warning analysis, and software within early warning systems. Weick’s sensemaking provides a framework through which the above mentioned concepts are discussed and analysed. The concepts of weak signals, early warning systems, and Visual Analytics are investigated from within current business and formal intelligence viewpoints. Intelligence failure has been a characteristic of events such as 9/11, the recent financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the so-called Arab Spring. Popular methodologies such as early warning analysis, weak signal analysis and environmental scanning employed within both the business and government sphere failed to provide adequate early warning in many of these events. These failures warrant renewed attention as to what improvements can be made and how new technology can enhance early warning analysis. Chapter One is introductory and states the research question, methodology, and delimits the thesis. Chapter Two sets the scene by investigating current conceptions of the main constructs. Chapter Three explores Weick’s theory of sensemaking, and provides the analytical framework against which these concepts are then analysed in Chapter Four. The emphasis is directed towards the extent of integration of frames within the analysis phase of early warning systems and how frames may be incorporated within the theoretical foundation of Visual Analytics to enhance warning systems. The findings of this thesis suggest that Weick’s conceptualisation of sensemaking provide conceptual clarity to weak signal analysis in that Weick’s “seed” metaphor, representing the embellishment and elaboration of cues, epitomizes the progressive nature of weak signals. The importance of Weick’s notion of belief driven sensemaking, in specific the role of expectation in the elaboration of frames, and discussed and confirmed by various researchers in different study areas, is a core feature underlined in this thesis. The centrality of the act of noticing and the effect that framing and re-framing has thereon is highlighted as a primary notion in the process of not only making sense of warning signals but identifying them in the first place. This ties in to the valuable contribution Weick’s sensemaking makes to understanding the effect that a specification has on identifying transients and signals in the resulting visualization in Visual Analytic software. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek hoe Karl Weick se konsep van singewing ons insig teenoor swak seine, tekens, waarskuwingsanalise en sagteware binne vroeë waarskuwingstelsels verbeter. Weick se bydrae verskaf ‘n raamwerk waarbinne hierdie konsepte geanaliseer en ondersoek kan word. Die konsep van swak seine, vroeë-waarskuwing en visuele analise word binne huidige besigheidsuitgangspunte, en die formele intelligensie arena ondersoek. Die mislukking van intelligensie is kenmerkend van gebeure soos 9/11, die onlangse finansiёle krisis wat deur die ondergang van Lehman Brothers ingelei is, en die sogenaamde “Arab Spring”. Hierdie gebeure het ‘n wêreldwye opskudding op ekonomiese en politiese vlak veroorsaak. Moderne metodologieё soos vroeë waarskuwingsanalise, swaksein-analise en omgewingsaanskouing binne regerings- en besigheidsverband het duidelik in hul doelstelling misluk om voortydig te waarsku oor hierdie gebeurtenisse. Dit is juis hierdie mislukkings wat dit noodsaaklik maak om meer aandag te skenk aan hierdie konsepte, asook nuwe tegnologie wat dit kan verbeter. Hoofstuk Een is inleidend en stel die navorsingsvraagstuk, doelwitte en afbakkening. Hoofstuk Twee lê die fondasie van die tesis deur ‘n ondersoek van die hoof konsepte. Hoofstuk Drie verskaf die teoretiese raamwerk, die van Weick se singewingsteorie, waarteen die hoof konsepte in Hoofstuk Twee ondersoek word in Hoofstuk Vier. Klem word gelê op die diepte van integrasie en die toepassing van raamwerke in die analisefase van vroeё waarskuwingstelsels en hoe dit binne die teoretiese beginsels van visuele analise geïnkorporeer word. Die bevindinge van hierdie tesis spreek die feit aan dat Weick se konsepsualisering van singewing konseptuele helderheid rakende die begrip “swakseine” verskaf. In hierdie verband verteenwoordig Weick se “saad”- metafoor die samewerking en uitbouing van seine en “padpredikante” wat die progressiewe aard van swakseine weerspieёl. Die kernbeskouing van hierdie tesis is die belangrikheid van Weick se geloofsgedrewesingewing, veral die uitkoms van die bou van raamwerke asook die bespreking hiervan deur verskeie navorsers. Die belangrikheid van die aksie om seine op te merk, en die effek wat dit op die herbeskouing van raamwerke het, asook die raaksien daarvan in die eerste plek word beklemtoon. Laasgenoemde dui ook aan tot watter mate Weick se singewingsteorie ‘n bydrae maak tot visuele analise veral in ons begrip van die gevolg wat data of inligtingspesifikasie het op die identifisering van seine en onsinnighede in visualisering binne visuele analise-sagteware.

Background: Sustainability is realized by companies to different extends as plenty of pressures operate on projects which influence the outcome. One specific influence are the actors who make sense of the pressures based on organizational and personal experiences. By the combination of institutional logics and organizational sensemaking theory, organizational influences in form of pressures and logics (forming the macro-level) and personal views based on individual sense making (micro-level) are combined to a micro-macro connection. The integration of the both theories leads to a deeper understanding on ‘sustainability integration’. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to understand how individuals handle sustainability in a project in a multinational company with has a focus in sustainability. It is of most interest how the influences, represented by the concept of institutional logics, are constructed by the sensemaking of the actors. Research question: How do employees make sense of a project with a sustainability purpose based on institutional logics? Method: The research design of this thesis is an exploratory case study with data collection by the hands of semi-structured interviews. Abductive reasoning was applied. An epistemological position of constructivism and interpretivism was taken. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that organizational pressures are not explicitly noted by each individual. A collective sensemaking is found in the fact that a sustainable project must be affordable for the customers to meet their needs. This finding however, can be traced back to the organizational level which is coined by a strong value culture.