Rethinking Sensemaking

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"Rethinking Sensemaking offers a refreshing perspective on how people and organizations deal with complexity and uncertainty. Dr Ben Kuiken has explored the philosophical foundations of sensemaking in an unconventional way, exposing its underlying dynamics and implications. Drawing on process philosophy, pragmatism, ethnomethodology, Foucault, and Deleuze, he shows how meaning is produced, negotiated, and transformed within social and organizational life. The book is as fascinating and rigorous as it is insightful. It challenges citizens, employees, and leaders to revitalize their thinking about sensemaking, for without adequate sensemaking, every next step is the right one."
—Mathieu Weggeman, Professor of Organization Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands

Sensemaking has become an essential concept for understanding how organizational members navigate uncertainty and complexity. It is widely regarded as a key capability for enabling collective action and informed decision-making in unpredictable environments. Yet, despite its popularity, the sensemaking perspective has become increasingly fragmented. Without re-examining its philosophical and conceptual foundations, there is a growing risk that sensemaking will collapse into conventional cognitive models of interpretation – models that are ill-suited to the complex, fluid realities of contemporary organizations. Rethinking Sensemaking undertakes a systematic and critical inquiry into some of the core assumptions that underpin sensemaking theory and practice. Drawing on insights from philosophy, it develops an alternative understanding of sensemaking as a relational, embodied, and dynamic process of organizing.

Building on this reorientation, the book introduces a set of conceptual tools and practical techniques designed to support organizing under conditions of ambiguity and change. It will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in organization studies and management, as well as to leaders seeking a more nuanced approach to organizational sense and action.

Ben Kuiken is a self-employed organizational philosopher and consultant working at the intersection of philosophy and organizational practice. He is affiliated as guest researcher at Radboud University, Nijmegen. In his consulting practice, he invites leaders to reflect critically on the meanings and assumptions that shape the way they organize.

Sensemaking has become an essential concept for understanding how organizational members navigate uncertainty and complexity. It is widely regarded as a key capability for enabling collective action and informed decision-making in unpredictable environments. Yet, despite its popularity, the sensemaking perspective has become increasingly fragmented. Without re-examining its philosophical and conceptual foundations, there is a growing risk that sensemaking will collapse into conventional cognitive models of interpretation – models that are ill-suited to the complex, fluid realities of contemporary organizations. Rethinking Sensemaking undertakes a systematic and critical inquiry into some of the core assumptions that underpin sensemaking theory and practice. Drawing on insights from philosophy, it develops an alternative understanding of sensemaking as a relational, embodied, and dynamic process of organizing.

Building on this reorientation, the book introduces a set of conceptual tools and practical techniques designed to support organizing under conditions of ambiguity and change. It will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in organization studies and management, as well as to leaders seeking a more nuanced approach to organizational sense and action.

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Ben Kuiken

Themen in »Rethinking Sensemaking«

organizing Deleuze Foucault Weick philosophy of sense organizational philosophy

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“Ben Kuiken makes a refreshing re-turn to sensemaking’s theoretical origins in process philosophy. Weaving together an eclectic mix of process philosophers including Bergson, the Pragmatists James, Mead and Dewey, Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, Foucault’s relational dynamics of power, and Deleuze and Guattari’s productive agencements, Kuiken explores how new realities emerge with the social processes of sensemaking. But fear not! This is not an abstract philosophical tome; it is a practical guide to thinking differently, writing differently, and acting differently in process. Engagingly written, it will appeal to anyone seeking better ways of organizing.” (Barbara Simpson, Professor in Leadership and Organisation Dynamics, University of Strathclyde, Scotland)

“Rethinking Sensemaking offers a refreshing perspective on how people and organizations deal with complexity and uncertainty. Dr Ben Kuiken has explored the philosophical foundations of sensemaking in an unconventional way, exposing its underlying dynamics and implications. Drawing on process philosophy, pragmatism, ethnomethodology, Foucault, and Deleuze, he shows how meaning is produced, negotiated, and transformed within social and organizational life. The book is as fascinating and rigorous as it is insightful. It challenges citizens, employees, and leaders to revitalize their thinking about sensemaking, for without adequate sensemaking, every next step is the right one.” (Prof. Dr. Mathieu Weggeman, Organization Science, Eindhoven University of Technology)

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