CAPÍTULO 2. ELABORACIÓN DE UNA INTERFAZ GRÁFICA CON LA AYUDA
2.8 Construcción de interfaces gráficas de usuario en Matlab
Weick (1995 17-62) discusses in detail the seven properties of sensemaking in an organisational setting. These can be summarised as follows: social context (influenced by the actual, implied or imagined presence of others); personal identity (a person’s sense of who he or she is in a setting); retrospect (perceived world is past hence things are visualised and seen before they are conceptualized); salent cues (picking up prompts from the surrounding environment); ongoing (experience is continuous however interruptions happen when sensemaking episodes are triggered); plausibility (sense constrained by agreement with others and consistent with one’s own views) and enactment (action stemming from the sensemaking).
From my empirical work, I observed that in some episodes, all actors were fully engaged in the social context, whereas in other episodes, certain groups of actors formed their own social network, excluding others. I subsequently sought literature that would assist in forming a theoretical understanding and background to these observations. Where the social network was free and open to all the actors, I have deemed this type of sensemaking as “open sensemaking”, as all actors are open to receive and give sense to each other. In contrast, there is a form of sensemaking that captures the restriction of social interaction to individual subgroups of actors, entitled “encapsulated sensemaking”. The extant literature (Pratt, 2000) suggests that within the context of teams, social encapsulation results directly from the creation of strong in-group bonds in the presence of like-minded others at functions or in meetings. Members’ encapsulation is typically defined as “the process whereby group members are kept separate from non-members” (473). When sensemaking is encapsulated, members engage with other members in the same subgroup to construct frameworks that they use to understand social stimuli. There are numerous ways that organisations can promote encapsulated sensemaking among members. The organisations attempt to manage intragroup relations through the
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development of strong bonds between individuals and organisations (Lofland & Stark, 1965; Griel & Ruby, 1983), through mentoring (Hunt & Michael, 1983; Kram, 1983) and through organisational commitment (Buchanan, 1974).
Sensemaking forms can also be influenced by emotions (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). Positive emotions are more likely to lead towards generative sensemaking; negative emotions are more likely to lead towards integrative sensemaking; self-conscious emotions such as pride and guilt lead towards social sensemaking and self-conscious emotions such as hubris and shame lead towards solitary sensemaking. These forms are compared by Maitlis, Vogus & Lawrence (2013) as follows: Firstly, “generative
sensemaking which involves a process in which relationships among cues and frames are constructed flexibly and creatively to allow for the development of new accounts”(9).
Secondly, “integrative sensemaking is characterised by a heightened sensitivity to
whether new cues are consistent or inconsistent with the emerging account of a situation, such that accounts are continuously and critically evaluated with respect to plausibility”(9). Thirdly,social sensemaking relates to a person drawing on and engaging with others. “We agree that sensemaking always occurs in a social context, affected by
the rules and resources that define that context”(12). Finally, solitary sensemaking precedes as solo activities, intentionally or unintentionally distanced from the sensemakers’ social context. “The individual works to interpret and react to a sensemaking trigger largely alone or with an imagined other”(12).
Sensemaking forms can also be defined by observing the dynamic between the leader and the stakeholders. Maitlis (2005) compared processes in which leaders were more and less active, to distinguish four different forms of organisational sensemaking processes: Firstly, “guided sensemaking occurs when leaders are very energetic in constructing and promoting understandings and explanations of events, and stakeholders are also actively engaged in attempting to shape beliefs about certain
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elements of the issues”(35). Secondly, “fragmented sensemaking processes emerge when stakeholders raise issues, generate accounts of a situation, and argue for potential solutions in the context of leaders who do not try to organize or control discussions”(36).
Thirdly, “restricted sensemakingresults from leaders promoting overarching accounts of issues they encounter which stakeholders tend to accept with relatively few attempts to provide alternative understanding”(39). Finally, “a minimal sensemaking process is followed when both leaders and stakeholders await others’ interpretations of and reactions to an issue, which typically come in response to some external trigger”(42).
A further form of sensemaking is considered in 2016 where a multi-case analysis of nine
“most trusted advisors” in six family run businesses is used to introduce “mediated
sensemaking” – that is the social position, orientation, and actions used by mediators to facilitate adaptive sensemaking that unfolds when someone begins to doubt the sense already made (Strike & Rerup, 2016 880). This may be useful when I consider the Chair as a mediator in Chapter 6, and I further consider this literature in that Chapter.
It may be difficult to consider sensemaking in isolation of sensegiving, as the pattern of leader and stakeholder sensegiving in combination has been shown to shape the processes and outcomes of organizational sensemaking, or the process of social construction in which individuals attempt to interpret and explain sets of cues from their environments (Maitlis, 2005). Furthermore, sensegiving can be triggered by the perception or anticipation of a gap in organizational sensemaking processes (Maitlis & Lawrence, 2007). Homogeneous groups of actors do not necessarily engage in sensegiving even around significant matters (Maitlis, 2005) so that is why I have an interest in sensegiving as I am considering how heterogenous groups of actors sensegive in their attempt to influence other groups of actors (e.g. investor directors and entrepreneurial managers).