Talk:Sensemaking

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Sensemaking vs. Sense-Making

Brenda Dervin often uses the latter for the Sense-Making Methodology on her webpages.

Do we need to diambiguate?

No, sense-making is what word does when it doesn't like the single word sensemaking there are no good theoretical distinctions Saylors (talk) 09:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

StephenDeGabrielle 09:21, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

--Msloescher (talk) 20:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC)This page is grossly inaccurate with respect to military command and control. As one of the authors of the Navy doctrine Network-Centric Warfare, i can assure you that the elements listed under this article on sense-making are nowhere mentioned in the doctrine. The doctrine is straightforward:[reply]

1. that Brilliant Sensors linked to

2. Sophisticated Networks, linked to

3. Long-legged Precision Weapons

Make it possible to mass fires instead of massing forces.

Moreover, it might make possible two other opportunities:

First, Speed of Command, by which we mean the ability to make decisions faster (not necessarily better) that the enemy

Two: Decentralized Execution, by which we might be able to preclude the actions of an enemy and prevent war from escalating.

NB: that sense-making, or as some put it situational awareness, is but one part of this, and not the critical element. The critical elements are in the shift to the principles of war, particularly the nature of mass and command.

Commander MS Loescher, USN (ret.) --Msloescher (talk) 20:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC)--Msloescher (talk) 20:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Msloescher (talk • contribs) 20:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Research

This page also lacks reference to work in sensemaking and sensemaking tools:

Russell, Daniel M. (1993). The cost structure of sensemaking. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: ACM Press. pp. 269–276.

ISBN 0-89791-575-5. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help
)


StephenDeGabrielle 09:21, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone willing to take a stab at improving this article?

This article has potential, but needs both cleanup, better in-line references, and accessible to new readers. Anyone willing to take a stab at improving this article? Harvey the rabbit (talk) 01:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Added material about D. Snowden and the Cynefin framework. All linked to sensemaking and complexity theory. Nuovosole —Preceding undated comment added 10:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Beginning overhaul

I'm going to start to work on this article. I know mostly about sensemaking in organizations (the Weickian tradition), and not so much about its relation to Brenda Dervis's work. But it looks like the two main applications of the concept of sensemaking (or at least the word) are found in organization theory (Weick) and information/library science (Dervin). A quick look at the citation index suggests that the OT version is the most common, but Dervin's concept seems sufficiently similar to keep this in one article. (We can consider a content fork later on.) I think the military application is just that—an application, mainly of Weick's concept, not Dervin's. Anyway, I'm going to start cleaning things up, and I'll probably be moving material temporarily into the talk space as I go a long.--

talk) 08:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

Split?

What do people think of splitting this article into "Sensemaking (computer science)" and "Sensemaking (organization studies)"? It seems to me that these areas of research are completely unrelated in practice (even if there are a few cross references). My sense is that a completely different set of editors have a the knowledge and interest to work these topics, and we'd have an easier time of it if we just left each other to it.--

talk) 18:21, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

  • Concur----Snowded TALK 19:54, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object: Splitting in order to "have an easier time of it if we just left each other to it" (i.e., "it sure would be easier if we didn't have to reach
    WP:POVSPLIT
    :

POV forks generally arise when contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page. Instead of resolving that disagreement by consensus, another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular

WP:POVSPLIT

In response, you might argue that what you are proposing is not a POV split—but I don't see how such an argument could be convincing given the current start-class status of this article; there is just not enough content here to convince me that readers would benefit from two separate articles. And it is for the benefit of the readers that we would split the article; splitting for the "easier time" of the editors, as I already said, is POV splitting or something like it. I suspect that most readers would benefit more from scanning one article that includes all points of view on the subject, instead of having to jump back and forth between two POV forks to get different points of view on the subject. If the different sections of this article become much longer in the future we may want to consider at least one
Biogeographist (talk) 03:57, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
This isn't a POV split since there isn't any controversy between the two groups. That's because they are talking about what are really two different things. I think it would motivate work on the article (which needs a lot of work) if the article was simply about one thing or the other. Right now it brings together knowledge on two different subjects that happen to share the same name. It makes it hard to write a good lead, because it has to be way too vague to cover both. It's like having one article for both Paris, France and Paris, Texas. May I ask which kind of sensemaking scholar you are? Maybe it looks different from your vantage point. I work in organizational sensemaking and Dervin's work simply doesn't enter into it.--
talk) 08:34, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
@
WP:EXPERT
if you are not already familiar with it:

WP:EXPERT

We agree that this article needs work if is to ascend from start-class to featured-article status. Thanks,
Biogeographist (talk) 11:50, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
A better analogy than the cities of Paris (which is not a valid analogy at all, in my view) is the article on
Biogeographist (talk) 12:32, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
I would indeed feel more motivated and I'd have an easier time recruiting others in my field to help out. I'm trying to say that, in my expert opinion, this article treats two very different things, studied by two very different research traditions, as though they are "basically one concept". This is simply not "accepted knowledge" in my discipline. A good way to see this is to look at the literature review by Maitlis and Christianson that is cited in the article. Weick's name appears 125 times. Dervin is not mentioned once. That is, one of the most recent (and arguably the most authoritative) reviews of the relevant literature finds exactly zero overlap between the two concepts. I know how an encyclopedia differs from a scholarly article (and I have edited Wikipedia before). Like I say, I don't know anything about Dervin's work, so I'm happy to leave an article on her concept of sensemaking to others. What I'm suggesting is that those of us who know something about the tradition that Weick founded be given a space in which to present the knowledge we, as a community, have come to accept.
talk) 14:11, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
@
Biogeographist (talk) 15:20, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
No, Google Scholar is not considered a more authoritative description of a research area than a review article in the Academy of Management Annals by the leading figure in the field. Not in my discipline, anyway. But do look at the top hit in that Google search [1]. It's a paper co-authored by Dervin that begins "No discussion of sense-making could be complete without consideration of Brenda Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology." Well, Maitlis and Christianson seemed to pull it off: they discussed sensemaking without considering Dervin. There is no contradiction here because Dervin's "Sense-Making Methodology" has nothing to do with "sensemaking in organizations". Read the abstract of the paper and you'll see they explicitly distance themselves from Weick's work. It's precisely that distance that would be reflected in the split. The only (accurate) way to make this one article is to say that sensemaking is a word that has been used differently by different groups of researchers to refer to different processes that they then study by different methods for different ends. (Naumer et al. are wrong that there are "common foundations"; there is just, as they point out, a word with a variety of definitions.) I find the rhetorical gymnastics that are needed to bring order to this in a single article off-putting. I literally don't know how to begin to make sense of a notion that spans these traditions. Neither does anyone else. Dervin doesn't discuss Weick. Weick doesn't discuss Dervin. Naumer et al. abandon Weick in the abstract. Maitlis and Christianson leave Dervin entirely on the side. Let's follow their lead.
talk) 16:08, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
@
Thomas Basboll: Google Scholar
is indeed more authoritative (i.e., more comprehensive) than a single review article in Academy of Management Annals if the question we are asking is: "Is there any overlap between these literatures?" Here's an excerpt from one of the sources in that Google Scholar query:

However, there is no such thing as one sensemaking perspective. Sensemaking knows different schools, which have been compiled in a systematic literature review by Dervin (2010). The human-computer interaction school is based on Russell's (1993) analysis of the cost structure on sensemaking and puts information retrieval at the heart of sensemaking. The cognitive systems engineering school is based on the writings of Klein147 and colleagues, who look at how a sensemaking approach can influence the design of decision support systems. The organizational communication school, especially by Karl Weick and David Snowden, has shaped the idea of sensemaking by emphasizing "decision making, strategy development, and dealing with complexity".148 The library and information science school, represented by Brenda Dervin, claims to be the only universally applicable approach to understanding and researching sensemaking.149 While these approaches have interesting ideas and are worth thorough consideration when researching sensemaking, the organizational communication school seems to be most fitting. The perspective on sensemaking executed by this school offers a unique perspective, which is yet little used in information systems and, therefore, worth examining. According to Dervin (2010) this school shares a set of core ideas about sensemaking but differs in their research approach. Both Weick and Snowden see narration as a procedural response to complexity.150 They diagnose the need to move away from top-down hierarchical forms of organizing, which closely connects to the ideas presented in this thesis. In their view, complexity (and ambiguity) from the environment is, thus, best answered (and controlled) when "language, included the richness of metaphor and the flexibility of the story, is invoked as sensemaking device".151 It is especially interesting to see how closely related both Weick and Snowden are in their philosophy on sensemaking, but how very differently they operationalize and present their results. While Weick's work is widely regarded in academia, Snowden applies his findings in practice, e.g. in building a software solution to support organizational sensemaking. This is very important to inform the building of a support system for distributed organizing. Weick's work on sensemaking152 encompasses a broader ontology and is most widely referred to. The ideas contained in the sensemaking perspective are an essential part of the organizing processes.

— Böhler, Dominik (2014). "Order creation from a transactional perspective: creating practices from sensemaking processes". On the nature of distributed organizing. Wiesbaden:
OCLC 883625072. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help
)
Of course, this excerpt could be read as supporting your point that there is little overlap between these different perspectives on sensemaking. In any case, whether or not there is any overlap between these multiple perspectives, the excerpt above shows that is possible to "bring order" to these multiple perspectives in one or two paragraphs.
After reading your last comment and the excerpt from Böhler's book cited above, I see the possibility of a split that I would accept: Create a new article on
Biogeographist (talk) 17:14, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
Google Scholar is not a scholar, it's a collection of algorithms. It has no authority. And Dominik Böhler may be a smart guy, but he's no Sally Maitlis. When defining the boundaries of organizational sensemaking as a concept we have to stick to the major works in the tradition. There were three serious retrospectives recently: the Maitlis and Christianson review, Sandberg and Tsoukas in JOB [2]) and Bill Starbuck's essay on Weick in Management Decision [3]. None mention Dervin even in passing, nor have I ever had to take her into "consideration" when thinking about sensemaking. A Wikipedia article has to be useful to the general reader, but its content has to be respected by scholars working in the relevant field. (Which is what makes it useful to students, I should add.) Presenting Dervin as a major player in the same tradition as Weick is just not credible (and misleads any reader that wants to learn about organizational sensemaking). She may be a major player in some other tradition, I have no idea. But they are not playing the same game.
talk) 18:26, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
@
guideline on identifying reliable sources
says:

Wikipedia articles should be based on

WP:RS

I am not claiming that all of the 950 results in that Google Scholar query are reliable sources. But many of them are reliable sources (and are cited by many other reliable sources), and the sources cite both Weick and Dervin. The fact that many of these reliable sources are outside of your self-defined "discipline" or "tradition" is irrelevant, as that first sentence of Wikipedia's
guideline on identifying reliable sources
indicates. They are still valid sources. I would choose sources that are more highly cited than Böhler's book as sources for the article; I just picked Böhler's passage as an example of a clear summary "that spans these traditions". There are other similar, more highly cited summaries that similarly span these "traditions" (or perspectives). Research on sensemaking is not a single-discipline/single-tradition practice, nor is it a two-discipline/two-tradition practice.
I don't understand why you said, in your last comment, that presenting Dervin "as a major player in the same tradition as Weick is just not credible" when nobody in this conversation, neither you nor I, is putting Weick and Dervin in the same "discipline" or "tradition", nor does the current article on
Biogeographist (talk) 20:03, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

break

I'm not disparaging anyone. I'm saying that Dervin and Weick are talking about different things with different people, and splitting the article would reflect that. I can simply repeat that no serious scholars of organization sensemaking give any thought to Dervin's approach. That's not disparagement, it's just because she's interested in something else.

At this point we've got three very solid review articles of the Weickian school that don't cite Dervin at all, not even in passing. Neither of the two articles we have that cite both Weick and Dervin are published in very influential places, and while they cite both they always dismiss one of them and focus on the other. I don't mind having a similar sentence in both articles that say something like that, namely, that this kind of sensemaking is not to be confused with the other. But I really don't see how this article can be salvaged without splitting it.

talk) 21:59, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

@
Thomas Basboll: I don't see how this article can be improved without maintaining a single article on sensemaking. I want to point out again the parallel with the topic of mindfulness: Weick uses that term (Karl E. Weick § Mindfulness) as does Ellen Langer (Ellen Langer § Mindfulness) but there are not separate articles titled "Mindfulness (Karl Weick)" and "Mindfulness (Ellen Langer)", even though their usages of the term are different. There is only one article on mindfulness
; it does not currently represent Weick's and Langer's perspectives on the subject, but that appears to be because nobody has made an effort to include Weick's and Langer's perspectives in the article.
You claim that "no serious scholars" give thought to Dervin's approach, but below is a further selection of sources in which researchers cite both Dervin and Weick. This selection also gives a sense of the wide breadth of research areas in which researchers are discussing sensemaking while citing both Dervin and Weick. These were selected from the first 150 of the 950 search results mentioned above, and listed reverse chronologically by year.
Biogeographist (talk) 01:49, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
Have you read any of those papers? The first two are in IS journals (not org studies); the third is arguably in Weick's area (he is interested in crisis management) though not a major journal in his field. It makes one reference to Dervin and one to Weick; both are superficial. (It's actually possible that the authors have learned about sense-making primarily from Wikipedia. That does happen.) The article isn't about organizational sensemaking but about how people "make sense" of a crisis event on social media. It is certainly not an example of an organization scholar thinking seriously about Dervin's method.
I'm sorry, but I can't keep arguing this way. I am informed by an actual tradition of research and I read the papers that I refer to; you seem to be informed only by Google and believe that a long list of articles that make any reference at all is better than an actual review of the literature by a well-informed scholar (like Maitlis). I've tried to explain why a sensemaking scholar won't take the Wikipedia article on this subject seriously and why I wouldn't recommend it to students (because then they'll end up saying things like that crisis management article). As a scholar in the area, I can tell you that the article is misleading about the connection between the Weick and Dervin traditions. It gets that connection wrong because there really is no connection (even if scholars in peripheral fields who try to apply the concept also sometimes think there is one). Dervin's work does seem to be worthy of an article, but I'm not the one to edit it. Anyway, thank you for your time.
talk) 04:51, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
Dervin her self considers there to be three schools of sensemaking or sense-making (both are used) There is no question that the two of them are major figures. A google search will cover everything with the sense-making term regardless of context or field of study. You can't just use that, you have to use authoritative sources in the field. Splitting is key for understanding with a disambiguation page ----Snowded TALK 09:36, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@
Thomas Basboll
: Yes, I read the sources I cite, of course. I haven't found much connection between Weick and Dervin, but I have found some connection: for example, Dervin and Naumer cite and summarize Weick's perspective in the Encyclopedia of Communication Theory chapter listed above. The available sources contradict the claim that "there really is no connection". If there were "no connection" then Dervin herself would not cite and summarize Weick's perspective. But she did.
I suppose if this page becomes a disambiguation page, then in the future indefinitely many articles on different perspectives on sensemaking could be created. There would be disadvantages to such fragmentation of perspectives, but at least it could accommodate all perspectives on sensemaking, since as both
Biogeographist (talk) 12:15, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
Of course there is some connection! The very tenuous connection that is established by the searches that identify the same words. This sometimes occasions scholars to mention Dervin in the same context as Weick, but never in more than a very superficial way. Maybe this will help: I just did a search in the Social Sciences Citation Index. I found that the most cited work by Dervin with Sense-Making in the title is the "Mind's Eye" chapter that is listed in this WP article. It has about 280 citations. You can read it here [4]. It does not mention Weick. I found Weick's 1995 book Sensemaking in Organizations, which does not mention Dervin. It has almost 5000 citations. I compared the two sets of citing articles and found they shared 24 articles. That is, 24 articles of about 5000 that cite Dervin (1992) and/or Weick (1995) cite both of them. Only two of those are in management-related journals (i.e., Weick's field); the rest are in library and information science journals (i.e., Dervin's field.) One of those is conference paper from 2010. The other is from 2016 and it only cites Dervin twice, both times in an unessential way. If that does not put to the rest the idea that there is some serious connection between Dervin's notion of sense-making and Weick's notion of sensemaking I don't know what will. Organizational sensemaking definitely deserves an article of its own. Dervin's probably does too; and it's even possible that it must acknowledge the debt to the Weick. It simply does not work the other way, which is why a split would be good. Dervin seems to have worked very deliberately to establish her perspective as a legitimate one. She has succeeded in doing so in Library and Information Science. But she has not been able to write herself into the study of organizational sensemaking, as my search shows. Splitting the article around one body literature with about 5000 citations of a common source (Weick 1995), and another with about 300 citations of common source (Dervin 1992), does not start us down a slippery slope of "infinitely" many articles, one for each perspective. Each article meets a very strong notability standard for scholarly work.
talk) 13:14, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

Tally 2:1 ?

It looks like Snowded and I are for a split and Biogeographist is the lone voice against. Shouldn't we just boldly split the thing and see what happens?

talk) 13:16, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

Yes. You won. Be bold.
Biogeographist (talk) 13:22, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

Sensemaking and argumentation

There is a literature on the role of

argumentation
in sensemaking that I would like to see integrated into this article, for example:

I will try to write this myself if I can find time. Of course, anyone else is also welcome to make an attempt.

Biogeographist (talk) 17:17, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

Splitting the article

I have now split the article, following the instructions to the best of my ability. There may still be some things that need to be moved, and there seem to be quite a lot of links from other pages that are best changed to link to new article, not this one. There's certainly work to do. I'm looking forward to seeing where this leads.--

talk) 10:10, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

It looks better than I expected, and I too am looking forward to seeing how the articles develop. I now wonder why I tried to argue against the split (perhaps I had some
Biogeographist (talk) 11:35, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
I'm glad you like it. I agree that it was not a waste of time to rehearse the arguments for and against the split. Looking forward to working with you on it.--
talk) 13:07, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

Structure

I'm trying to break the article into sections that can be worked on more or less independently. I'm happy to talk about whether these are the right headings.--

talk) 08:43, 29 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

Citation templates

I like the alphabetical reference list at the end because it is easy for someone who is familiar with the literature to see what has been cited and what hasn't. But I propose that the citations themselves should be converted from plain text to

Biogeographist (talk) 16:50, 29 October 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

Uncited Dervin citations

@

Biogeographist (talk) 22:11, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]

My point is that there is a link and its fair enough to keep her there with a reference -----Snowded TALK 04:48, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@
Biogeographist (talk) 11:31, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
The Dervin references were introduced by Bonnie Cheuk on January 20 and are likely just the result of mistaken identity, i.e., not noticing the disambiguation link at the top of the page. I think they should just be removed.--
talk) 22:26, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
It think you guys are being over rigid. Brenda is a major figure in sense-making and it was right to split out the information science aspects. So she should be listed here - and maybe something in further reading rather than references. Oh and remembering my protocols, I know Brenda and have cited her work. I also know Bonnie who studied under her -----Snowded TALK 09:00, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Not to rehash all the arguments we had over the split, but Dervin is not a major figure in organizational sensemaking, which is what this article is about. Would a good compromise be to put wording like "Weick's organizational sensemaking should not be confused with Brenda Dervin's sense-making" in the lead? In that case, since her name is now mentioned, it would be reasonable to include her in the references too. But "see also" is a misleading stretch, IMO. Precisely the stretch that the split was intended to avoid.--
talk) 10:00, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
There are recent references that include her you know (I'm just finishing off a book chapter on sense-making and I've been researching it). Her work on narrative and a lot of her techniques are being taken up in the OD community. We need to be careful here - the information origins of Brenda's work are strong enough to make it distinct. But within the organisational field while Weick remains the dominant figure - the naturalising aspect with myself, Klein and others is also cited. Are we going to split off another article? I think a reference and link here, but no more, is justified -----Snowded TALK 14:02, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it's possible that the two strands are getting entwined, which might justify a section in one or both articles on the other. But it is news to me. Which papers are you thinking of?--
talk) 14:46, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
Bonnie listed a few here -----Snowded TALK 14:52, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think we're talking past each other. For this article, we need papers in the Weick tradition (organization studies) that cite Dervin in a meaningful way. Bonnie links to a Design Dialogues page that says: "Brenda is Professor of Communications at OSU and one of the founding thinkers of sense-making, along with Karl Weick." [5] This, I have been arguing, is simply false. She is a founding thinker of her own brand of sense-making, but there is nothing to suggest she helped found the same thing Weick founded. In the scholarly literature there is almost no overlap. (Prove me wrong with citations.) Practitioners are of course free to cobble together theories as they see fit. But when they turn to Wikipedia for information about the theories, it should be grounded in scholarship, not the creative misreadings of management consultants. (Bless them, of course. But they sometimes associate ideas a bit freely.)--
talk) 15:33, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]

With that assertion we are and your patronising remarks do you little favour, or the --- for that matter. This is an article about sense-making or sensemaking not Weick's approach to sensemaking, ethnography (one of the references) has more claim to organisational studies that much which comes under that name. -----Snowded TALK 15:37, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry my light-heartedness came across as patronizing. I really do mean that practitioners have every right to do with the scholarship whatever they want. I just don't think there's any basis in the literature to think of Dervin and Weick as co-founders of the same discipline. I could be wrong about this. If Weick has said something along those lines (or Sutcliffe or Maitlis), this would be easy. Please don't associate my comments with ---; if I have to worry about that I'll just bow out completely. (Maybe that's what you are suggesting, but I think that's a violation of Wikipedia's rules.)--
talk) 15:55, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
As to the substance: This is literally an article about a "concept [that] was introduced to organizational studies by Karl E. Weick in the 1970s", as was established when the split was made. There is an article on Dervin's concept.--
talk) 16:01, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
To have a dichotomy between practitioners and scholars is foolish in any field - most good people are comfortable in both - but in this field it would be doubly foolish. Your remarks were deeply patronising not light-hearted and if you can't treat all editors as equal then wikipedia may be a difficult place for you. Weick without a doubt has historical preeminence in the field but he does not define it. The content of this article cannot be constrained by having to be part of that school of thought. -----Snowded TALK 06:00, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not making a distinction between editors but a distinction between sources. I thought we agreed at the time of the split that Weick does, indeed, "define" the concept that this article is about and Dervin likewise defines the concept that the other article is about. If there is any cross- or inter-disciplinary work to cite in either tradition, then of course we should. But you haven't shown me any such work. (If I missed it, please just remind me: one source that makes meaningful use of Dervin in the org studies tradition. We can start there.) Bonnie's list can establish Dervin's notability, to be sure. But not in org studies. This article is about a concept in org studies.--
talk) 07:50, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
The title of the article is sensemaking (and we accept Weick's neologism) and it relates to understanding organisations. The fact that Weick was one of the early authors in the field is important but it doesn't constrain the field to derivatives of his work or to sources that following in his footsteps. Klein and others have used the term without reference to Weick and they work in understanding organisations. If (or as) Dervin's work gets used on organisational studies it is valid to include it here. Given the criticality of information to organisations this is going to be increasingly the case. Other theories and definitions are also emerging. Yes we need reliable sources, but those sources do not have to be constrained to Weick and his followers. It may be time to split Weickian sensemaking from a general article on sense-making - that would be interesting -----Snowded TALK 16:06, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'd argue that the subject of the article is organizational sensemaking. Maybe the article should be renamed to reflect this but there's no need to split anything off, since the only material that doesn't fit under that rubric is the Dervin stuff we're discussing. Klein is discussed in the other article, where a two-part paper in an IEEE journal is cited (they do actually cite Weick, albeit very superficially.) Please give a good, clear example (with a reference) of someone actually contributing Dervin-style sensemaking to org studies. The we can discuss that.--
talk) 16:19, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
I'm creating a new section

What is this article about=

I'm beginning to regret support for splitting the article. At the time it seemed to make sense to give Dervin's work some prominence as she came at the subject from a different perspective to Weick. But what we now seem to be having is an argument that the field of sense-making (sorry I don't use the neologism) is restricted to, or confined to, academics within the Weickian school. That is simply not the case. We need to make sure we are agreed on the subject matter please. -----Snowded TALK 06:32, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The split was motivated by the fact that there are two fields, not one, that have a concept called "sensemaking": organization studies and information science. But while the names are similar ("sensemaking"/"sense-making") the concepts are different. No one (not even Dervin) has argued that these two concepts are the same. Or no one I know of. Just show me the source that brings them together and I'm happy talk about how to put Dervin into this article.--
talk) 07:40, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
PS. In a 1999 paper ("On studying information seeking methodologically" in Information Processing and Management 35, pp. 727-750), Dervin says "There are many uses of the term sense-making as phenomena in the literature (spelled myriad different ways) which have no relationship to the Sense-Making Methodology. For example Weick's (Weick, 1995) Sensemaking in organizations proposed looking at organizational life by examining the phenomenon -- sensemaking" (p. 729, n4). If even Dervin thinks her approach has "no relationship" to Weick's, and Weick's is central to this article, then the "see also" link, and the references in this article are surely misleading? Like I say, maybe something has happened in the intervening 20 years, but it hasn't come up in my searches.--
talk) 14:53, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
Dervin thinks there are three distinct schools of sense-making and that her approach is different from Weick. It does not follow from that that sense-making or sensemaking in organisational studies cannot use other approaches to that of Weick. If you want the article so restricted then you need to get a splinter article on Weick's approach referenced from a reduced article here.-----Snowded TALK 16:32, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I repeat: she says there is "no relationship". I would argue that you can certainly depart from Weick within OS, but you can't do so without citing him and acknowledging his importance. I.e., you can't publish a paper about "sensemaking" in, say, Organization Studies that doesn't mention Weick, no matter how much your conception of it is at odds with his. You have to take him on. That's how tradition works. But if your conception differs from Dervin, you don't even have to mention it. In OS.--
talk) 16:46, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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No relationship in method or underlyingtheory; the same is true of those of us in the naturalising tradition or other schools. Application however to organisational work is common to many. Any summary article about sense-making is going to reference Weick as one of the giants in the field - but that doesn't mean that he is the only player -----Snowded TALK 16:53, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I never said he's the only player. Sutcliffe, obviously. Maitlis. Go from there. Make connections to Boje and storytelling. All of those are legitimate extensions of the concept. But, as Dervin points out, when you move into her area it's a whole different thing. She doesn't see it as a "phenomenon" but as a "methodology".--
talk) 17:01, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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PS. I'm truly puzzled that you'll grant me "No relationship in method or underlying theory" but not that these topics should have distinct articles.--
talk) 17:04, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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OK 'only player' may have caused confusion - maybe better to say 'only school'. I would always acknowledge Weick's position but my own approach (how to we make sense of the world in order to act) comes from complexity theory, cognitive science and anthropology. Given Weick's presence others have compared the approaches (the Browning paper for example notes the lack of references but some similarities) but while the application areas are the same the origin of the approach is different. Dervin the same, she came from one perspective and application but is now used in organisational work. That means we can't take Weick's definition of the field as definitive, it is one definition and his approach is one approach (allbeit one of the best known). They are not extensions of Weick, nor derivative from or inspired by. Not mentioning institutions :-) but it might be interesting to convene a state of the field seminar ... -----Snowded TALK 17:11, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's an excellent thought experiment. Would Weick and Dervin attend that seminar? I think the answer is no. Depending on how you pitch it an entirely different group of people would show up. Weick and Dervin don't acknowledge each other; that's the entire point of my argument here. There's a concept of sensemaking whose meaning derives from acknowledging Weick. And then there's another concept (with a hyphen and a "methodology" attached) whose meaning derives from acknowledging Dervin. The two articles define and explain these two unrelated concepts.--
talk) 17:19, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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"Weick's approach?"

It looks like Dave (Snowded) is moving to turn "Weick's approach" into a subcategory of sensemaking. But the lead clearly says it's his concept. This article is about the concept that Weick introduced to organization studies. As I point out above, at least one other approach (Dervin's) has "no relationship" to Weick's. So I think taking the article in this direction is very unwise.--

talk) 15:11, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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I repeat sense-making is not confined to Weick or those who have followed his approach -----Snowded TALK 16:26, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Newton introduced the calculus to mathematics, but it doesn't mean that all subsequent work on the calculus has to be framed in terms of Newtonianism -----Snowded TALK 16:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Within organization studies ("physics") sensemaking ("mechanics") is Weickian ("Newtonian"). That's how I'd make the analogy. There hasn't yet been an "Einstein" of sensemaking. Though (as you may know) I'm inclined to agree with you that we need one.--
talk) 16:49, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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Let's rename this article to clear this up

My suggestion at this point is to simply rename the article "Sensemaking (organization studies)" or "Organizational sensemaking" using the

talk) 15:19, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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That wouldn't allow you to make the article restricted to Weick I'm afraid. Do a google scholar search on sensemaking or sense-making in organisations and you will find a lot of material that is not derivative of Weick -----Snowded TALK 16:27, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh. Google-scholar. Okay. You've done the search and found "a lot" of material. What's the best example you've found? Let's talk about it.--
talk) 16:57, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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I've done a search and found enough. I writing a book chapter on sense-making in systems thinking for a new collection at the moment - when I finish that Monday I'll aim to post some examples - but there is more than enough to make the point -----Snowded TALK 17:21, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't given one! When your book is published it may itself be the reliable source we need. (I'm rooting for you!) But let's not be coy here.--
talk) 17:36, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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Its a chapter in someone else's book and part of that is to sort out which references I think are relevant - I've said I look at doing that next week. In the meantime the Google scholar search gives enough for a link -----Snowded TALK 17:39, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If it gives enough it should give one. Just give me one example that justifies the link. I'll even grant you that there might, say, ten like it. So give me one example, and we'll assume there's ten like it, and then we'll decide if it justifies the link to Dervin.--
talk) 17:42, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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This looks promising in establishing different schools -----Snowded TALK 18:02, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's still just a list of references (a bibliography). The two encyclopedia articles are co-authored by Dervin, so I'm not sure about those. Then there's a PhD dissertation, which doesn't quite cut it either. But the Browning & Boudès paper is the sort of thing I'm looking for. In this case, it justifies the inclusion of a see also link to Cynefin. Which is of course already in the article, as it should be. (The connection between Cynefin and org-sensemaking is much stronger than the connection to Dervin's sense-making methodology.--
talk) 19:18, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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OR tag

The material on Weick is nearly all primary sources. If you check it out this is not accepted. The article on Boje's anti-narrative was deleted because the only sources were to Boje's writing. It was only when secondary third party sourcing was found that the article was restored. It doesn't matter how famous an author is, wikipedia doesn't allow people to write essays based on primary sources. -----Snowded TALK 16:44, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I really think that is silly. Weick 1995 is not a "primary source" on sensemaking. It's a classic statement of the theory. The seven properties (as you know) could easily be sourced to countless articles applying them and to org studies textbooks. It's fine to add those sources. But surely it's disingenuous to say that the statement "The standard conception of sensemaking has seven properties" is "original research". It is totally and completely orthodox.--
talk) 16:54, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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Many aspects of wikipedia can be seen as silly I'm afraid. Use of primary sources is designated as OR or synthesis and we need secondary ones. Boje got really angry on anti-narrative as it is his idea but the rules were applied -----Snowded TALK 17:13, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused. There's a perfectly good article on
talk) 17:23, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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Check the history - at one time the only references were to Boje, that is when it got hit. Third Party references were then found. The new Cynefin framework with liminality can't be in the Wikipedia article until there are third party references - I'm the originator but that makes my work a primary source. -----Snowded TALK 17:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well then add a "citation needed" tag or something. Or just add the citations. Don't pretend you think it's OR to say sensemaking has seven properties.
talk) 17:33, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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Technically given its all primary sources it should be deleted. I'll see if I can find a better tag but technical that is correct - writing from primary sources is original research -----Snowded TALK 17:40, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The "see also" conflict (I'm not going to revert again)

It's a bit rich to link [6] to a list of articles that I questioned at the time (i.e., read my comment immediately below it), pointing out that they were mainly irrelevant to the discussion. Show me one article that justifies the link. I've shown you a good, solid quote from Dervin (1999) that eschews any "relationship" with Weick's conception. (And this article says clearly, in the lead, that it's about the concept Weick introduced to org studies.) Just show me the article that credibly refutes Dervin and we can talk. But all this gesturing at lists of references (obviously generated by algorithm) is not helping.--

talk) 17:32, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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OK let me try again. Dervin clearly says she did not originate her thinking in Weick - not disputed. This article is called Sensemaking (and relates to organisations). Dervin's work on sense-making is used in organisations. A link is therefore reasonable -----Snowded TALK 17:35, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Dervin's work is used in organizations. But it has "no relationship" to the concept, which Weick introduced to organization studies, that this article is about. This article is not about every idea that has been called "sensemaking". It's about the idea Weick coined as such. That's clear in the lead. To then associate this with Dervin is to mis-lead. ;-)--
talk) 17:40, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply
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