Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
More than two decades of sensemaking research has brought thorough knowledge of how people understand organisational phenomena and attach meaning to them. This stream of research explores varied social and cognitive aspects of the process in the context of organisations and information technology (IT). However, such a large body of literature exhibits some significant shortcomings: there is a lack of IT materiality; a neglect of the discovery aspect of perception; and a lack of action orientation. So, there is limited understanding of the role that the material artefact plays in shaping users’ sensemaking of new IT, as well as how users’ actions affect their sensemaking. Moreover, while the literature mostly focuses on sensemaking as the creation of new meanings to rationalise user experiences, it neglects the discovery aspect of sensemaking that refers to perception of the meaning already available. To address these issues, this article provides a thorough review of the literature on organisation-technology sensemaking and synthesises our current understanding of the phenomenon. It then analyses the major shortcomings in our knowledge and highlights the need to address those shortcomings. It subsequently discusses an ecological approach consistent with the tenets of critical realism that can address some of the existing shortcomings.
Original Publication Citation
Mesgari, M., Okoli, C. (2019). “Critical Review of Organization-Technology Sensemaking: Towards Technology Materiality, Discovery and Action.” European Journal of Information Systems, 28 (2), pp. 205–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2018.1524420
Digital Commons @ LMU & LLS Citation
Mesgari, Mostafa and Okoli, Chitu, "Critical Review of Organization-Technology Sensemaking: Towards Technology Materiality, Discovery and Action" (2019). Information Systems and Business Analytics Faculty Works. 2.
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/isba_fac/2
Comments
This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in European Journal of Information Systems (28:2). https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2018.1524420. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.