Rapid Research and Assessment on COVID-19 and Climate in New York City

In May 2020, the New York City (NYC) Mayor’s Office of Climate Resiliency (MOCR) began convening bi-weekly discussions, called the Rapid Research and Assessment (RRA) Series, between City staff and external experts in science, policy, design, engineering, communications, and planning. The goal was to rapidly develop authoritative, actionable information to help integrate resiliency into the City’s COVID response efforts. The situation in NYC is not uncommon. Extreme events often require government officials, practitioners, and citizens to call upon multiple forms of scientific and technical assistance from rapid data collection to expert elicitation, each spanning more or less involved engagement. We compare the RRA to similar rapid assessment efforts and reflect on the nature of the RRA and similar efforts to exchange and co-produce knowledge. The RRA took up topics on social cohesion, risk communication, resilient and healthy buildings, and engagement, in many cases strengthening confidence in what was already known but also refining the existing knowledge in ways that can be helpful as the pandemic unfolds. Researchers also learned from each other ways to be supportive of the City of New York and MOCR in the future. The RRA network will continue to deepen, continue to co-produce actionable climate knowledge, and continue to value organizational sensemaking as a usable climate service, particularly in highly uncertain times. Given the complex, rare, and, in many cases, unfamiliar context of COVID-19, we argue that organizational sensemaking is a usable climate service.

The Teacher Called Me “Okasan”: Experiences of a Non-Japanese Single Father With Bicultural Children and Japanese Education System

This chapter offers a glimpse into an atypical genre of single-parent family in Japan – a view from the perspective of a single non-Japanese father with young bicultural children. Interactions between the family members and systems of education in Japan can shed new light on cultural gender-based biases and traditionally held stereotypes. The confluence of connections between individual participants, gender role expectations, dominant cultures, and education, are explored in this study through autoethnographic methodology (Ellis et al., 2011; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) and the process of organizational sensemaking-the process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences (Weick, 1995; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005). Educational settings bring together Japan's diversity within one setting, making intercultural encounters routine. Situations where there are perceived microaggressions (Pierce, 1970), cultural bumps (Archer, 1986), as well as examples of ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism (Bennett, M. J., 1998b) are examined and discussed within cultural, gender, and dominant culture privilege (Kimmel & Ferber, 2016; McIntosh, 2003) frameworks. I will make a case that intercultural sensitivity (Bennett, M.J., 1998a), as well as shifting into other perspectives or worldviews, can lead to enhanced intercultural understanding resulting in win-win outcomes. I will make a second case that autoethnography and organizational sensemaking are particularly well-suited methods for initial inquiry into fringe cultures, such as non-Japanese single fathers raising bicultural children.

Shared leadership: Struggles over meaning in daily instances of uncertainty

Research presented in this article advances existing work on shared leadership and organizational sensemaking by an empirical demonstration of the organizing properties of leadership in daily instances of uncertainty. Drawing on conversation analysis combined with ethnographic data collected during 12-month fieldwork, this article spells out the conversational mechanisms and discursive practices used by leadership actors in the process of sensemaking directed towards organizationally relevant goals. Through a fine-grain analysis of an extended troubles-telling sequence in a particular meeting encounter, this study shows how conversation analysis–inspired research can be used to add a more nuanced understanding of a substantive area of social life, such as shared leadership which is achieved in interaction and which involves various leadership actors, regardless of their hierarchical positions and organizational roles.

Ready the Canons: The Role of Canonical Stories in Organizational Sensemaking

This article examines the role of canonical stories in sensemaking. Canonical stories are known by members of a group; storytellers can refer to the shared narratives as repositories of meaning. While the sensemaking literature includes multiple studies of stories and storytelling, no studies have explicitly examined the role of canonical stories in sensemaking. Interviews with 55 top leaders in U.S. Catholic universities confronting a fraught issue in their institutions (undocumented student access) indicate a variety of ways that canonical stories operate in their sensemaking. Respondents referred to community narratives, canonical stories that hold specific meaning for their university communities. They told generic or stereotypical stories and fragments as shorthand in their communication. They also used counterfactuals as referents for their sensemaking. These findings help us better understand the role and importance of canonical stories in organizational sensemaking.

A Sensemaking Study of Change Initiative: The Case of A Malaysian Multinational Enterprise

Empirical evidence has emphasized the need for more research to uncover why does change fail and what can organizations do to improve their success rate. The purpose of this article is to provide an in-depth assessment on the implementation of centre-led change initiative in a novel empirical study in a Malaysian-based multinational enterprise (MNE). This study is based on multiple embedded case studies of four subsidiaries of a Malaysian-based MNE. This study urges centre managers tasked with implementing strategic change initiatives to emphasize the behavioral aspect of those involved in change throughout the entire development stage of the change. Any negative cues from change recipients need to be addressed and attended to as quickly as possible. This study is based on a section within the larger context of the MNE which is being researched. The study contributes to the literature of organizational sensemaking in change by extending the knowledge of new sensemaking forms namely communication intensity and resolution to barriers. This study also contributes to the empirical literature in change by providing an in-depth account of a Malaysian based MNE journey in implementing centre-led change initiatives.

Public Management in an Era of the Unprecedented: Dominant Institutional Logics as a Barrier to Organizational Sensemaking

In an era when unprecedented events are occurring with increasing frequency, public management theory is challenged to consider whether it is possible to better prepare agencies to respond to situations previously neither expected, nor even seriously imagined. In this paper, we consider the case of the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 wildfire that contributed to the destruction of neighborhoods in and around Gatlinburg, TN. We argue this case illuminates a critical gap in extant organizational theory concerning the factors that impede sensemaking processes, which are fundamental to models of high reliability organizations during unprecedented events. Specifically, based on insights from this case considered through an institutional lens, we theorize that the nature of unprecedented events undermines an adaptive response through both structural and cultural/institutional processes. Structurally, we demonstrate how public agencies evolve to the contingencies of their normal task environment, which we should anticipate will be maladapted to the task demands of an unprecedented event. However, we theorize the greater challenge lies in the processes by which these structural features of the agency, over time, create, and reinforce a dominant institutional logic which can delay and weaken sensemaking processes, even when discrepant environmental cues are present. We conclude with a discussion of remedies that may facilitate earlier recognition, and thus more effective agency response, when the unprecedented is occurring.

The sharing economy ideal

Purpose Bridging noted gaps in the sharing economy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literatures, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how an organization-sponsored sharing platform – a new class of information technology (IT) and the sharing economy ideal – is given meaning as a CSR program for internal stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach The research involves phone interviews conducted with site coordinators of the Zimride by Enterprise® ridesharing platform in 25 organizations. Findings This case study reveals that two component processes of organizational sensemaking – sensegiving and sensebreaking – are underlying micromechanisms used by organizations to enact a sponsored sharing platform as a CSR program. Qualitative analyses demonstrate that every meaning given to Zimride remained open to sensebreaking during its implementation. As such, site coordinators were continuously drawn into sensemaking about Zimride’s cognitive, linguistic and conative dimensions as a CSR program and had to exert ongoing effort to stabilize its socially (re)constructed meaning within their organization. Furthermore, site coordinators’ sensegiving narrative about Zimride was often undermined by their sensebreaking communications and organizational actions, albeit unintentionally. Research limitations/implications Sponsoring a sharing platform to facilitate collaborative consumption can deliver triple bottom line benefits for both organizations and their members, but it may not. The key to accruing this potential shared value lies is how site coordinators navigate organizational sensemaking about these IT-enabled CSR programs. Originality/value This paper provides valuable insights into these sensemaking processes and develops a prescriptive framework for enacting an organization-sponsored sharing platform as a CSR program.