Collective Sensemaking Around COVID-19: Experiences, Concerns, and Agendas for our Rapidly Changing Organizational Lives

Abstract

Uncertainty is at the forefront of many crises, disasters, and emergencies, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no different in this regard. In this forum, we, as a group of organizational communication scholars currently living in North America, engage in sensemaking and sensegiving around this pandemic to help process and share some of the academic uncertainties and opportunities relevant to organizational scholars. We begin by reflexively making sense of our own experiences with adjusting to new ways of working during the onset of the pandemic, including uncomfortable realizations around privilege, positionality, race, and ethnicity. We then discuss key concerns about how organizations and organizing practices are responding to this extreme uncertainty. Finally, we offer thoughts on the future of work and organizing informed by COVID-19, along with a list of research practice considerations and potentially generative research questions. Thus, this forum invites you to reflect on your own experiences and suggests future directions for research amidst and after a cosmology event.

Time to Disentangle the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Constructs: Developing a Taxonomy around ICT Use for Occupational Health Research

“…Other contextual factors, including extraorganizational stressors (e.g., COVID-19, which significantly changed working arrangements), cultural differences (e.g., accommodating technical issues in cross-national teams), and organizational norms around ICT use (e.g., observing other team members and coworkers’ use; Matusik and Mickel 2011 ) may pose challenges to employees and organizations in adapting to technological changes and uses. In addition to adapting to the learning curves of new communication platforms, individual employees are expected to pick up new “soft skills” quickly (e.g., leading effective virtual communications in meetings; Stephens et al 2020 ). These new expectations for workers mean that organizations are now expected to provide sufficient technical support and resources for employees and develop new policies and practices around working from home (Sinclair et al 2020 ).…”

Information and Communication Technologies and Work-Life Balance: Practical Recommendations for Employers and Individuals

“…These consequences of work-life imbalance rooted in the overuse of organizational ICTs may carry significant implications in the aftermath of the work from home incited by Coronavirus. During COVID-19, research has shown that organizational technology reliance can contribute to increases in cyberbullying [41], intensified work environments [42], and more surveillance measures [43]. The COVID-19 pandemic may further reinforce perceptions of work and productivity differences between parents and childless employees that were already present [44], as many parents negotiate the role conflict of acting as homeschool teachers and working as full-time remote employees.…”

For the Greater Good? The Devastating Ripple Effects of the Covid-19 Crisis

“…Sense making may be a third, hitherto unexplored way of coping. In uncertain times like these, people may try to cope by making sense of the situation (e.g., Stephens et al, 2020 ). Scientific sense making in terms of trying to make sense of what is going on could be quite functional ( Passmore et al, 2014 ).…”