Sensemaking on the Shop Floor: Narratives of Knowledge in Organizations*

Abstract

 This paper explores the role of narratives in organizational inquiry and knowledge work. Following the tenets of the phenomenological method, the paper digs into the 'life world' of organizations in order to capture the taken for granted stream of everyday routines, interaction, and events that constitute both individual and social practices. An empirical case study examines the narrative-based processes of sensemaking and knowledge acquisition in the setting of a traditional pressing plant at Fiat Auto, Italy. The focus of analysis is on how a best performing team engages in the resolution of disruptive occurrences on the shop floor. Through the deconstruction of narratives underlying problem-solving activities, the case identifies a distinctive mode of investigation conceptualized as 'detective stories'. The detective's method highlights the interplay between time and narrative in shaping the interconnected processes of organizational knowledge creation, utilization, and institutionalization. More generally, the findings of the paper stress the importance of conjectural knowledge and common-sensical wisdom in the everyday life of organizations.

Feral Information Systems Creation as Sensemaking

“…As Goffman [32] said, we would rather have some explanation than no explanation. 5 Enacting-Weick [4] describes this part of sensemaking as efferent or ongoing, "The person's idea is extended outward, implanted, and then rediscovered as knowledge…" and "Action, perception, and sensemaking exist in a circular, tightly coupled relationship…" [4]. In other words, sensemaking is part of an ongoing, outwardly moving process of enactment where actors are continually co-creating the world they helped to create.…”

“…Organisational sensemaking is primarily about the creation of plausible narratives for understanding ambiguous situations ( [1][2][3][4], A central tenant of sensemaking are the scripts [5] people use as part of their practices to justify the roles, expectations and decisions they make under ambiguous organizational situations. [6], demonstrates how often these decisions are made as part of a narrative that underpins the 'story' of a particular situation.…”

Sherlock Holmes and the adventure of the rational manager: Organizational reason and its discontents

“…Malcolm Goodman (2000) made a step in that direction by imagining Sherlock Holmes (who is also the protagonist of our story) as a management consultant, brought in to discover the culprits behind organizational problems. Gerardo Patriotta (2003) showed the usefulness of framing organizational problem-solving as a detective story, focused on nding, performing and nally explaining the problem for the bene t of the audience. He did not name managers as necessarily the protagonists of these stories, but other authors such as O 'Loughlin and McFadzean (1999) or Van Bruggen and Wierenga (2001) placed problem-solving at the heart of manager's role.…”

Handbook of Narrative Analysis

“…The telling of these narratives demonstrates and shares the technicians' mastery and so both celebrates and creates the technicians' identities as masters of the black arts of dealing with the machines and of the only somewhat less difficult arts of dealing with customers. (Orr 1996: 2) Where the chief characters in Orr's study are very clearly the machines, a study undertaken by Patriotta (2003) at a Fiat plant in Italy draws attention to the political dimension of narrative knowledge, emphasizing how problem-solving narratives can be viewed as "detective stories" aimed at sharing social practices on how to deal with formal hierarchies and attributing or shifting blame. In this way, Patriotta's work is very helpful in broadening the scope of narrative knowledge beyond technical problem-solving into cultural knowledge or, more specifically, into phronesis, the practical wisdom necessary for handling political situations (Tsoukas and Cummings 1997).…”