Intersubjective perspective on Sensemaking

Abstract

This paper revisits Kerl Weick's Organizing theory that has been regarded as process of sensemaking. In the existing discussions, the central theme of organizing and sensemaking is that participants organize to make sense of equivocal input and enact their situation to make their world more orderly. That is to say the purpose and main activities for organizing is reduction of equivocality. However, there exists some crucial questions; who makes sense of it, what is the situation, and what is the meaning of their action for themselves. Organizing theory could not explain these because it is still tied to cognitive model: subject recognizes equivocal situation(object) and just deal with it. We argue that process of sensemaking should be discussed at the intersubjective level and then redeem organizing theory. To do so this study focuses on service encounter in Japanese authentic bar to examine interaction between customer and bartender through ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. The result shows that in the first step of organizing process, the identities of participants are presented and they organize their drink order reflexively. Weick also pointed out the identity but in his theory, it is constructed through process of organizing. We claim that identity is presented, not just constructed through the organizing process, that it to say presentation of self is essential role at the beginning of this activity. We should rethink Weick's organizing theory through empirical analysis focuses on organization practices to grasp his distinguished and ambiguous theory, “organizing” more correctly.