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Sensemaking, metaphors and performance evaluation

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  • Patriotta, Gerardo
  • Brown, Andrew D.

Abstract

Summary This paper analyzes the linkages between sensemaking, metaphors and performance evaluation in an organizational setting. Drawing on a study of how university students prepared for examinations, it argues that one way people make sense of being evaluated is through metaphors that conventionalize reality and thus contribute to the maintenance of continuity in everyday social action. This is because metaphorical understandings assist people's effort to assign events and situations to familiar categories and thereby turn the 'unusual' into 'business as usual'. Moreover, metaphors are cognitive and more broadly power-laden social resources, which individuals and groups employ in determining how to make sense of and deal with potentially unsettling events such as performance evaluations.

Suggested Citation

  • Patriotta, Gerardo & Brown, Andrew D., 2011. "Sensemaking, metaphors and performance evaluation," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 34-43, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:scaman:v:27:y:2011:i:1:p:34-43
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Pipan, Tatiana, 2000. "Metaphors and organizational identity in the Italian public services," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 391-409, December.
    2. Statler, Matt & Jacobs, Claus D. & Roos, Johan, 2008. "Performing strategy--Analogical reasoning as strategic practice," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 133-144, June.
    3. Bergström, Ola & Hasselbladh, Hans & Kärreman, Dan, 2009. "Organizing disciplinary power in a knowledge organization," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 178-190, June.
    4. Gerardo Patriotta, 2003. "Sensemaking on the Shop Floor: Narratives of Knowledge in Organizations," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 349-375, March.
    5. Andrew D. Brown, 2000. "Making Sense of Inquiry Sensemaking," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 1-1, January.
    6. Karl E. Weick & Kathleen M. Sutcliffe & David Obstfeld, 2005. "Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(4), pages 409-421, August.
    7. Karl E. Weick, 1988. "Enacted Sensemaking In Crisis Situations[1]," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 305-317, July.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Islam, Gazi, 2015. "A taste for otherness: Anthropophagy and the embodied self in organizations," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 351-361.
    2. Carlos Martin-Rios, 2016. "Innovative management control systems in knowledge work: a middle manager perspective," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 181-204, May.
    3. Francesca Torlone, 2020. "Lo specialista del trattamento per l?apprendimento trasformativo nei contesti penitenziari: la costruzione di identit? del funzionario giuridico-pedagogico," QUADERNI DI ECONOMIA DEL LAVORO, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2020(112), pages 103-127.
    4. Joanne Murphy & Sara McDowell, 2023. "Making sense of segregation: Transitional thinking and contested space," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(14), pages 2835-2851, November.
    5. Kristiansen, Margrethe & Obstfelder, Aud & Lotherington, Ann Therese, 2015. "Nurses’ sensemaking of contradicting logics: An underexplored aspect of organisational work in nursing homes," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 330-337.
    6. Ivanova-Gongne, Maria & Törnroos, Jan-Åke, 2017. "Understanding cultural sensemaking of business interaction: A research model," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 102-112.
    7. Atif Açıkgöz & Ayşe Günsel & Cemil Kuzey & Halil Zaim, 2016. "Team Foresight in New Product Development Projects," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 289-323, March.
    8. Eero Vaara & Andrea Whittle, 2022. "Common Sense, New Sense or Non‐Sense? A Critical Discursive Perspective on Power in Collective Sensemaking," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 755-781, May.
    9. Brown, Andrew D., 2018. "Making sense of the war in Afghanistan," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 43-56.
    10. Lund, Anne Kamilla, 2019. "Leading knowledge-workers through situated ambiguity," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(3).
    11. Patriotta, Gerardo & Spedale, Simona, 2011. "Micro-interaction dynamics in group decision making: Face games, interaction order and boundary work," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 362-374.
    12. Thurlow, Amy & Helms Mills, Jean, 2015. "Telling tales out of school: Sensemaking and narratives of legitimacy in an organizational change process," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 246-254.

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