Journal article
The role of language in organizational sensemaking: an integrative theoretical framework and an agenda for future research
- Abstract:
- Despite the rapid growth of research on organizational sensemaking and an acknowledgement of the critical role of language in the sensemaking process, the literature on sensemaking and language is fragmented. In particular, there is no systematic review that explains the roles and functions of different linguistic elements in meaning construction. The purpose of this review paper is to develop an integrative theoretical framework that organizes existing research in a way that allows us to better understand how different linguistic processes shape the construction of meaning in sensemaking. First, we explain how a cognitive linguistic perspective elucidates how language provides the cognitive associations, schema, and frames used in sensemaking. Second, we discuss how a focus on the social practices of language use, as in rhetorical, narrative or interactionist approaches, illuminates the patterns of meaning-making among organizational members in social interaction. Third, we explain how a focus on discourse helps to understand how discursive structures enable or constrain sensemaking and thereby reproduce or transform systems of thought. This leads us to turn to the differences in these perspectives and suggest how they can be brought together in an integrative theoretical framework. Finally, we discuss the contributions of our framework and propose an agenda for future research focusing on the multifaceted role of language in sensemaking, intertextual and multimodal links in the language of sensemaking, the agentic and structural role of language in sensemaking, episodic and latent aspects of language use in sensemaking, and the role of power in discursive sensemaking.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 470.3KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1177/01492063221147295
Authors
- Publisher:
- SAGE Publications
- Journal:
- Journal of Management More from this journal
- Volume:
- 49
- Issue:
- 6
- Pages:
- 1807 - 1840
- Publication date:
- 2023-01-12
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-12-07
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1557-1211
- ISSN:
-
0149-2063
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1314937
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1314937
- Deposit date:
-
2022-12-13
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Whittle et al
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2023. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
- Notes:
- This is the accepted manuscript version of the article. The final version will be available online from a forthcoming edition of Journal of Management.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record