CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
4.4 Beyond contingency: thesis, antithesis and synthesis
The above analysis has shown that the classical distinction between NAT and HRT does not hold. Not only are there elements that seem to cast doubt on this divide, it is also the potential of both theories for academia and practice. Therefore, post-Sagan research on high reliability (e.g. Weick et al., 1999) has moved beyond the extreme positions of NAT vs. HRT. It has changed the way it looks at the notion of ‘higher reliability’. Older literature tended to see high reliability as a defining characteristic rather than as a reliability variable. Some researchers (Bain, 1999;Rijpma, 1997a;Rijpma, 2003) have recast the debate between the NAT and HRT perspectives and suggests
that they should be seen as `complementary, not competing, perspectives’. This is more prominent from the side of HRT scholarship (e.g. La Porte & Rochlin, 1994), then from the side of NAT (Afterword to the 1999 edition, Perrow, 1999), were the stance is much more offensive36. HRT acknowledges the importance of tight-coupling and complexity but although it reaches a different conclusion, it cannot really be considered the conceptual opposite of NAT. Jarman (2001, p. 101-102) introduces the concept of lower-level reliability organization (or LRO/LRT) as the opposite of HRO/HRT, rather than a NAT. From the NAT side, Heimann (2005, p. 115), although critical of high-reliability organization theory, recognizes it “has hit on some key ideas in successfully managing risky technologies”. We agree with Smart et al. (2003, p. 737) in their argument that such views engage a more pluralist and post-modern perspective as a basis for organizational action, and halt the process by which HRT or NAT become entrenched as singular world views in the minds of managers. The conclusion of the overview of this mutual and self-criticism hence can be no other than that one needs to take a contingency approach to high reliability.
NAT is HRT’s antithesis. It is its alternative thesis and the value of its contribution to the emergence of a reliability synthesis is due to the fact that it starts from failure, which is the strongest scientific basis possible (Schäfer, 1996, p. 30-31). HRT starts from success which is a much weaker scientific basis because it is not contributing to falsification. In what follows, we argue why HRT and NAT cannot explain organizational reliability. Also, why it cannot be explained independently from them.
1. Both schools take unreliability as their starting point, with failure as a dependent variable (La Porte & Rochlin, 1994). Both schools start from a static view on reliability. NAT univocally describes organizations in terms of interactive complexity and coupling, deriving from this status their proneness to failure; HRT univocally describes them in terms of their culture, structure, behavior, information processing etc. Although HRT seems to take into account the dynamic nature of these properties and their change over time and the interaction between structure and behavior (La Porte & Rochlin, 1994, p. 221), it does not make it transparent and practical.
2. Both schools start from organizations that are characterized by interactive complexity and tight coupling. They have collected little empirical data on organizations that do not fit this straitjacket. More cases ceteris paribus. The result of the HRO research approach to study cases of success and of failure, is that reliability is treated as a binary (success or failure) concept (Ericksen & Dyer, 2005, p. 9). However useful such an approach may be, the problem, according to Schulman (2001, p. 347-348) is that: “In research on high reliability in organizations we are beset by the problem of many variables and few cases. How, without more failures, can we really be sure which of the many organizational features we see are in fact adding to reliability? If we do establish a connection between given features of an organization and its operational reliability, can we assume that these features are necessary, rather than merely sufficient? *…+ Finally, even if an organization has evolved features that are necessary to its reliability, can we be sure that its evolutionary adaptation is stable, that what adds reliability today will also work tomorrow under changes in the character of technology, the work force, or in the life cycle of the organization?” In other words, too much reliance on single case studies leads to a danger because there are too many variables and too few cases.
Thus, from a contingency perspective, could it be possible to conclude that the advocates of HRT are pleased with NAT because it helps them to be themselves even more? From a certain point of view, NAT is an inclusion of HRT. Without NAT, no HRT. They need one another to form their identity.
Another way of seeing NAT as an inclusion of HRT is that HRT takes the same principles (interactive complexity and tight coupling) as a starting point, but that they have developed the toolkit to use them to their advantage. This framework is related to the original optimistic/pessimistic division but consists of tools allowing for a more nuanced examination of the contingency. The study of this framework is the subject of the following section.
5 SenseMaking
In this section we examine the SenseMaking37 notion because of its potential contribution to a beter understanding of what constitutes organizational reliability.38 Whereas HRT seems to address structural and contextual dimensions that explain organization behavior, it does not offer a lens for better understanding decision making. Sensemaking fills that gap as it describes how people act upon what is happening and continuously make decisions in order to get grip of the situation.
SenseMaking therefore is a valuable complement to HRT.
SenseMaking literally means making sense of things. Thomas, Clark and Gioia (1993, p. 240) describe SenseMaking as “the reciprocal interaction of information seeking, meaning ascription, and action”.
The central activities of SenseMaking are information seeking, processing, creating, and using (Thomas, Clark, & Gioia, 1993), meaning that SenseMaking is not a noun, but a verb; that it is a process, with sense as its product. It encompasses intuitions, opinions, hunches, effective responses, evaluations and questions (Savolainen, 1993). SenseMaking is the process of creating a mental model of a situation, particularly when this situation is ambiguous (Klein, Moon, & Hoffman, 2006). It is "a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively" (Klein et al., 2006, p. 71). In this respect, it is different from creativity, comprehension, curiosity, mental modeling, explanation, or situational awareness, although all these factors or phenomena can be involved in or related to SenseMaking. SenseMaking is a meta-cognitive framework that can be used to get a grip on the equivocal external environment and its openness to multiple interpretations. It addresses questions like: ‘What is happening out there?’, ‘Why is it taking place?’, ‘What does it mean?’ (Klein et al., 2006, p. 5). Although not correct, we juxtapose SenseMaking and decision making, because in reality it could be argued that decision making is an inclusion of SenseMaking. However, for reasons of clarity, the remainder of this dissertation treats them as opposites. We do so because of the much broader perspective offered by SenseMaking opposed to the rationalistic and mechanistic characteristics of decision making (Boland, 2008).
Practically speaking, SenseMaking is a cognitive process (Boland & Yoo, 2003) that can be described through seven properties (Weick, 1995): Identity Constructing, Retrospective, Enacting, Social, Ongoing, Cue extracting, and Plausibility seeking (Table 2.9). It is the process by which individuals (or organizations) “create an understanding so that they can act in a principled and informed manner”.
Identity Constructing. The organization seeks to discover what it ‘thinks’ and ‘knows’ about itself and its environment. Depending on who the Sensemaker is, the definition of what is happening will also change. What the situation means is defined by who one becomes while dealing with it or what and who one represents (Weick, 1995, p. 20).
Retrospective. SenseMaking is an examination of past practices in order to learn/unlearn things about the current context (Nathan, 2004).
Enacting. There is no objective environment out there separate from one’s interpretation of it. “People often don’t know what the ‘appropriate action’ is until they take some action, guided by preconceptions, and see what happens. Action determines the situation: The product of action is an orderly, material, social construction that is subject to multiple interpretations” (Weick, 1988).
Social. “Other people are integral to our efforts to make sense of things because what we say or think or do is contingent on what others say and think and do. People learn about events when they compare what they see with what someone else sees and then negotiate some mutually acceptable version of what really happened” (Weick, 1985).
Ongoing. SenseMaking takes place in a continuing and dynamic fashion as events unfold and we continually seek to understand what events mean in relationship to our organizations. SenseMaking has neither a beginning nor a formal end (Nathan, 2004).
Cue Extracting. We decide what to pay attention to.
Plausibility-driven. Looking for what is plausible is often of more practical help then finding accuracy.
Table 2.9 - SenseMaking properties (Weick, 1995)
In essence, the seven properties boil down to ‘How can I know what I think till I see what I say’. “This recipe, which is central in organizational SenseMaking, retains several elements of dissonance theory. The recipe is about justification (my thoughts justify my earlier words), choice (I choose which words to focus on and which thoughts will explain them), retrospective SenseMaking (I look back at what I said earlier from a later point in time when the talking has stopped), discrepancies (I feel a need to see what I say when something doesn’t make sense), social construction of justification (I invoke thoughts I have been socialized to label as acceptable), and action as the occasion for SenseMaking (my act of speaking starts the SenseMaking process)” (Weick, 1995, p. 12). The best synthesis, however, is offered by Weick et al. (2005, p. 419) when they formulate a conclusion on what the seven SenseMaking properties are all about: “Taken together these properties suggest that increased skill at SenseMaking should occur when people are socialized to make do, be resilient, treat constraints as self-imposed, strive for plausibility, keep showing up, use retrospect to get a sense of direction, and articulate descriptions that energize. These are micro-level actions. They are small actions. But they are small actions with large consequences”. They summarize SenseMaking’s distinguishing features as a “genesis in disruptive ambiguity, with beginnings in acts of noticing and bracketing, founded in a mixture of retrospect and prospect, characterized by a reliance on presumptions to guide action, embedded in interdependence and a culmination in articulation that shades into acting thinkingly”.
Research on SenseMaking has been taking place for many years and by a great number of scholars, but unarguably it has reached full growth under the inspiration of Brenda Dervin (e.g. 1983a) and Karl E. Weick (e.g. 1995). Although both scholars have taken a different line of approach to the topic
and have been conducting their research independently from each other, their work definitely has a common denominator. For many years – and to a certain extent even today – the SenseMaking concept has remained undiscovered by mainstream literature but under the impulse of the Organizational Learning thought, it rightly got a broader interest by scholars in organization theory.
This should not come as a surprise, since the process of improving action through better knowledge and understanding, is integrally connected to SenseMaking (Nathan, 2004). Organizational awareness is enhanced by the extent to which members of an organization collectively become skilful perceivers of the business environment (Tsoukas & Shepherd, 2004). The idea of SenseMaking has reached full growth under the inspiration of Karl E. Weick (2001). However, despite the increasing attention, it would not be wise to label SenseMaking a theory: “*…+ SenseMaking is best described as a developing set of ideas with explanatory possibilities, rather than as a body of knowledge” (Weick, 1995, p. xi). This is in line with Dervin’s depiction of SenseMaking: “Some people call it a theory, others a set of methods, others a methodology, others a body of findings. In the most general sense, it is all of these. It is, first and foremost, a set of metatheoretic assumptions and propositions about the nature of information, the nature of human use of information, and the nature of human communicating” (Savolainen, 1993, p. 16).
The classification between individual and organizational SenseMaking is artificial. Individual SenseMaking is senseless without the collective (i.e. social) dimension, “making ‘individual SenseMaking’ something of an oxymoron” (Weick, 1995, p. 80). We therefore will not explicitly make that distinction as we carry on with the elaboration of the SenseMaking construct. What is far more characterizing is that SenseMaking is all about coping with interruptions. “To understand
*S+ensemaking is also to understand how people cope with interruptions’ (Weick, 1995, p. 5).
“SenseMaking is tested to the extreme when people encounter an event whose occurrence is so implausible that they hesitate to report it for fear they will not be believed. In essence, these people think to themselves, it can’t be, therefore, it isn’t” (Weick, 1995, p. 1). SenseMaking deals with omnipresent discontinuity in constantly changing situations. Dervin (e.g. Dervin, 1999) labeled this as ‘gappiness’, meaning that people are constantly confronted with dissonance, ill-structured problems, ambiguity and equivocality.
If one were to name one setting where SenseMaking would be most relevant, it would be situations where the gappiness is the most evident. The handling of high priority incidents (high impact, high urgency) is such a setting. In such situations the observation is that discontinuity is the rule, continuity the exception, while usually management and systems are designed according to the exception (Turoff, Chumer, Van de Walle, & Xiang, 2004). If the dominant assumption is continuity, systems are designed to deal with flows, process alignment etc. They are not designed for dealing with the alternative assumption of discontinuity. The problem is that a system that is designed according to the worldview of continuity does not help in practice because it conflicts with the discontinuity of reality. We find ourselves always in the middle of a situation that needs being made sense of. The purpose of our action therefore is to overcome our thrownness (Heidegger, e.g. in Inwood, 1997), i.e. the ongoing experience and being in the middle of things.