Sensemaking is the process through which people work to understand issues or events that are novel, ambiguous, confusing, or in some other way violate expectations. As an activity central to organizing, sensemaking has been the subject of considerable research which has intensified over the last decade. We begin this review with a historical overview of the field, and develop a definition of sensemaking rooted in recurrent themes from the literature. We then review and integrate existing theory and research, focusing on two key bodies of work. The first explores how sensemaking is accomplished, unpacking the sensemaking process by examining how events become triggers for sensemaking, how intersubjective meaning is created, and the role of action in sensemaking. The second body considers how sensemaking enables the accomplishment of other key organizational processes, such organizational change, learning, and creativity and innovation. The final part of the chapter draws on areas of difference and debate h...

Sensemaking in Organizations: Taking Stock and Moving Forward

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to summarize and classify extant research and to better understand the past, present, and future state of the theory of value co-creation. Its main objectives are: to identify the different theoretical perspectives and research streams that characterize and define the co-creation literature, and to highlight the connections between them; to look for emerging trends and gaps in the literature by comparing the most recent papers with those representing the field's core. Design/methodology/approach – The paper relies on bibliometric data: co-citation techniques were employed to select, analyze, and interpret citation patterns within the co-creation literature. Findings – The paper identified two main clusters, as well as specific research streams and common themes, representing scholarly journals’ publications on co-creation over the past years. These research streams and themes apply three different theoretical perspectives: service science, innovation and technology m...

Theory of value co-creation: a systematic literature review

This paper explores how a world-wide operating software solutions provider implemented environmentally sustainable business practices in response to emerging environmental concerns Through an interpretive case study, we develop a theoretical framework that identifies four important functional affordances originating in information systems, which are required in environmental sustainability transformations as they create an actionable context in which (1) organizations can engage in a sensemaking process related to understanding emerging environmental requirements, and (2) individuals can implement environmentally sustainable work practices Through our work, we provide several contributions, including a better understanding of IS-enabled organizational change and the types of functional affordances of information systems that are required in sustainability transformations We describe implications relating to (1) how information systems can contribute to the creation of environmentally sustainable organizations, (2) the design of information systems to create required functional affordances, (3) the management of sustainability transformations, and (4) the further development of the concept of functional affordances in IS research

http://www.misq.org/skin/frontend/default/misq/pdf/appendices/2013/V37I4_Appendices/SI_GreenIS_SeidelAppendices.pdf

Sensemaking and sustainable practicing: functional affordances of information systems in green transformations

Much of the prior research on interorganizational learning has focused on the role of absorptive capacity, a firm's ability to value, assimilate, and utilize new external knowledge. However, this definition of the construct suggests that a firm has an equal capacity to learn from all other organizations. We reconceptualize the firm-level construct absorptive capacity as a learning dyad-level construct, relative absorptive capacity. One firm's ability to learn from another firm is argued to depend on the similarity of both firms' (1) knowledge bases, (2) organizational structures and compensation policies, and (3) dominant logics. We then test the model using a sample of pharmaceutical–biotechnology R&D alliances. As predicted, the similarity of the partners' basic knowledge, lower management formalization, research centralization, compensation practices, and research communities were positively related to interorganizational learning. The relative absorptive capacity measures are also shown to have greater explanatory power than the established measure of absorptive capacity, R&D spending. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Relative absorptive capacity and interorganizational learning

This study investigates estimation errors due to hidden costs—the costs of implementation that are neglected in strategic decision-making processes—in the context of services offshoring. Based on data from the Offshoring Research Network, we find that decision makers are more likely to make cost-estimation errors given increasing configuration and task complexity in captive offshoring and offshore outsourcing, respectively. Moreover, we show that experience and a strong orientation toward organizational design in the offshoring strategy reduce the cost-estimation errors that follow from complexity. Our findings contribute to research on the effectiveness of sourcing and global strategies by stressing the importance of organizational design and experience in dealing with increasing complexity.

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Uncovering the hidden costs of offshoring: The interplay of complexity, organizational design, and experience

Achieving shared, common, or mutual understandings among geographically dispersed workers is a central concern in the distributed work literature. Nonetheless, little is known yet about the socio-cognitive acts and communication processes involved with synchronizing and cocreating understandings in such settings. Building on a case study of a geographically distributed information systems development project at one of India's largest offshore vendors, we postulate that knowledge and experience asymmetries, and requirements and task characteristics (such as complexity, instability, ambiguity, and novelty) prompt onsite and offshore team members to engage in acts of sensegiving, sensedemanding, and sensebreaking. This allows them to make sense of their tasks and their environment, and it increases the likelihood that congruent and actionable understandings emerge. Furthermore, it assists them in cocreating novel understandings, especially when acts of sensegiving and sensedemanding are complemented with instances of sensebreaking. Our results contribute to the literature by explaining how distributed team members mitigate problems of understanding, transfer preexisting understandings, and cocreate novel understandings. Acts of sensegiving, sensedemanding, and sensebreaking allow distributed team members to jointly explore and generate value, thereby amplifying the performance of distributed workers.

Cocreating understanding and value in distributed work: how members of onsite and offshore vendor teams give, make, demand, and break sense

Purpose – Within an IT outsourcing relationship, transition represents a critical and complex phase that starts immediately after contract signing. Transition involves handing over outsourced activities from client firm to service provider firm and accompanies a new way of operating. The purpose of this paper is to determine and detail factors influencing the performance of transition phase within global IT outsourcing relationships.Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors present a framework for transition performance that includes four factors: transition planning, knowledge transfer, transition governance and retained organization. This framework is tested and enriched by utilizing a single, in‐depth case study involving over 25 interviews with a global offshore IT outsourcing engagement.Findings – It was found that knowledge transfer and transition governance are more critical factors than transition planning and retained organization for transition performance. This was due mainly to ...

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Understanding transition performance during offshore IT outsourcing

In recent years, outsourcing has become a ubiquitous phenomenon. Despite extensive research, several examples of outsourcing failure are prevalent. In this paper, complimenting the strategic and economic studies on outsourcing, we focus on the operational execution challenges by examining transition phase, which starts immediately after contract signing and involves the critical transfer of outsourced activities from client to vendor firm. We conceptualize and illustrate transition as interplay of three connected organizational processes: transfer, learning and adaptation. Using an in-depth, longitudinal case study of an offshore outsourcing engagement, we develop and explain a transition process model, consisting of three phases – familiarize, adapt and accelerate. For each phase, the model identifies dominant organizational processes, key factors and triggering condition for progression to the next phase.

Transition During Offshore Outsourcing: A Process Model

Global sourcing of IT services is growing consistently over the last decades. Along with this rapid growth, instances of failures, sore relationships or unsatisfactory performances during IT outsourcing engagements are prevalent and require management attention. Over two-thirds of the problems in these unsuccessful engagements arise due to failed or poor transition. Transition is immediately followed by contract signing and precedes service delivery phase. It sets the tone for the entire relationship and involves handover of outsourced services from either the client’s internal IT department or the incumbent service provider. Recently second and third generation outsourcing engagements are coming into existence, with offshoring and multi-sourcing as an integral component of these engagements. Multi-sourcing deals, involving several service providers are emerging and require transition to be implemented in parallel. These developments exacerbate the complexity of transitions due to the presence of multiple service providers and several distributed or offshore locations, thereby further enhancing its bearing on the success of an engagement. What are the Critical Success Factors for parallel transitions? We conducted an initial Delphi study to explore success factors for parallel transitions. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the contractual agreement including transition exit criteria. Also the implementation of a joint steering committee contributes to transition success. All the stakeholders, including representatives of the incumbent service provider(s), should be represented in the steering committee to act responsive. Finally, the findings emphasis the need to manage dependencies between the transitions not limited to time lines and availability of critical resources for knowledge transfer and balancing between business continuity and timely and effective knowledge transfer.

Parallel Transitions in IT Outsourcing: Making It Happen

The last decade has witnessed a sharp increase in offshore outsourcing activities (Hirschheim et al., 2005), which Robinson and Kalakota (2004: 4) define as “the delegation or subcontracting of administrative, engineering, research, development, or technical support processes to a third-party vendor based in a low-cost location”. Although such activities may entail numerous benefits, compared to conventional outsourcing, offshoring generally faces organizations with additional complications (Carmel and Tjia, 2005; King et al., 2004).

Vinay Tiwari

Papers

Cocreating understanding and value in distributed work: how members of onsite and offshore vendor teams give, make, demand, and break sense

Understanding transition performance during offshore IT outsourcing

Transition During Offshore Outsourcing: A Process Model

Parallel Transitions in IT Outsourcing: Making It Happen

Developing congruent and actionable understandings in information systems development offshoring relations