Sensemaking

Sensemaking is the process by which people give meaning to experience. According to Klein et al. (2006b), Sensemaking is a set of processes that are initiated when an individual or organization recognizes the inadequacy of their current understanding of events. But how is Sensemaking relevant to the world of marketing? What lies ahead in this blog, is the answer to this very question.

The concept of sensemaking (Weick 1995) offers a holistic explanation of how organizations make sense of informational signals by defining how people in organizations place stimuli into frameworks for understanding. It has emerged as a concept used by many researchers in diverse fields, particularly organization learning and knowledge use (Dougherty, Borelli, Munir and O’Sullivan, 2000) in organizations.

The boundaries of marketing discipline are no longer restricted to advertising in print media, TV broadcasts, guerilla and other traditional marketing techniques. Today market research has become the most important aspect of marketing. The common models of marketing research do not suggest how we arrive at the definitions and interpretations we do. Nor, do they shed light on why we make the decisions we do. They do not explain, for example, the behavioral factors drawing researchers to particular target markets, sample determination, and particular interpretation of data. Any research work should be logically followed by decision making. Sensemaking involves use of specific rules, preferences to frame and order the information selected and gathered for decision-making.

Sensemaking gives a collective view of the outcome of the research rather than each one interpreting it in a different manner.

Triggers of Sense-making

Weick (1995; 2001) has suggested seven characteristics of sense-making including: (1) social context; (2) personal and organizational identity; (3) retrospection; (4) salient cues; (5) ongoing projects; (6) plausibility; and (7) enactment. These seven characteristics can be applied in the marketing research process.

Social context evolves out of the conversations among the members of the marketing research team. As researchers talk among themselves, the emergent social context influences the direction, quantum, and the significance of the research effort.

Personal identity and organizational identity are formed from the process of interaction associated with sense-making (Weick,1995). Personal identity and sense-making are closely aligned. The research group forms a group identity. That identity will influence the research process.

Retrospection opens up opportunities for sensemaking. The important point is that retrospective sense-making is an activity in which many possible meanings may need to be synthesized. The problem faced by the sensemaker is the ambiguity of meanings.

Salient Cues: The research group will look at cues and try to interpret the meaning by allowing data to drive the theory as opposed to theory driving data. Sense-making suggests that we cannot know the pattern and we make sense of the pattern using cues and past knowledge.

Ongoing Projects: Sensemaking is an ongoing process where individuals simultaneously react to the environments they face.

Plausibility: The marketing research team chooses the most plausible theory or explanation out of many others so that it is in sync with their beliefs or organizations practices.

Enactment: It is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy in which the people in organizations have a tendency to produce a portion of the environment they face much in the way that legislators do. Market researchers tend to approach their research from pre-conceived notions. In part, this will guide them to seek and obtain the results that they want.