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The Sense‐making approach to studying and understanding users and designing systems to serve their needs is reviewed. The approach, developed to focus on user sense making and sense unmaking in the fields of communication and library and information science, is reviewed in terms of its implications for knowledge management. Primary emphasis is placed on moving conceptualizations of users, information and reality from the noun‐based knowledge‐as‐map frameworks of the past to verb‐based frameworks emphasizing diversity, complexity and sense‐making potentials. Knowledge management is described as a field on the precipice of chaos, reaching for a means of emphasizing diversity, complexity and people over centrality, simplicity and technology. Sense making, as an approach, is described as a methodology disciplining the cacophony of diversity and complexity without homogenizing it. Knowledge is reconceptualized from noun to verb.

Prior accounting research views impression management predominantly though the lens of economics. Drawing on social psychology research, this paper seeks to provide a complementary perspective on corporate annual narrative reporting as characterised by conditions of “ex post accountability”. These give rise to impression management resulting from the managerial anticipation of the feedback effects of information and/or to managerial sense‐making by means of the retrospective framing of organisational outcomes.

A content analysis approach pioneered by psychology research is used, which is based on the psychological dimension of word use, to investigate the chairmen's statements of 93 UK listed companies.

Results suggest that firms do not use chairmen's statements to create an impression at variance with an overall reading of the annual report. It was found that negative organisational outcomes prompt managers to engage in retrospective sense‐making, rather than to present a public image of organisational performance inconsistent with the view internally held by management (self‐presentational dissimulation). Further, managers of large firms use chairmen's statements to portray an accurate (i.e. consistent with an overall reading of the annual report), albeit favourable, image of the firm and of organisational outcomes (i.e. impression management by means of enhancement).

The approach makes it possible to investigate three complementary scenarios of managerial corporate annual reporting behaviour: self‐presentational dissimulation, impression management by means of enhancement, and retrospective sense‐making.

The purpose of this paper is to study the crisis management process for project-based organizations (PBOs) by developing a comprehensive model and propositions.

This paper is based on a conceptual study. A literature review is considered a primary source for studying contemporary research, including 171 publications in total, which embody qualitative, quantitative, conceptual and theoretical studies. For data analysis, content analysis is used, which is comprised of descriptive and thematic analysis.

This study identifies five imperative elements of crisis management for PBOs which include (1) sense-making (information gathering and crisis interpretation), (2) decision-making (accurate and timely decision), (3) response (reactive response), (4) outcome (success/failure) and (5) learning. Based on these findings, this study proposes an integrative model of the interplay between sense-making, decision-making, response, outcome and learning. Furthermore, the findings lead to propositions for each of the elements. The paper contributes to the literature on dynamic capability theory.

This paper explores the crisis management process for PBOs. The proposed model deepens the understanding of the practices and processes of project-based crisis management.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the annual KMWorld Conference that took place October 31 through November 2, 2006 in San Jose, California.

The paper examines the conference presentations that indicated that knowledge management may be at the end of one era and at the beginning of its next stage.

Conference presentations pointed to three themes affecting KM. The first theme was that new elements are being associated with KM, specifically innovation. The second theme was that emerging technologies have become great levelers and social network enablers for members of organizations. The third theme was that KM theory and practice were in the process of transformation. This last theme has the sub‐themes: KM would become more socio‐technocratic; it would devolve from large‐scale enterprise‐wide initiatives to specific project‐oriented initiatives; or the view that KM could not fulfill its promise and that the real work at hand was in the areas of sense making and related approaches which more effectively resolve otherwise complex and otherwise irresolvable dilemmas faced by organizations. Despite these varying perspectives, a recurring message was that the principles, the value and values of KM have been absorbed into overall organizational management schemes.

The outcome appears to be that KM is evolving into a more boundaryless, continuously reframing discipline. KM's opportunities lie in exploring these new perspectives and technologies to best redefine how knowledge management can create the most value in organizations and their social networks.

The issue dealt with in this chapter is the role of management in developing and maintaining business relationships among companies. Interdependent business network structures result from interactions in dyads between single actors and interactions among all involved actors collectively. Managers as ‘architects and constructors’ of business relationships, involved directly in developing the relationships between customers and suppliers, are mostly middle-management positions rather than top management. Purchasing managers, sales managers and technical managers are fundamental for the development of business relationships as they create value in business relationships. Relationships between companies cannot be developed unilaterally; they have to be developed jointly. Since value creation requires involvement of others, motivating other actors and mediating are fundamental in developing relationships and creating value. The effective development of business relationships of value hinges on the capability and skills of management to work with and through others, to relate to others and to cope with interdependencies that arise in relationships. However, the capability of a company to interact and create value in business relationships is not simply a sum of individual managerial skills; it is an issue of organising the interfaces in relationships to other business.

Companies inevitably interact and entrench in complex organic systems of business relationships with other. These business networks are not objectively defined, instead they are shaped by the subjective perception of actors. This inherent subjectivity is associated with the notion of network pictures, that is, a research tool that researchers or managers can use to grasp practitioner theories. In this chapter, we discuss how the importance of identifying these theories results mainly from underlying principles of sense-making theory, as well as from the idea around performativity. Drawing on these theoretical groundings, this chapter has two objectives: to explore how practitioners actually perceive their business surroundings and to assess the extent of overlapping between (IMP Group) academic theories and practitioner theories. To achieve these objectives, the researchers use a dimensional network pictures model previously developed in the literature to analyze the network pictures of 49 top-level managers across 17 companies from two very distinct contexts or networks: a product-based network and a project-based network. Among other practices, findings illustrate how practitioners tend to simplify what is going on in their complex surroundings, to personalize their relationships with those surroundings, and to think in a stereotyped way. Moreover, the juxtaposition between the captured practitioner theories and academic (IMP Group) theories show that these are not always overlapping, and are in some cases quite the opposite. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion of the importance of grasping actors’ views of the world, arguing that sense-making theory and the notion of performativity are the two main conceptual drivers justifying the urgency in making those views more visible. This research also adds to the research on the impact and suitability of IMP Group theories on managerial thinking and practice. Finally, this research reinforces the current call for further practice-based research in business network contexts.

The advancement of human knowledge is the result of evolution of human capabilities for absorbing, developing and processing human intelligence, and perhaps just as equally, on the human capability to develop symbols and artifacts for assisting in the creation, diffusion and sharing of knowledge. These artifacts not only have evolved in their sophistication and ability to help human knowledge enterprise, but also they have become embedded in the knowledge networks and the global knowledge enterprises. The universal knowledge architecture today can be best represented as a set of interconnected networks linking the neural networks of our brain with our organizational, institutional, professional and societal networks, and the networks of knowledge artifacts. Within this context the knowledge enterprise is viewed as a sustaining quest for sense making through the human to human process for scaffolding of knowledge where the knowledge artifacts play quintessential and inseparable roles. The effectiveness of our efforts in developing and implementing the knowledge artifacts or management tools depends to a large extent on our ability to refocus the design context of these tools as artifacts, from an information centric paradigm to one of knowledge within the context of a sense‐making paradigm.

The national core curriculum is renewed in Finland approximately every ten years, the most recent one being 2016. The core curriculum sets the general goals, providing the foundation for district- and school level curriculum development work (Finnish National Board of Education, 2016). The messages from transnational educational policy (e.g. OECD) are apparent in the core curriculum. However, districts, schools and teachers are highly autonomous in upholding, resourcing and deciding about the curriculum making at the local sites of activity. Accordingly, the curriculum making relies heavily on shared sense-making as a tool for cultivating transformative learning throughout the educational system. The chapter draws on the results of the national “School Matters” research project (2014-2018), to provide the meta-analysis of the sense-making in national curriculum making. Results suggested that the shared sense-making focused on engaging educational practitioners in learning at all layers of the system. However, the means for facilitating shared sense-making between the different layers of the system and curriculum was perceived to be less coherent by the stakeholders at the district and school level, than at the state level. This implies that the educational providers should not only be involved in co-creation of the aims, contents and values of the curriculum document, but also in designing novel and ecologically valid ways for orchestrating the complex and dynamic curriculum making.

This research is motivated to explore communication professionals' understanding of the digital changes brought by the Industry 4.0 revolution and how such changes may affect the strategies and skills expected in effective communication management. A specific focus of the research is to define the concept of Readiness for Industry 4.0 in communication and propose a theoretical framework to address the key dimensions of Readiness for Industry 4.0 as related to communication management.

A mixed research design was employed to fulfill the goal of this research. First, the authors took a grounded theory approach in proposing, conceptualizing and constructing the concept of Readiness for Industry 4.0 by reviewing a wider literature on technology and communication. As part of the conceptualization process, the authors proposed five dimensions which encompass the complexity of building capacity in communication practice to effectively manage changes associated with Industry 4.0. Second, the authors used a qualitative research method, in-depth interviews, to gain insights from 16 senior communication professionals working in South Korea.

The study’s interview results confirmed the challenge in finding a universal definition of Readiness for Industry 4.0, even though the interviewed senior communication professionals have widely recognized the changes in the workplace brought by the Industry 4.0. Our interviewees agreed that their mindset is ready for the changes. However, they addressed the need for communication professionals to continue to learn and build their knowledge and skills from multiple perspectives. More specifically, skill sets and knowledge in cognitive analytics, data management, technology literacy, sense making skills for digital transformation and digital competencies in crisis management are desired and necessary.

This research advances theory building in communication management by addressing the importance of digital competencies in the workplace. By proposing a theoretical framework to explain the Readiness for Industry 4.0, this article contributes to our knowledge of digital transformation and its impact on effective communication. Moreover, by having deep conversations with industry leaders who are in the forefront of managing the challenges associated with technology advancement, this article enriches its practical implications by linking the discussion to the proposed theoretical framework.

A small number of psychological contract studies have explored the cognitive processes that influence employees' evaluation and reactions to perceived contract breach. The aim of this paper is to extend this reseaerch with a qualitative study on breach using a sense making perspective.

In total, 15 interviews employing critical incident technique to examine employee sense making processes were carried out.

The findings highlight the variety of ways employees perceive contract breach and the processual nature of the experience. Emotions and actions were intertwined in the process of attributing responsibility and finding an explanation for the breach.

Contract breach is not necessarily a discrete event and reciprocity is integral to the sense making process. The findings provide a basis for future research that could explore the role of time, contextual factors and various employer representatives as sense‐givers in psychological contract evaluations.

Employer representatives can aid employees to make sense of critical events that occur in organizations to minimize the effects of breach.

The paper provides an under‐researched sense making‐perspective on psychological contract breach. Through a qualitative inquiry, the complex nature of the employees' experience of and reaction to breach, is highlighted.