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Sense Making (sense + making)
Selected AbstractsBeyond Bodies, Rainmaking and Sense Making in Tanzania by Todd SandersAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 4 2009PETER GESCHIERE No abstract is available for this article. [source] Sense making: Trojan horse?PSYCHOLOGY & MARKETING, Issue 5 2001Pandora's box? This article examines the concept of sense making and its application to management disciplines. The ideas of Karl Weick are discussed in terms of their contribution to these disciplines. Two contributions are identified,the validation of the "agent" and the impact of the adoption of the sense-making construct on current research paradigms, theory, and methodology. The theme of this article is that sense making, whose origin lies in constructivism, has been interpreted and applied within the social-constructionist worldview. The consequence of this action is a heightening of epistemological discussion in the social and management sciences. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] Learning from research on the information behaviour of healthcare professionals: a review of the literature 2004,2008 with a focus on emotionHEALTH INFORMATION & LIBRARIES JOURNAL, Issue 3 2009Ina Fourie Objective:, A review, focusing on emotion, was conducted of reported studies on the information behaviour of healthcare professionals (2004,2008). Findings were intended to offer guidelines on information services and information literacy training, to note gaps in research and to raise research interest. Method:, Databases were searched for literature published from January 2004 to December 2008 and indexed on eric, Library and Information Science Abstracts, medline, PsycINFO, Social Services Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition; Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts; Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection; Social Work Abstracts; SocINDEX with Full Text; SPORTDiscus; cinhal; and the ISI Web of Knowledge databases. Key journals were manually scanned and citations followed. Literature was included if reporting on issues concerning emotion. Results:, Emotion in information behaviour in healthcare contexts is scantily addressed. This review, however, offers some insight into the difficulty in identifying and expressing information needs; sense making and the need to fill knowledge gaps; uncertainty; personality and coping skills; motivation to seeking information; emotional experiences during information seeking; self-confidence and attitude; emotional factors in the selection of information channels; and seeking information for psychological or emotional reasons. Conclusion:, Suggestions following findings, address information literacy programs, information services and research gaps. [source] Evidence of an Interaction Involving Complexity and Coupling as Predicted by Normal Accident TheoryJOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2007Frederick Wolf This paper describes a test of the principle hypothesis of Normal Accident Theory. It posits and tests for the existence of an interaction involving interactive complexity and coupling associated with in an important class of manufacturing organizations. Ninety four (n=94) petroleum refineries located in the United States during the five-year period 1993,97 were examined. The dependent variable in this test was the ratio of Reportable Quantity accidental hazardous chemical releases per unit of production. Refinery capacity and age were included as control variables. This study identified a statistically significant interaction involving interactive complexity and coupling, as predicted by Normal Accident Theory. The interaction appears to be consistent with an important core hypothesis of normal accident theory over a significant portion of its domain. The nature of this interaction and its potential relevance to organizational sense making is discussed. Additional opportunities for quantitative research involving Normal Accident Theory are identified. [source] Developing interdisciplinary maternity services policy in Canada.JOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Issue 1 2010Evaluation of a consensus workshop Abstract Context, Four maternity/obstetrical care organizations, representing women, midwives, obstetricians and family doctors conducted interdisciplinary policy research under auspices of four key stakeholder groups. These projects teams and key stakeholders subsequently collaborated to develop consensus on strategies for improved maternity services in Ontario. Objectives, The objective of this study is to evaluate a 2-day research synthesis and consensus building conference to answer policy questions in relation to new models of interdisciplinary maternity care organizations in different settings in Ontario. Methods, The evaluation consisted of a scan of individual project activities and findings as were presented to an invited audience of key stakeholders at the consensus conference. This involved: participant observation with key informant consultation; a survey of attendees; pattern processing and sense making of project materials, consensus statements derived at the conference in the light of participant observation and survey material as pertaining to a complex system. The development of a systems framework for maternity care policy in Ontario was based on secondary analysis of the material. Findings, Conference participants were united on the importance of investment in maternity care for Ontario and the impending workforce crisis if adaptation of the workforce did not take place. The conference participants proposed reforming the current system that was seen as too rigid and inflexible in relation to the constraints of legislation, provider scope of practice and remuneration issues. However, not one model of interdisciplinary maternity/obstetrical care was endorsed. Consistency and coherence of models (rather than central standardization) through self-organization based on local needs was strongly endorsed. An understanding of primary maternity care models as subsystems of networked providers in complex health organizations and a wider social system emerged. The patterns identified were incorporated into a complexity framework to assist sense making to inform policy. Discussion, Coherence around core values, holism and synthesis with responsiveness to local needs and key stakeholders were themes that emerged consistent with complex adaptive systems principles. Respecting historical provider relationships and local history provided a background for change recognizing that systems evolve in part from where they have been. The building of functioning relationships was central through education and improved communication with ongoing feedback loops (positive and negative). Information systems and a flexible improved central and local organization of maternity services was endorsed. Education and improved communication through ongoing feedback loops (positive and negative) were central to building functioning relationships. Also, coordinated central organization with a flexible and adaptive local organization of maternity services was endorsed by participants. Conclusions, This evaluation used an approach comprising scoping, pattern processing and sense making. While the projects produced considerable typical research evidence, the key policy questions could not be addressed by this alone, and a process of synthesis and consensus building with stakeholder engagement was applied. An adaptive system with local needs driving a relationship based network of interdisciplinary groupings or teams with both bottom up and central leadership. A complexity framework enhanced sense making for the system approaches and understandings that emerged. [source] Knowing , in MedicineJOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Issue 5 2008Joachim P. Sturmberg MBBS DORACOG MFM PhD FRACGP Abstract In this paper we argue that knowledge in health care is a multidimensional dynamic construct, in contrast to the prevailing idea of knowledge being an objective state. Polanyi demonstrated that knowledge is personal, that knowledge is discovered, and that knowledge has explicit and tacit dimensions. Complex adaptive systems science views knowledge simultaneously as a thing and a flow, constructed as well as in constant flux. The Cynefin framework is one model to help our understanding of knowledge as a personal construct achieved through sense making. Specific knowledge aspects temporarily reside in either one of four domains , the known, knowable, complex or chaotic, but new knowledge can only be created by challenging the known by moving it in and looping it through the other domains. Medical knowledge is simultaneously explicit and implicit with certain aspects already well known and easily transferable, and others that are not yet fully known and must still be learned. At the same time certain knowledge aspects are predominantly concerned with content, whereas others deal with context. Though in clinical care we may operate predominately in one knowledge domain, we also will operate some of the time in the others. Medical knowledge is inherently uncertain, and we require a context-driven flexible approach to knowledge discovery and application, in clinical practice as well as in health service planning. [source] Dementia and risk: contested territories of everyday lifeJOURNAL OF NURSING AND HEALTHCARE OF CHRONIC ILLNE SS: AN INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 2 2010Charlotte L Clarke DSocSc clarke cl, keady j, wilkinson h, gibb ce, luce a, cook a & williams l (2010) Journal of Nursing and Healthcare of Chronic Illness 2, 102,112 Dementia and risk: contested territories of everyday life Aims., The project aimed to understand the construction of risk in dementia care from the perspective of the person with dementia, family carers and practitioners with the intention of developing negotiated partnerships in risk management. Background., This paper addresses a gap in the literature by embedding constructions of risk within everyday events and social contexts, and communicates such constructions through the voices of people with dementia, carers and practitioners. Method., This symbolic interactionalist study involved data collection by interview with 55 people with dementia (sometimes twice), and their nominated carer and practitioner. The sample was drawn from three regions of the United Kingdom. Data were collected during 2004. Conclusions., Five ,contested territories' of everyday living with dementia are outlined in this paper: friendships, smoking, going out, domestic arrangements, and occupation and activity. These contested territories are purposeful and allow for sense making, maintenance of self, claiming and relinquishing decision making, and creating purpose(lessness) in people's lives. Relevance to clinical practice., Assessing and managing risk in a way that respects the dynamics and purposes of contested territories will support care that is person centred, and moreover respectful of the relationships that contribute to maintaining the individual's sense of self and purpose. [source] The social construction of fairness: social influence and sense making in organizationsJOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, Issue 1 2002Kai Lamertz This paper explores how the social relationships employees have with peers and managers are associated with perceptions of organizational justice. These relationships are theoretically modelled as the conduits for social comparison, social cues, and social identification, which are sources of sense making about fairness ,in the eyes of the beholder.' It is argued that perceptions of procedural and interactional justice are affected by this type of social information processing because: (1) uncertainty exists about organizational procedures; (2) norms of interpersonal treatment vary between organizational cultures; and (3) interpersonal relationships symbolize membership in the organization. A structural equations model of data from workers in a telecommunications company showed that an employee's perceptions of both procedural and interactional fairness were significantly associated with the interactional fairness perceptions of a peer. In addition, employees' social capital, conceived as the number of relationships with managers, was positively associated with perceptions of interactional fairness. In the structural model, both procedural and interactional justice were themselves significant predictors of satisfaction with managerial maintenance of the employment relationship. The discussion highlights the key role which the fairness of interpersonal treatment appears to play in the formation of justice judgements. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The natural landscape metaphor in information visualization: The role of commonsense geomorphologyJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 2 2010Sara Irina Fabrikant The landscape metaphor was one of the first methods used by the information visualization community to reorganize and depict document archives that are not inherently spatial. The motivation for the use of the landscape metaphor is that everyone intuitively understands landscapes. We critically examine the information visualization designer's ontologies for implementing spatialized landscapes with ontologies of the geographic domain held by lay people. In the second half of the article, we report on a qualitative study where we empirically assessed whether the landscape metaphor has explanatory power for users trying to make sense of spatialized views, and if so, in what ways. Specifically, we are interested in uncovering how lay people interpret hills and valleys in an information landscape, and whether their interpretation is congruent with the current scientific understanding of geomorphologic processes. Our empirical results suggest that neither developers' nor lay users' understanding of terrain visualizations is based on universal understanding of the true process that has shaped a natural landscape into hills and valleys, mountains, and canyons. Our findings also suggest that the information landscape metaphor for sense making of a document collection is not self-evident to lay users, as claimed by information landscape designers. While a deep understanding of geomorphology will probably not be required to successfully use an information landscape, we do suggest that a coherent theory on how people use space will be necessary to produce cognitively useful information visualizations. [source] The New Bureaucracies of Virtue or When Form Fails to Follow FunctionPOLAR: POLITICAL AND LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW, Issue 2 2007Charles L. Bosk As the prospective review of research protocols has expanded to include ethnography, researchers have responded with a mixture of bewilderment, irritation, and formal complaint. These responses typically center on how poorly a process modeled on the randomized clinical trial fits the realities of the more dynamic, evolving methods that are used to conduct ethnographic research. However warranted these complaints are, those voicing them have not analyzed adequately the logic in use that allowed the system of review to extend with so little resistance. This paper locates the expansion in the goal displacement that Merton identified as part of bureaucratic organization and identifies the tensions between researchers and administrators as a consequence of an inversion of the normal status hierarchy found in universities. Social scientists need to do more than complain about the regulatory process; they also need to make that apparatus an object for study. Only recently have social scientists taken up the task in earnest. This paper contributes to emerging efforts to understand how prospective review of research protocols presents challenges to ethnographers and how ethnographic proposals do the same for IRBs (Institutional Research Boards). This essay extends three themes that are already prominent in the literature discussing IRBs and ethnography: (1) the separation of bureaucratic regulations,policies,and procedures from the everyday questions of research ethics that are most likely to trouble ethnographers; (2) the goal displacement that occurs when the entire domain of research ethics is reduced to compliance with a set of federal regulations as interpreted by local committees; and (3) the difficulties of sense making when ethnographers and IRB administrators or panel members respond each to the other's concerns. [source] Applying general living systems theory to learn consumers' sense making in attending performing artsPSYCHOLOGY & MARKETING, Issue 5 2001Marylouise Caldwell Consumers seek pleasurable experiences when attending performing arts. Yet, no theory exists to explain and predict the sense making associated with this unique consumption activity. General living systems theory (GLST) is applied to offer a systems-based model intended to be useful in this respect. This work contributes to some important streams of research. For certain types of hedonic consumption, behavior can only be understood in the light of the subtleties of consumer interpretation and the entire buying,consuming process. The suggested GLST paradigm attempts to go beyond choice to achieve an understanding of lived experiences within the realities perceived by consumers. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] Sense making: Trojan horse?PSYCHOLOGY & MARKETING, Issue 5 2001Pandora's box? This article examines the concept of sense making and its application to management disciplines. The ideas of Karl Weick are discussed in terms of their contribution to these disciplines. Two contributions are identified,the validation of the "agent" and the impact of the adoption of the sense-making construct on current research paradigms, theory, and methodology. The theme of this article is that sense making, whose origin lies in constructivism, has been interpreted and applied within the social-constructionist worldview. The consequence of this action is a heightening of epistemological discussion in the social and management sciences. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] | ||||||||||||||||