Integrative sensemaking in higher education teaching and learning: from relational coordination to institutional structure

This paper examines how leadership of teaching and learning is organised within contemporary universities, where increasing policy complexity, regulatory demands, and technological change intensify expectations for curriculum coherence and assurance of learning. While academic developers play a central role in translating institutional priorities into practice, scholarship frames this work through relational and ‘third space’ perspectives, emphasising identity, boundary work, and professional ambiguity. Drawing on organisational sensemaking theory and scholarship on academic development, leadership, and institutional complexity, the paper reconceptualises leadership of teaching and learning as a layered organisational ecology comprising strategic leadership, policy and governance, curriculum design, and teaching practice. This framing shifts attention from role-focused explanations to organisational conditions under which coordination occurs. Integrative sensemaking is introduced as a system-level function through which distributed sources of authority are reconciled to produce coherence across levels. The analysis identifies a structural mismatch between formally organised processes and informal, relational coordination through which teaching and learning practices are enacted. By reframing academic development as an institutional integrative function of educational leadership – enacted across roles but not consistently embedded within formal structures – the paper offers insights into how coordination is organised under conditions of complexity, with implications for governance, role design, and policy.