Editorial: A sensemaking perspective on corporate social responsibility: introduction to the special issue

The task of sensemaking resembles more closely the activity of cartography … The important points implied by the idea of sensemaking as cartography are the indefinite number of plausible maps that can be constructed. In a time when corporate governance seems to be rooted in detailed control systems, where codes of conduct are perceived to give meaning to daily activities and where a global organization parallels a unified actor, it might seem odd to approach CSR from a sensemaking perspective. Still, we believe that much can be learned from such an approach. Research has proven over and over again that a one-sided structure-based approach of stimulating responsible behaviour is missing its goal. Our understanding of CSR can gain considerably from a sensemaking perspective, because it attracts attention to some dubious assumptions behind CSR that are too often taken for granted. For example, it is often stated that CSR is based on shared values, without questioning by whom these values are shared or how a shared meaning of values originates in an organization. Approaching CSR from a sensemaking perspective models CSR as an evolutionary process where many different agents act and react upon each other (Weick 1995). In other words, sensemaking is about how people construct their own reality. Poole we cannot command and the environment will obey. Moreover, we cannot predict exactly something that will happen, because everything is part of a larger truth. Entity and environment are factors that influence each other. You are neither a plaything of the environment nor independent of it. Somewhere in between is the meaning. Sensemaking is social. While it is easy to consider sensemaking to be primarily an introspective process, in fact, we make sense of things in organizations while in conversation with others, while reading communications from others, while exchanging ideas with others. That is how sense becomes organizational. To quote Weick: ‘When social anchors disappear and one feels isolated from a social reality of some sort, one's grasp of what is happening begins to loosen’ (Weick 2001: 461). Sensemaking is ongoing. People are continuously trying to make sense of their daily activities. Sensemaking never stops; it is an ongoing process. Sensemaking is focused on, and by, extracted cues. In life, people are confronted with several cues, too many to notice. A person will notice only a few cues, because of his own filter. One's interests and unconsciousness, as well as coincidental situational factors, determine what cues will be focused upon. Sensemaking is driven by plausibility rather than accuracy. Organizational decision making is often based on the odds and can involve more intuition than careful analysis and systematic elimination of suboptimal choices. Beyond decision making, people construct the meanings of things based on reasonable explanations of what might be happening rather than through scientific discovery of ‘the real story’. Weick has also given some indications of how these seven properties of sensemaking can be used in the context of organizational design (Weick 2001: 464). The following are seven organizational ‘resources for a strong sensemaking system’, in the design of an organization. Social context: does the design encourage conversation? Personal identity: does the design give people a distinct, stable sense of who they are and what they represent? Retrospect: does the design preserve elapsed data and legitimate the use of those data? Salient cues: does the design enhance the visibility of cues? Ongoing projects: does the design enable people to be resilient in the face of interruptions? Plausibility: does the design encourage people to accumulate and exchange plausible accounts? Enactment: does the design encourage action or hesitation? Weick's sensemaking theory can be located in the strain of social constructivist approaches to organizations (Weick 1995: 65–69). Social reality is the product of the subjective and intersubjective experience of individuals, whereby the organizational theorist tries to understand the process through which shared multiple realities towards certain aspects arise, are sustained and are changed within organizations. This social constructivist approach relates to an interpretive paradigm of organizational theory (Burrell it is becoming increasingly clear from empirical work into business ethics that organizations where moral issues can be discussed are more likely to show responsible conduct (Treviño & Weaver 2003). Painter-Morland, in her contribution to this volume, makes a similar point. Organizational norms, through the ‘tight on a of (Weick 2001: provide an form of in organizations that the of organizational members that they for their sensemaking and and thus responsible moral in organizational Weick's theory of sensemaking a theoretical framework for understanding how normative can organizational behaviour and how can help organizations to achieve their Sensemaking theory can also help explain and irresponsible behaviour in organizations. The of CSR research and has far by a on activities CSR in an organizational For example, more than of the larger companies in the and have a business of ethics and in the number of companies with a business of ethics is Furthermore, the for and communication on, CSR has in more and more companies in which their towards a more socially responsible organization are in academic much attention has given to the development of and the construction of management systems internally or externally and at CSR in organizations. the has become one of the for on CSR. all these business like and once considered best in the of it clear that their and business values could not from unethical In to the of this linear or rational view of CSR, these examples give to questions the dynamic processes underlying CSR. For example, and how do people justify their unethical behaviour? How has corporate social over A sensemaking perspective on these dynamics that are to their own norms and values with those of the organization in a way that they are to the identity construction of the organization as a sensemaking in relation to CSR also implies that are to with the way in which the organization in and is organizing CSR from a to an are also a number of points where the relationship between sensemaking and CSR seems more problematic and To begin CSR theory would have some with Weick's view that sensemaking is retrospective in nature (Weick 1995: has for this on by & who that the of the possible is the is with sensemaking. The is by Pater & Lierop in this It seems very that a meaningful concept of moral responsibility can ever be that does not involve the assumption that human actions are towards the for example, is in terms of an to possible consequences of his actions for the of & responsibility has by as the of ethical by an of and possible problematic of Weick's approach to sensemaking is its inherent ethical and only as one does not is there a here. Weick has never ethical but ethical seems to be just a simple of his attitude towards plausibility Weick seems about the of frameworks that help people make sense, as as they work. is or sense, only sense that and sense that does not work. these and other points of discussion and the sensemaking approach to organizations seems to be a very of development for CSR theory, in particular a theoretical understanding of the social and communicative nature of CSR.