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Sensemaking, safety, and situated communities in (con)temporary networks
Author(s)
Date Issued
2002-07
Date Available
2014-08-07T13:20:21Z
Abstract
This paper discusses the difficulties involved in managing knowledge-intensive, multinational, multiorganisational, and multifunctional project networks. The study is based on a 2-year quasi-ethnography of one such network engaged in the design and development of a complex new process control system for an existing pharmaceutical plant in Ireland. The case describes how, drawing upon the organisational heritage of the corporations involved and the logic implicit within their global partnership arrangements, the project was initially structured in an aspatial manner that underestimated the complexity of the development process and the social relations required to support it. Following dissatisfaction with initial progress, a number of critical management interventions were made, which appeared to contribute to a recasting of the network ontology that facilitated the cultivation and protection of more appropriate communicative spaces. The case emphasises the need to move away from rationalistic assumptions about communication processes within projects of this nature, towards a richer conceptualisation of such enterprises as involving collective sensemaking activities within and between situated 'communities' of actors.Contrary to much contemporary writing, the paper argues that space and location are of crucial importance to our understanding of network forms of organising.
Other Sponsorship
British Council
Type of Material
Journal Article
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal
Journal of Business Research
Volume
55
Issue
7
Start Page
583
End Page
594
Copyright (Published Version)
2002 Elsevier
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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