Sensemaking in virtual environments: a study of how people make sense of and act in a virtual conference

Sensemaking is a highly influential and well-developed theory which contends that how people make sense of their world determines their actions. Karl Weick is the founding father of sensemaking and his theory has been employed by many scholars to advance understanding of human action in areas such as strategy, decision making, and trust in organisations. However, despite the increasing popularity of internet-based organisations, sensemaking in virtual environments is poorly understood. The aim of this study is to examine how sensemaking forms the basis of human action in virtual environments by investigating the sensemaking processes of participants in a virtual conference called Sustainability Virtual Summits – SmartICT. A virtual ethnography methodology, a relatively new qualitative research approach developed to meet the unique challenges of the virtual environment, was employed to achieve this aim. The results of this study show that sensemaking in virtual environments differs to sensemaking in the real world. Firstly, the processes by which participants made sense of and acted in the virtual conference were different to the processes described in Weick’s sensemaking model, which was developed based on real world environments. This led me to propose a new model of sensemaking processes specific to virtual environments. Secondly, some characteristics of sensemaking in the virtual conference were inconsistent with three of Weick’s seven central concepts. Generally, while Weick suggests sensemaking is largely externally focused, I found that sensemaking in the virtual conference was inward-looking. This was evidenced by the participants’ inability to access external cues and inherent tendency to look inwards to make sense of their environment. I term this phenomenon introspective sensemaking. This study has potential implications for both theory and practice. Not only could the field of sensemaking be broadened to create new knowledge about sensemaking in virtual environments, but my findings may also inform more intuitive design of virtual environments along with more effective strategies to manage virtual work.