Managing to relate: organizing as a social process

Achieving collaboration within and between organizations is seen commonly as being problematic. Looks behind some of the current management thinking to find the “taken‐for‐granteds” implicit in that thinking and practice, which constitute an “entitative perspective”. Viewing managing and collaboration from such a perspective facilitates certain questions about managing. Suggests that there is an alternative, relational, perspective which promotes different questions. From this relational perspective, managing is seen as just one social process of making sense of situations or communications, termed “text”, in relation to context. Argues that this sensemaking process is conversational and provides insights into the processes of collaborating.