Sensemaking at work: meaningful work experience for individuals and organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to take a closer look at the concept of meaningful work experience for individuals and organizations, and discuss the role of sensemaking in creating it. Design/methodology/approach – The main argument of the paper is that sensemaking efforts are among the fundamental tools that help create meaningful work experience for both individuals and organizations. The paper offers a conceptual framework that presents the interplay between sensemaking tools and enabling mechanisms in relation to internal and external organizational environments. Findings – It is proposed that job crafting is a sensemaking tool – enabled by empowerment – for individuals to make sense of the internal environment of the organization; and strategy crafting is a sensemaking tool – enabled by organizational learning – for organizations to make sense of the external environment of the organization. Originality/value – This paper attempts to converge micro- and macro-level concepts by bringing together individual- and organizational-level variables into a joint discussion. It places job crafting and strategy crafting in the context of sensemaking theory, and it reinforces the idea of proposing models that will consider the multi-level implications of organizational research.