Prospective Sensemaking and Thinking Infrastructures in a Large-Scale Humanitarian Crisis

Abstract

research focuses on the role of quantification and metrics as tools that actively shape organising processes and policy in response to grand social challenges. Rather than examining metrics as merely providing 'evidence' for managers and policy makers, his research places numbers and visualisations in the foreground to understand how notions of knowledge, innovation and accountability are constructed and practiced in such settings.Dr Matteo Ronzani's research focuses on the roles of visualisations and material artefacts in processes of organising and on how metrics and indicators are implicated in the making of transnational governance. ABSTRACTIn this study, we explore how thinking infrastructures can orchestrate collective sensemaking in unstable and socially contested environments, such as large-scale humanitarian crises. In particular, drawing from recent interest in the role of artefacts and infrastructures in sensemaking processes, we examine the evaluative underpinnings of prospective sensemaking as groups attempt to develop novel understandings about a desired but ambiguous set of future conditions. To explore these theoretical concerns, we conducted a detailed case study of the unfolding challenges of managing a large-scale humanitarian crisis response. Our study offers two contributions. Firstly, we develop a theorization of the process through which performance evaluation systems can serve as thinking infrastructures in the collaborative development of new understandings in unstable environments. Secondly, our study sheds light on the practices that support prospective sensemaking through specific features of thinking infrastructures, and we unpack how prospective and retrospective forms of sensemaking may interact in such processes.

Beyond the Visible, the Material and the Performative: Shifting Perspectives on the Visual in Organization Studies

“…Our ideas should also be valuable for research on organizing collective action during crises (e.g. Dwyer, Hardy, & Maguire, 2021;Gatzweiler & Ronzani, 2019;Kornberger, Leixnering, & Meyer, 2019). Think of the Covid-19 pandemic and the plethora of visual artefacts that accompanied the daily release of contagion data: different attempts of visualizing a pandemic provide various opportunities to accept or reject scientific assessment or governmental action.…”

“…Both papers share an interest in sensemaking, sense-giving and future-making as prominent topics in organization research (e.g. Beckert, 2021;Gatzweiler & Ronzani, 2019;Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005). Although most work on visual sensemaking (e.g.…”

Beyond Winners and Losers: Ranking Visualizations as Alignment Devices in Global Public Policy*

“…Extant literature has highlighted that ranking visualizations are interpretatively flexible (Pollock & D'Adderio, 2012) and that conflicting value dimensions in the design of visualizations can be a resource for meaning making (Gatzweiler & Ronzani, 2019;Quattrone, 2017). Our case study expands on these arguments and theorizes the ways that ranking visualizations are designed to convey malleable and multi-layered meanings to different audiences.…”

“…There is an increasing realization that the visualization of performance measures may facilitate the understanding of complex information sets, support interpretation and sensemaking, and prompt engagement with calculative technologies (Gatzweiler & Ronzani, 2019;Quattrone, 2017). Importantly, the interactive and artefactual properties of digital data displays and ranking visualizations need not be confused with an unmediated presentation of underlying information as "all visualizations are artefacts in their own right, and knowing how to read them as graphical expressions is crucial" (Drucker, 2015, p. 2, emphasis in original).…”

The lure of the visual: Multimodality, simplification, and performance measurement visualizations in a megaproject

“…The organizing force of visualizations also depends on how generic templates become contextually situated in meaning-making (Lorino et al, 2017) and sensemaking processes (Gatzweiler & Ronzani, 2019). Scholars argue that the BSC becomes meaningful through adaptations and rituals of engagement (Busco & Quattrone, 2015).…”