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74 Chapter 3

the information. Common interpretations are constructed by individuals from the
exchange and negotiation of information fragments combined with their previous
experiences. Weick (2001) proposed a theory of sense making to describe how chaos
is transformed into sensible and orderly processes in an organization through the
shared interpretation of individuals. A loosely coupled system is a term used to describe
systems that can be taken apart or revised without damaging the entire system. For
example, a human being is tightly coupled, but the human genome is loosely coupled.
Loose coupling permits adaptation, evolution, and extension. Sense making can be
thought of as a loosely coupled system where individuals construct their own repre-
sentation of reality by comparing current with past events.
Weick (2001) claims that sense making in organizations consists of four integrated
processes:
• Ecological change
• Enactment
• Selection
• Retention

Ecological change is a change in the environment that is external to the organiza-
tion — one that disturbs the fl ow of information to participants. This triggers an eco-
logical change in the organization. Organizational actors enact their environment by
attempting to closely examine elements of the environment.
In the enactment phase, people try to construct, to rearrange, to single out, or to
demolish specifi c elements of content. Many of the objective features of their environ-
ment are made less random and more orderly through the creation of their own
constraints or rules. Enactment clarifi es the content and issues to be used for the
subsequent selection process.
Selection and retention are the phases where individuals attempt to interpret the
rationale for the observed and enacted changes by making selections. The retention
process in turn furnishes the organization with an organizational memory of success-
ful sense-making experiences. This memory can be reused in the future to interpret
new changes and to stabilize individual interpretations into a coherent organizational
view of events and actions. These phases also serve to reduce any uncertainty and
ambiguity associated with unclear, poorly defi ned information.
Knowledge creating is seen as the transformation of personal knowledge between
individuals through dialog, discourse, sharing, and storytelling. This phase is directed
by a knowledge vision of “ as is ” (current situation) and “ to be ” (future, desired state).
Knowledge creation widens the spectrum of potential choices in decision making