understanding sensemaking/sensegiving in transformational change processes from the bottom up

Understanding sensemaking/sensegivingin transformational change processes from the bottom up

Adrianna Kezar

Published online: 27 September 2012� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012

Abstract Government agencies, foundations, business and industry, and other important

higher education stakeholders continue to invest in important and deep changes they think

are necessary for the vitality and health of higher education particularly interdisciplinary

teaching and research. But we know little about how transformational changes happen,

particularly bottom up approaches required for altering the teaching/learning environment.

This article reports on one of the few studies of transformational change describing case

study research of 28 institutions attempting to fundamentally shift toward interdisciplinary

work. The results identify the key role of sensemaking and sensegiving and build on earlier

research showing how these processes change from mobilization to the implementation of

change.

Keywords Transformational change � Interdisciplinarity � Faculty change agents

Introduction

Government agencies, foundations, business and industry, and other important higher

education stakeholders worldwide continue to invest in important and deep changes they

think are necessary for the vitality and health of higher education ranging from diversity,

technology, increased access and completion, and new forms of teaching and learning such

as interdisciplinarity. For example, in the United States context the National Science

Foundation (NSF) continues to increase its investment in undergraduate science, tech-

nology, engineering, and mathematics reform (STEM) efforts aimed at creating more

engaging and interdisciplinary learning (ID) environments that attract a diverse set of

students into STEM disciplines. Business, industry, and foundations are investing in higher

education institutions that are trying to foster more innovation, entrepreneurship, and

creativity among students and their faculty that can translate into a stronger economy and

see interdisciplinary teaching and research as important to meeting these objectives.

A. Kezar (&)University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USAe-mail: [email protected]

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High Educ (2013) 65:761–780DOI 10.1007/s10734-012-9575-7

All of these initiatives, including interdisciplinarity, represent deep or transformational

change. According to Kezar and Eckel (2002a), ‘‘transformational change alters the culture

of the institution by changing select underlying assumptions of institutional behaviors,

processes and products; is deep and pervasive and affects the whole institution; is inten-

tional; and occurs over time’’ (pp. 295–296). While there are many important efforts

happening across the academy that need guidance, there have been very few studies in

higher education that focus on deep or transformational change. Kezar’s and Eckel’s

(2002a, b; Eckel and Kezar 2003a, b) work reporting on the Institutional Transformation

Project funded by the Kellogg foundation has been one of the few studies to examine

transformational change processes. In their study of 28 institutions, they demonstrated

strategies and approaches that can move institutions towards deep and lasting change,

particularly the role of institutional sense making/sensegiving.

In this article, I build on earlier work by Kezar and Eckel by examining two gaps in our

understanding of how sensemaking/sensegiving occurs: 1. from the bottom up1 rather than

the top down; and, 2. how sensemaking occurs over time. The article reports on the efforts

of 28 U.S. campuses efforts to integrate interdisciplinary teaching and learning broadly

across the curriculum as part of a national change initiative . The following research

question guided the research project: How does organizational sensemaking/sensegivingunfold over time in transformational change processes at colleges and universities thatemerge from the bottom up among faculty teams? In recent articles, most scholars of

sensemaking, note understanding sensemaking/sensegiving from the bottom up and over

time as a process as the key new areas for research (Maitlis and Sonenshein 2010; Maitlis

and Lawrence 2007). Additionally, bottom up sensemaking is critical to understand as

educational reform literature has identified how change processes that are deep rather than

superficial require greater investment and engagement from leaders on the ground (Coburn

2003).

Theoretical framework: organizational sensemaking/sensegiving

In this section, I review the theoretical framework—organizational sense making/sensegiv-

ing, examining its origins within organizational theory and studies that have examined the

relationship of sensemaking to organizational change. I use this section to build the case for

why sensemaking is an important perspective for framing this study of change and to identify

gaps in our understanding. Sensemaking is an acknowledgment that organizations are not

static and that there is no single reality, challenging more positivist views of organizations

(Weick 1995). Instead, Weick (1995) argued that organizations are social constructions that

various individuals constantly create and re-create as they make meaning of their work lives.

He also pointed to the importance of language and symbols for communicating meaning and

shifted organizational studies to focus more on narrative methodologies that analyze lan-

guage. Because people discover their own invented reality, it will be difficult for them to

1 Bottom-up initiatives are those lead by individuals not in positions of authority—in higher educationtypically the administration has formal delegated authority. On some campuses, they delegate authority todeans and even department chairs, although it is rare to have significant delegation to that level. Thus,bottom-up initiatives are typically led by faculty, staff, or students, or low-level administrators withoutsignificant authority such as department chairs. There are studies of sense making that focus on bottom upchange agents responding to top-down mandates and these are reviewed in the theoretical frameworksection. The focus of this paper is on initiated and implemented changes bottom up, which has not been thefocus of any studies.

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engage in a change process unless it is made meaningful to them and they can connect to the

change. This is where the notion of organizational sensemaking becomes important; leaders

can put structures and processes in place that help people to create shared senses of organi-

zation, such as task forces and dialogues (Weick 1995).

While Weick hypothesized the link between sensemaking and change, Gioia and

Chittipeddi (1991) were among the first to connect sensemaking and change through

empirical analysis and study. They identified a four stage process of sensemaking/sense-

giving–envisioning (sensemaking), signaling (sensegiving), revisioning (sensemaking),

and energizing (sensegiving) (Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991). As noted above, sensemaking

is about creating an understanding of the change while sensegiving is concerned with

influencing the outcomes, communicating thoughts about change to others, and gaining

support. Gioia and Chittipeddi (1991) speak about sensegiving as an influence process to

make others understand. Rouleau (2005) notes ‘‘sensemaking and sensegiving are two

sides of the same coin’’ (p. 1415). In their study of a college, Gioia and Chittipeddi (1991)

show the progressive steps in sensemaking/sensegiving–sensemaking as the president

creates a vision by scanning the context for cues about an appropriate direction, sense-

giving as he communicates it to others, sensemaking as the stakeholders try to figure out

what the new vision means for them, and sensegiving as the stakeholders try to provide

feedback to change the vision to absorb their ideas. Other research from this same data

examined how language shifts during a change process. Change agents move from trying

to interpret the change to developing working definitions through legitimating the change

(Gioia and Thomas 1994). The shifts in language registered new understandings about the

concept that allowed the change process to proceed forward. Gioia and Thomas (1996) also

examine how identity and image shape sensemaking processes and whether teams inter-

preted the change as political or strategic. Political changes are much more difficult to

make as they involve fundamental changes in identity.

A few studies have examined how varying sensemaking and sensegiving processes can

lead to differential sensemaking outcomes—minimal, restricted, fragmented, and guided—

based on whether the stakeholders and leaders experience high or low sensemaking/

sensegiving efforts (Maitlis 2005). Maitlis (2005) shows the detrimental effect of too much

hierarchical sensegiving from leaders and too little participation in sensegiving from

stakeholders. Also, sensemaking can be more or less complete by the amount of oppor-

tunities to explore issues and the openness and trust within groups/organizations. A key

insight from this study is that sensemaking and sensegiving processes vary in quality and

that simply providing opportunities for sensemaking or sensegiving to happen is not

enough to ensure progress on change. Bartunek et al. (1999) also examine properties that

might affect sensegiving success such as the message being logical and reasonable;

sanctions or rewards; appeal to receiver values; and credibility of the sender. This study

examines and builds on these characteristics that can shape sensemaking/sensegiving

processes and outcomes.

Studies of sensemaking/sensegiving within the change process focus on top-down

change efforts usually through the perspective of managers. However, more recently, there

has been a focus on examining middle managers (Balogun and Johnson 2005; Rouleau

2005, Maitlis and Lawrence 2007). Rouleau (2005), for example, studies how middle

managers sell changes to external clients showing how they adopt slightly different

strategies (micro practices of rhetoric for persuasion, such as impression management, etc.)

given their position in the hierarchy and role. Yet, these studies continue to examine

different stakeholders in a mostly top-down change process. Also, it is also important to

note that sensemaking is generally only studied at the beginning phase of change. The

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assumption appears to be that once buy in is achieved sensemaking/sensegiving plays a

less pivotal role.

Litrature review: studies in higher education using sensemaking & id change studies

Building from Gioia’s and Thomas’ (1996) study of change, Eckel and Kezar (2003a, b)

applied a sensemaking framework to research transformational change (diversity, tech-

nology, and teaching and learning environment initiatives) at 28 campuses. The major

finding within the Eckel and Kezar study (2003a, b) is that deep changes in higher edu-

cation require people to undergo a meaning construction process and rethink existing

understandings, a process known as organizational sensemaking. Previous research on

change in higher education had largely seen change as a matter of implementing tactics and

providing incentives for people to change (Cowan 1993; Curry 1992; Kaiser and Kaiser

1994). For example, in order to engage faculty in meaningful efforts to conduct assessment

and use these assessments to change the teaching and learning environments, faculty

needed to debate the merits and uses of assessment and think through how their role might

change. Institutions within their study that made significant progress towards institutional

change had created mechanisms that allow faculty and staff to undergo a sensemaking

process. Kezar and Eckel (2002a) identified two ways that sensemaking processes operated

within the study. First, they describe the way that the five core strategies appear to facilitate

sensemaking/sensegiving—senior administrative support, collaborative leadership, staff

support, taking action, and robust design, which provided opportunities for key participants

to create new sense of the direction and priorities of the institution. For example, col-

laborative leadership allowed for many different people to be involved in thinking about

the change process and contributing to the vision (or robust design). With more people

involved in interacting related to the change there were more opportunities for people to

think about what the change means for their own role and position.2 Second, they describe

a set of vehicles that were often pivotal in helping create sensemaking including wide-

spread conversations, cross-departmental teams, public presentations, and external

speakers. On campuses that accomplished transformational change, compared to those that

did not, leaders helped create sensemaking through their strategic actions (robust vision/

design and professional development) and they intentionally established sensemaking

mechanisms like roundtables. Like the other sensemaking and change studies, Kezar and

Eckel focus on change initiated from the top down.

The study reported on in this article focuses on changes that are initiated from campus

teams made up mostly of faculty and are bottom up efforts—not mandated or lead by the

formal administration. Additionally, the focus of this study was on the unfolding of

sensemaking since Kezar and Eckel’s work identified strategies or mechanisms to create

sensemaking but did not study these processes as they unfold over time. This study will test

Gioia and Chittipeddi stages of sensemaking/sensegiving but examine bottom up rather

than top down changes and look further than mobilization and focus on implementation

and institutionalization. No study has examined if sensemaking is important in later stages

of change. Thus, the study fills several gaps in our understanding—how sensemaking

2 It is also important to note that Kezar and Eckel break new ground in that sensemaking had been studied inisolation of other areas such as change strategies. Thus, identifying how change strategies can play asensemaking role, they begin to link various parts of change processes that tend to be studied in isolation.

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occurs from the bottom up, how sensemaking unfolds over time, and whether it is

important after the mobilization phase.

Methodology

This case study research is drawn from a national project called Facilitating Interdisci-

plinary Learning (FIL:http://www.aacu.org/pkal/interdisciplinarylearning/index.cfm). The

FIL initiative brought together teams from 28 institutions—representing the diversity of

higher education—for 3 years in an attempt to learn about successful strategies for insti-

tutionalizing interdisciplinary programs. The 28 projects chosen for the study met the

criteria of transformational change set out by Kezar and Eckel.3 Interdisciplinary learning

is considered a deep or transformational change because it entails changing faculty’s

underlying assumptions or values about the nature of course material, because these

institutions were trying to affect the entire institution, and because it is intentional and took

place over a significant amount of time. Like other studies of sensemaking, this study

adopted real time, case study approach as this allows for capturing dynamic processes over

time such as change. Case study also allowed for the collection of multiple forms of data

from various perspectives in order to best understand our research questions about trans-

formational change and sensemaking processes and how it unfolds over time.

Setting/sample: Appendix 1 has a list of the institutions that participated in the project.

There were several criteria that were used for identifying institutions: 1. Already had

several pilot initiatives related to interdisciplinary learning they were trying to institu-

tionalize more broadly; 2. Institutions were several years into their change process4; 3.

They had a stated goal and plan for institutionalizing the initiative; and, 4. Represented

different institutional types (small/large, public/private, religious/secular). Through these

criteria we could be certain that institutions were engaged in a transformational change

process that we could document. In addition, having varying institutional types ensured

findings were transferable to differing contexts. The sample within each institution that was

studied was comprised of members of the team assigned to work on the project. Teams

varied by institution in terms of number and types of participants but on average teams had

approximately 6 individuals, 4–5 faculty members and 1–2 low level administrators (e.g.,

chairs and associate deans). Some campuses have extremely large teams with 15–20

members and others had smaller teams with only 2–3 members. That variation usually had

to do with the size of the institution but sometimes was related to style or preference of the

group. The total number of individuals that are part of the sample are 250 faculty and low-

level administrators across 28 institutions. Data was collected from these individuals in

multiple ways that will be described next.

Data collection: Following the practices of other sensemaking studies, we used multiple

methods (observation, interviews, document analysis, and surveys), in real-time to follow

the change and sensemaking processes. Over the course of the project, 250 faculty and

3 As a reminder, Kezar and Eckel (2002a, b) note criteria for transformational change, ‘‘1. transformationalchange alters the culture of the institution by changing select underlying assumptions of institutionalbehaviors, processes and products; 2. is deep and pervasive and affects the whole institution; 3. is inten-tional; and, 4, occurs over time’’ (pp. 295–296).4 While the project was only 3 years, institutions were chosen that had already made progress toward theirinitiative, because research demonstrates that transformational change takes between 5 and 10 years (Kezarand Eckel 2002a, b). This approach follows the method taken in the Kellogg study in which they identifiedinstitutions that were already 2–3 years into the change process for study.

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http://www.aacu.org/pkal/interdisciplinarylearning/index.cfm

campus leaders participating in four national meetings, bi-annual roundtables focused on

learning and leadership, and on-going contact via webinars and conference calls; all these

for a were tape-recorded and documented. At each of these meetings, observation occurred

and notes were taken about issues that campus teams were struggling with related to

change as well as their changing mindsets and views. We surveyed the teams at the

beginning and end of the project, received reports from the campuses annually, collected

documentation through meetings, and conducted interviews with the campuses teams at the

midpoint and after the projects were completed. A retreat was also held with campus teams

at the end of the project to distill lessons and to create case studies of their experience over

the course of the 3 years. At the roundtable meetings, campuses were asked to create

posters that distill lessons learned from that year working on the project. These posters, like

the case studies became documents that were analyzed as another form of data to under-

standing their sensemaking/sensegiving. Therefore, the sources of data were quite rich and

were collected throughout the project so that we could capture changes in beliefs and

attitudes and how the teams were both sensemaking and sensegiving related to ID efforts

and describe how this unfolded over time. We provide further detail on the survey and

interview processes.

During the first year of the project, a survey was sent out to each campus team (all

members were asked to complete the survey collectively as a team) to get baseline

information about project planning, their vision for the project, progress to date, antici-

pated and experienced challenges/barriers, strategies used so far, and ways they were

attempting to help people understand the change process. At the end of the project, an open

ended survey was administered to the campus teams asking them for information about

progress on their project, final vision and ways it changed (capturing changes in sense-

making), strategies used (alluding to possible sensemaking and sensegiving strategies),

barriers and challenges they experienced (many particularly to sensemaking processes),

and questions about their experience with transformational change. The survey data pro-

vided rich qualitative data as well because of the many open-ended responses that were

obtained. Interviews were used to follow up on trends in the initial surveys (during the

midpoint interviews) and the final survey (end of project interviews). Campus team were

interviewed to follow up on comments in the survey as well as to provide them an

opportunity to tell their story about how transformational change occurred, particularly

asking about changing views and mindsets. The midpoint and final interviews lasted

approximately 2 hours.

Data analysis: While there were a set of cases that had clearly made more progress, we

chose to analyze all cases as all were on the road toward transformation and could provide

feedback on the sensemaking process. We examined the seven institutions that made the

most progress and charted their sensemaking and sensegiving patterns and compared those

to campuses that got stalled at various points in time. We choose the seven who had made

the most progress based on the following criteria: 1. The first criteria was self-report on the

survey of how much progress they noted making toward their overall initiative; 2. Inter-

view data that confirmed their self-report assessment on a range of issues such as culture

change, values and behaviors among a large number of people, and how widespread the

initiative was in terms of people involved on campus based on their goals; 3. Observation

by the researchers at meetings, roundtables, and summits about progress from posters, case

studies, and other evidence presented to triangulate self-reports; and, 4. Reports from

campus leadership about perceived progress as an additional triangulation of the percep-

tions of team data. Campuses were categorized in the following degrees of progress that

are explained in detail in Appendix 3: mobilization, early implementation, late

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implementation, and early institutionalization.5 We also examined the significance and role

of sensemaking compared to other efforts—obtaining grants, restructuring the campus, etc.

As found in the Eckel and Kezar (2003a, b) study, sensemaking is a meta-strategy that was

part of or overlapped with several strategies such as obtaining senior administrative sup-

port, creating a strong leadership team, creating collaborative leadership and these syn-

ergizes were documented as well. This article presents the analysis of the sensemaking/

sensegiving patterns over time rather than the overall finding about sensemaking/sense-

giving being identified as critical to transformational change (addressed in another article).

These seven campuses follow a pattern of sensemaking/sensegiving captured in Appendix

2 summarizing results. For campuses that did not make as much progress we chart ways

that they stopped progressing through sensemaking and sensegiving to demonstrate

common dilemmas that occur in change and ways that campuses can become stalled in

their change efforts if they do not attend to sensemaking/sensegiving. While sensemaking

was not the only issue in movement toward transformation (others include leadership

turnover, financial crisis, etc.), it was the issue that appeared most responsible for

progress.6

Limitations: Even though investigators followed the institutions over the course of

3 years through conference calls, meetings, and documentation, much of the richer data in

terms of interviews, surveys, and case studies are self-reported. However, researchers had

other information about each campus to triangulate with the interview and survey data.

Furthermore, participation in a national project likely affected approaches to change since

these various institutions were in communication and sharing strategies; thus, this is not

documentation of a fully organic process of change. Lastly, it is important to note that most

institutions are still in process and it is hard to say they have ‘‘finished’’ their transfor-

mational change efforts, maybe one or two in the study would feel they met all their goals

and are not continuing to make more progress.

Findings

The overall findings suggest that campuses that made the most progress implementing

transformational change around interdisciplinary work engaged in both sensemaking and

sense giving processes at both the department/division and campus wide level that

unfolded in phases similar to Gioia and Chittipeddi (1991). Three key elements of

sensemaking/sensegiving appeared to move institutions toward transformation—depth of

process; breadth of engagement across departments and campus-wide; and connection to

strategies and barriers. Deepness of the process refers to sensemaking and sensegiving

becoming more embedded within individuals’ consciousness and more concrete over time

as change processes move to later stages of implementation. Early efforts at sensemaking

and sensegiving focus on more superficial understanding and persuasion (what is inter-

disciplinarity anyway?), and later to very concrete and deep understandings and forms of

persuasion (what do interdisciplinary learning goals look like and how can we assess

them?). Breadth refers to campuses working the change through the various levels of the

institution, from departments through divisions to the overall campus having people at each

5 Only one campus was at the early institutionalization phase therefore it was folded into the late imple-mentation campuses.6 Due to space limitations, the other facets that helped propel the institutions towards transformation cannotbe reviewed within this particular article.

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level rethinking their work and persuading individuals at these various levels. Lastly,

connections to strategies and barriers means that change agents saw and made a connection

between sensemaking/sensegiving and specific barriers they are trying to overcome and

strategies they are trying to use. Within these cases, the greater intentionality in linking

sensemaking and sensegiving to barriers/facilitators, the more likely the campus would

move toward transformational change.7

In Appendix 2, I summarize the findings and demonstrate this as a process unfolding in

steps over time; this model is used as a way to showcase the results. The change process

begins with mobilization, moves to implementation, and eventually onto institutionaliza-

tion. In Appendix 3, I demonstrate relationship of making the most progress and high

sensemaking/sensegiving across the cases.8 At the end of the results, I present a few

examples of the ways campuses became stalled in order to understand why campus efforts

did not move forward.9

Mobilization

Sensemaking within the team and departmental levels for mobilization: Teams that made

the most progress first had to develop common understandings of ID work, particularly

because there were individuals from across different science disciplines and faculty outside

of the sciences making perspectives fairly diverse. Teams took time up front for discus-

sions, which turned out to be instrumental for the change. One faculty member discusses

how they did not assume common understanding and took the time for discussions, even

though it seemed they had some consensus:

You cannot assume that everyone is thinking about ID the same so we did have

conversations. And while we had a great deal of agreement around how we defined it

and I think the prior work we had conducted accounted for this. But what it looks

like–curriculum, learning outcomes, and assessment—was quite different for each of

us. Early efforts had been less widespread and so different perspectives have not

been as widely shared as they are in this effort.

This team came to consensus about their definition of ID fairly quickly and they

consciously drew upon people’s knowledge of ID past efforts. The team built off of

sensemaking efforts that had already happened at the departmental level where pilot efforts

had already been established and some faculty had a very concrete and real sense of what

interdisciplinary work looks like, the challenges and opportunities. A faculty member at

another successful campus describes this process: ‘‘We tried to capitalize on earlier ID

work—connecting with those people, asking them to participate in conversations we would

be hosting, and asking them to present their work so that others could see tangible

examples.’’

Successful campuses teams also created sensemaking was by meeting with targetedgroups such as department chairs to help them better understand the initiative: ‘‘During the

7 We determined intentionality from the participants noting that they were engaging in a sense making orsense giving effort in order to address a barrier that emerged or create facilitation.8 Other papers from the project examine nuanced differences by institutional culture or type noted in Kezarand Eckel’s earlier work. However, in this paper, we focus on some commonalities that are shared bycampuses in the sensegiving and sensemaking process.9 Given space limitations, we present less voice from the campus teams than desired, but this was the onlyway to keep the paper within word limit.

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development of the project, the team also met with department heads in all areas of the

College to discuss the project and how their students and faculty might be involved. This

helped them see their role and others’ in the department role in this process. By sharing the

committee’s thinking broadly with the department chairs and faculty, questions and con-

cerns were addressed prior to finalizing the project ideas.’’

Sensemaking across campus for mobilization: Teams then moved to sensemaking

efforts at the campus-wide level by creating cross campus conversations and dialogues. A

faculty member talks about the cross campus conversations: ‘‘Campus conversations were

intentionally structured to challenge faculty and student thinking about interdisciplinarity

and educational paradigms that facilitate connections across disciplines. Internal and

external teaching and learning scholars and interdisciplinary experts were invited to speak

with faculty and students.’’ On several campuses, team members noted how faculty and the

administration tend to pay more attention to speakers that come from major organizationsoff campus. One project team member describes the importance of outside speakers: ‘‘One

of our goals is to implement an ID capstone requirement, so we invited a speaker from

another campus who had already implemented this type of requirement and people were

really listening differently than if we had presented the information.’’ The main sense

constructed at this point was a clear understanding of what interdisciplinary is at both

departmental and campus-wide levels.

Sensegiving and the departmental/divisional level: At each campus studied, many

departments remained unsupportive or suspicious of ID work. Certainly sensemaking

created a better understanding of ID work and alleviated some misconceptions about what

it is, but faculty remained concerned about how it might compromise disciplinary goals or

overburden departmental resources. One faculty member describes their early sensegiving

work at the departmental level and how this both overcame resistance and facilitated

change:

If you cannot overcome departmental resistance, all the support from upper level

administration in the world will not be enough. So, we first started by helping other

faculty to see how interdisciplinary learning could be in service to disciplinary

goals—to support it. We spent a lot of time framing and connecting the learning

outcomes we were developing and linking that to disciplinary goals.

In framing work differently, the faculty team helped other faculty to view the issue in a

different light and to begin to relinquish resistance from narrow departmental interests and

sense of competition.

Another strategy team members described is staying away from labeling the work asnew helped in persuading people. Project team members began to systematically change

their language to describe ‘‘amplifying’’ existing ID work and not saying doing something

new. One person commented on this framing with departments/divisions: ‘‘It is easier to

get buy-in if you are not asking everyone to do something new and start over. Part of what

is important is to get people to recognize that interdisciplinary work already exists.

Reframe it as amplifying interdisciplinary work rather than frame it as being new.’’ The

notion of amplifying overcame the narrow departmental interests and sense of competition,

since this work was already established.

Team members described how they were aware that they needed to frame their dis-

cussions to not only help departments understand ID work but to garner involvement. One

of the major ways that they obtained buy in was arguing that ID work will improve studentlearning/outcomes and to describe efforts toward assessment that will be undertaken. Also,

in the sciences, they discussed that ID work would retain students in the sciences as they

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have a huge drop out problem. Faculty who were resistant had more confidence if they

knew that the learning outcomes were going to be measured by the institution and chairs

would be willing to provide additional resources, at least temporarily. The framing of

increased student learning and fewer drop outs in the sciences also provided momentum for

overcoming the barrier of getting faculty engaged and involved, generated enthusiasm, and

created a critical mass of faculty so ID effort could get off the ground. Therefore, the

various sensegiving messages helped overcome barriers of apathy, narrow departmental

interests, competition, and the burden of extra resources.

Sensegiving at the campus-wide level for mobilization: Campuses that made progress

strategically focused on sensegiving at the campus wide level to ensure that barriers were

eliminated to their work, particularly ensuring that facilitators were in place as earlier

efforts to more broadly create ID work had been met with resistance once it moved beyond

a more localized level due to lack of infrastructure. In order to get the curriculum com-

mittee changed, new ID hiring criteria, resources for team teaching to kick off new courses

or to design courses, or staff time for assessment, they needed to have the broader

stakeholders buy in—particularly administrators at various levels. Stakeholders need to not

only understand ID work but to support it. An example of a campus providing sensegiving

to campus stakeholders was by aligning the ID work with the campus strategic plan:

While the administration was not against our initiative they didn’t necessarily see it

as one of their priorities. But the strategic plan spoke to important social problems,

creating deep learning experiences and students synthesizing knowledge. While it

never said ID work, we took these key words out and showed how ID was central to

meet those goals. We also pointed out how current learning experiences were not

creating those objectives and we were therefore not meeting our vision. Without

attaching it to the strategic plan of the campus, it would be extremely difficult to

overcome the strong disciplinary emphasis.

Campus teams also described how ID work would increase campus prestige by beingperceived as innovative, attracting funds, or obtaining publicity. Campus administrators

have a multitude of priorities, thus, in order to get ID work on their radar screen, the team

described the way they appealed to campus desire for prestige or improving campus image:

When we presented at meetings, spoke publically, or distributed information about

the ID initiative, we made sure to re-iterate the benefits that would accrue to the

campus. There is a real desire to be perceived as innovative and our ID work fit into

the campus image. But, in talking to others in the Project Kaleidoscope network, I

know that it does not need to be innovation, just some aspect of the campuses

identity that is important.

Thus, by the end of mobilization, departments were less threatened and the campus made

to feel it was a major priority.

Implementation

Sensemaking at the departmental/divisional level for implementation: As the ID initiative

is implemented, sensemaking moves deeper and helps people move beyond superficial

support to engagement. Two primary strategies used by campuses in order to have faculty

engage in sensemaking processes to better understand ID work were: pilot courses andbrainstorming groups. The pilot courses were created by a large group of faculty—not just

a single faculty member or even a small group. The idea is to engage many faculty in

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thinking about learning outcomes, assignments, pedagogical approaches and assessing ID

learning. In addition to creating the class, the course was opened up for other faculty to

observe once offered so they could learn what an ID course looks like. A faculty member

talks about the value of this approach:

The pilot courses were really helpful. It was one thing to talk about ID courses in the

abstract, but it was another to wrestle with learning outcomes and to match

assignments and pedagogy to those outcomes. For other faculty, the most important

thing was to sit in on the courses and see how they differed. Our team learned that it

is important to be submersed in an authentic situation.

As faculty began to offer ID courses, they often encountered challenges such as students

not being open to a new way of teaching and through discussion of strategies and

challenges in brainstorming groups, they began to understand ID work more deeply. The

team also discussed how they continued to formulate their own thinking and make it more

concrete so they could support the broader faculty. They tended to do this through

presenting their ID work to external conferences or other campuses—which helped them

refine their thinking.

Sensemaking at the campus-wide level for implementation: Initial conversations created

interest in focused dialogues to help dig deeper into some specific issues that the campus

was wrestling with—for example the issue of how the arts and sciences can more pro-

ductively come together. A project team member describes these focused conversations

and their role in sensemaking that is deeper and more concrete:

The initial larger conversations helped people to understand the importance of ID

work and to come to some common definitions of understandings, but people really

wanted to develop more concrete understandings about particular problems—we

started that with the ID capstone requirement. People are also interested in the

overlap between the arts and sciences and so we started a year-long conversation to

describe meaningful ways that we might create learning opportunities related to the

way these two can inform each other.

They also recognize that another way to propel and make understanding about ID work

concrete is to develop learning outcomes and assessment practices. One faculty member at

a campus that made significant progress describes how creating learning outcomes and

assessments led to deeper change:

For the engineers—they were thinking about assessment being the integration of

various subfields within engineering. But those of us working across much broader

disciplines such as the social sciences and sciences had a different notion about

assessing perspective taking because it will look different when looking across such

vastly different types of disciplines. But these kinds of differences and how they’ll

affect our broader framework of assessing learning wasn’t apparent until we rolled

up our sleeves and started creating criteria for the development of learning outcomes

so that we can assess what we’re doing to make sure that students are learning what

we intend.

Through conversations and activities these teams led people through a series of

sensemaking activities beginning with more abstract and becoming increasingly specific

to address an ID perceived challenge. The main issue that played out over time was to

move from an abstract understanding of ID to concrete challenges of implementation

through the development of learning outcomes, assessment and brainstorming problems.

High Educ (2013) 65:761–780 771

123

Sensegiving at the departmental/divisional level for implementation: A second wave of

sensegiving was present on the campuses that made significant progress. During imple-

mentation, faculty within departments often reversed initial support. Disciplinary under-

standings are extremely difficult to change and faculty revert to these beliefs. Also, new

people are always entering departments and without repeated communication newcomers

may again plant the seeds of doubt or just lack understanding of the ID work and begin to

critique it. Two primary strategies related to sensegiving were employed: presentingresearch about student learning outcomes and addressing critiques that emerged related toID work. Campuses that made the most progress collected data about student learning

within courses and used this data within departmental/divisional meetings to demonstrate

the value of ID learning. It was also important that the level of persuasion became more

concrete later as departments had on occasion provided additional funding for the ID

initiative:

One thing we learned was that suspicion and concern did not go away, even when it

seemed like it had. Critiques started to bubble up and as new people came into the

department, these concerns took on new life. This is where the student outcomes data

was really helpful. We could show that students were learning more in these courses

and we were having particular success with students of color and women. Our

dropout rates were lower. This squelched emerging concerns. But we also learned the

value of on-going communication.

Also, campus teams talked about common concerns that emerged and how they needed to

be prepared to address these, in fact to be proactive: ‘‘Faculty began to say that ID learning

is shallow, skill driven and ignores important content that leads to further and deeper

learning. We learned that these will emerge from time to time and to have response to these

concerns, otherwise people get stuck in these and it prevents us moving forward.’’

Sensegiving at the campus wide level for implementation: Once ID was a priority for

others on campus, then the team could work with the administration to help shift the

campus structures and culture to better support ID work. Campus administrators needed to

become aware of ways that campus structures inhibited the ID initiative and help to make

changes that the team would not be able to do on its own:

We pointed out how ID faculty were having trouble in the tenure and promotion

process and the criteria needed to be changed. We had tried to have these conver-

sations earlier, but without administrators understanding ID work or how it was

a priority for campus, these discussions did not go well. We now framed better how

ID work is not supported by campus structures and show the bias toward those

conducting disciplinary work.

Sensegiving conversations could now focus on alleviating barriers to ID work and

providing support. Teams created workshops that they opened to all faculty to help them

rethink courses and focused not just on ID work but on powerful pedagogical practices like

collaborative learning, experiential or service learning, and assessment. One team member

discusses this issue of how deeper sensegiving was created through workshops that

overcame structural barriers that had long prevented ID work: ‘‘Through the workshops,

we discovered that faculty were encountering more barriers than we expected in

departments, through campus processes like curriculum committees and we presented that

information to convince the administration to create a central oversight committee that has

helped advance our change.’’ Similar to the departments, the team needed to repeat their

772 High Educ (2013) 65:761–780

123

messages as members of the administration turn over constantly. At this point, campus

members began to see ID as legitimate learning and identify ways campuses can not only

alleviate barriers but also facilitate ID learning.

Patterns in the way campuses were stalled in sensemaking/sensegiving

10Campuses that did not progress as far tended to not advance on one of three elements noted:

deepness of process; connection to strategies and barriers; and breadth of engagementacross departments and campus wide. Additionally, some campuses focused only on

sensemaking or sensegiving so they were missing either understanding or support for the

initiative. I will provide some examples of each of these so the reasons for lack of progress.

The most common problem for campuses that stalled was that they stopped with

sensemaking and/or sensegiving in the mobilization phase. With an initial understanding

and sense of support, change agents often mistakenly believed their work of building

understanding was completed. As one faculty member notes: ‘‘I think we learned too late

that faculty and even students struggle to keep the big picture of our project in mind.

Motivation and understanding waned. Once you lose people, it is hard to get them back. If

we had just been aware of the need to refresh people’s understanding and guide the process

more that would have helped. ’’

Related to alignment with facilitators and barriers, there were campuses that engaged in

sensegiving but did not maximize these efforts in ways that helped overcome barriers.

Change agents that identified the link between their sensegiving strategies and particular

challenges they faced were much more successful in moving forward and avoided being

stalled. An example is a campus that knew from a survey they had conducted that students

were not learning what they hoped from ID courses, and needed to address these disap-

pointing results. Yet the campus did not use other data they had which showed that when

ID courses were properly taught, they did results in the desired outcomes. On another

campus, they knew that faculty were deeply concerned that students still develop a strong

disciplinary understanding, yet they framed messages to the administration that interdis-

ciplinary work was superior to disciplinary learning and raised greater concerns rather than

assuaging them. Too strong of advocacy for ID work often created more barriers instead of

breaking them down. On yet another campus, they knew that faculty were mounting

criticisms to ID learning, but ignored it thinking that early sensemaking work would

suffice. They had the information to combat views but did not connect this message to the

barrier of growing critiques, which eventually stifled the initiative.

In terms of missing breadth of engagement across campus, one campus had a very large

team with members from most schools and colleges. Yet, it may have also blinded them to

opportunities for cross-campus sensemaking. They spoke less than other campus that

progressed farther about cross-campus dialogues and had relied on the few departmental

conversations among those who seemed resistant, rather than creating lots of opportunities

for conversations and dialogue cross campus. It may be that groups that were not resistant

may still not have understood the goals and were unable to help facilitate or be productive

members in the ID effort. In general we found this trend that campuses that were pro-

gressing but not transformed ignored sensemaking across the campus for one of many

reasons (hard to get administration’s attention, turnover in administration, lack of rela-

tionship with administration, etc.).

10 Based on space purposes, details of each campus that stalled and a better understanding of the distinctivecampus contexts cannot be provided.

High Educ (2013) 65:761–780 773

123

Lastly, some campuses focused mostly on sensemaking or sensegiving and did not

engage in both. Campus change agents that seem to be focused on barriers and campus

resistance were likely to focus more on sensegiving and give shortshrift to sensemaking.

As a result, faculty often felt lost about what ID learning is supposed to look like and ran

into serious challenges in creating courses and in overcoming challenges in classes. One

faculty describes how they overlooked sensemaking and it stalled their efforts: ‘‘We found

out much too late that, depending upon faculty’s interpretation, our two project goals could

be considered competing. So, they were unable to reconcile them and this made our efforts

flounder.’’ Had they had more discussions with faculty about the project, then they could

have developed better understanding.

The problem with campuses that emphasized sensemaking but ignored sensegiving is

that they had well-informed faculty and administrators who understood the work they were

doing, but were not always supportive in terms of changing structures, providing funding,

combating sense of competition, or willingness to engage in ID initiative. In the end,

campuses needed to recognize sensemaking and sensegiving is multi-layered and entails

both processes interacting constantly: ‘‘Successfully fostering a shared vision of integrated

disciplines and mobilizing faculty and students requires uncommon intentionality, hyper

vigilant communication and community building with support from all levels of university

leadership.’’ One other issue that stalled efforts related to sensegiving involved teams that

were not as careful in their creation and composition and did not have enough members

who were considered credible and/or influential.

Discussion

This study reinforces earlier findings (Kezar and Eckel 2002a, b; Eckel and Kezar 2003a,

b), but also provides several theoretical advances to the concept of sensemaking and

sensegiving within the process of change. First, the study demonstrated that both sense-

making and sensegiving processes happen in succession as identified in the model by Gioia

and Chittipeddi. As presented in the literature review, Gioia and Chittipeddi (1991)

identified a four stage model—envisioning (sensemaking), signaling (sensegiving), revi-

sioning (sensemaking), and energizing (sensegiving). While we found a similar pattern of

waves of going back and forth, it is important to note that sensemaking and sensegiving

were moved between quite effortlessly and did not fall out in any linear way as described

by Gioia and Chittipeddi. In other words, sensemaking and sensegiving were often hap-

pening simultaneously, while at the same time progressing through the stages in the chart.

The different sensemaking stages in the Gioia and Chittipeddi model served similar pur-

poses within this study—of helping people envision and revision. However, within a

bottom up change, sensegiving served slightly different purposes of persuasion and then

obtaining supports and overcoming barriers rather than signaling and energizing. The

connection of bottom up change with a different set of purposes to sensegiving shows that

the model presented by Gioia and Chittipeddi works for top-down changes but is not as

effective for describing bottom up that is captured within this study. The study also

advanced Kezar & Eckel’s work by demonstrating sensemaking as a process not just a

series of mechanisms (while mechanisms were also highlighted in the article). The process

orientation is demonstrated in the way sense making happens over time and is marked by

particular steps—highlighted in the four stages and two levels in Appendix 2.

Another original contribution of this article is showing that sensemaking and sense-

giving are important not just at the beginning stages but throughout the process of change

774 High Educ (2013) 65:761–780

123

to alter structure, overcome barriers, and create facilitators. Furthermore, the study dem-

onstrated that the nature of sensemaking and sensegiving alters slightly as the change

process evolves. Sensemaking and sensegiving become deeper and more concrete over

time as change processes move to later stages. While Gioia and Chittipeddi (1991) signal

that new purposes are served by different phases, they are less precise in how and why the

shifts in purpose are needed. In the mobilization phase, conversations and initial learning

about ID are enough to generate enthusiasm and develop a critical mass of faculty to

develop new courses. However, in moving through implementation, on-going learning

communities that can brainstorm challenges in teaching and question the definition of some

learning outcomes or how to assess them are needed for people to continue changing their

roles. If sensemaking ends with mobilization, ID work (or other deep change) is likely to

become stalled as faculty will not have altered their identities and roles enough to enact

this new way of teaching. Therefore, people within the organization need to undergo

deeper sensemaking processes over time as change is implemented and to ensure institu-

tionalization. Sensegiving has to move deeper from initial support to helping the admin-

istration see what structures and norms need to be altered to support ID work.

Third, the study demonstrated the relationship of sensemaking/ sensegiving to the

specific challenges/barriers faced in undergoing transformational change and some of the

typical strategies (collaborative leadership, building networks, restructuring) used to

advance change, ignored within earlier literature. Therefore, sensegiving is seen less as

an isolated phenomenon and linked to key change activities. Sensemaking is about

understanding a change and making it meaningful for stakeholders, but meaning making

can also amplify the use of strategies. As shown in the study, student outcomes data

helps people understand the value of interdisciplinary work but it also can be used to

persuade administrators about the need for restructuring to support ID work. Also,

campuses that advanced the farthest not only repeated sensegiving and sensemaking but

also aligned these sensegiving processes to address perceived barriers and perceived

needed facilitators (noted earlier). So sensegiving was very strategic and aligned with

achieving support and overcome barriers. Sensegiving appears particularly important in

bottom up change initiatives, as persuasion is even more important when a change

cannot be backed by a presidential mandate. Bottom up changes can be more fragile and

need more constant support (Kezar and Lester 2011). But in bottom up approaches to

change, sensegiving is critical to having administrators provide support, resources, and

restructuring to initiate and maintain the change. These types of efforts need to be

reinforced more iteratively, particularly as administrators turn over within the institution.

Lastly, future research should examine what role sensemaking plays within the

institutionalization phase. Institutions were just entering this phase, so it is difficult to

know the role it plays over time as change becomes part of the status quo or whether it

ceases to play a role. This study helped make more linkages between sensemaking and

barriers and facilitators, and connected to the restructuring work common to support ID

work. In general, studies tend to look at sensemaking in isolation and continuing to

demonstrate how it interacts other change phenomenon and is a meta-phenomenon

within change processes will help better illustrate its central role. It is crucial that we

better understand sensemaking and sensegiving approaches as these underlying mech-

anisms, often invisible to a person not trained to see them unfold, play a critical role in

the changes needed to make academe better serve students and meet its mission.

High Educ (2013) 65:761–780 775

123

Appendix 1

See Table 1.

Appendix 2

Table 2.

Table 1 List of participating institutions

Agnes Scott College–liberal arts college

Beloit College–liberal arts college

Bradley University–comprehensive doctoral institution

Canisius College–liberal arts college

College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University–liberal arts college

Davidson College–liberal arts college

DePauw University–liberal arts college

Florida A&M University–research university

George Mason University–comprehensive doctoral institution

Grinnell College–liberal arts college

Indiana University at Bloomington–research university

Jacksonville University–comprehensive doctoral institution

James Madison University–research university

Lafayette College–liberal arts college

Moravian College–liberal arts college

Nazareth College of Rochester–liberal arts college

New York City College of Technology–technical college

St. Lawrence University–liberal arts college

SUNY Oneonta–liberal arts college

The Ohio State University–research university

Union College–liberal arts college

United States Military Academy–military Academy

University of Richmond–liberal arts college

Wabash College–liberal arts college

West Virginia University–research university

Whittier College–liberal arts college

Willamette University–liberal arts college

776 High Educ (2013) 65:761–780

123

Ta

ble

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izati

on

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izati

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and

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ple

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iers

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enon

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tici

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es

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asm

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ical

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facu

lty

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ple

s:

team

crea

tes

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san

dpil

ots

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facu

lty

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d

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team

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ith

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ple

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ues

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low

or

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ldri

ven

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conte

nt

rich

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ple

s:

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iers

studen

tsco

mpla

inab

out

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gto

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facu

lty

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cipli

ne

bas

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kla

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tch

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gor

per

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lita

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stro

ng

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onal

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rID

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ork

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ents

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nar

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om

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ato

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vid

eongoin

gfu

ndin

g

crea

tew

ork

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about

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dhow

itca

nen

han

ce

any

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up

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l

facu

lty

lead

ersh

iptu

rnover

so

repea

ted

mes

sages

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iers

cam

pus

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ake

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dif

ficu

ltto

get

thro

ugh

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iculu

mpro

cess

es,

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ing,

etc

oft

enst

art

wit

hgra

nt

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gnee

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oin

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ndin

g

lead

ersh

iptu

rnover

atth

e

top

Faci

lita

tors

obta

ince

ntr

alover

sight—

hig

hle

vel

over

sight

body

gover

nan

cepro

cess

es

amen

ded

High Educ (2013) 65:761–780 777

123

Appendix 3

Table 3.

Table 3 Overview of results by institution

Institution Progress—mobilization, early implementation, lateimplementation, early institutionalizationa

Level of sense making—low,medium, highb

1 Mobilization Low sensemaking/sensegiving

2 Late implementation High sensemaking/sensegiving

3 Early implementation High sensemaking/sensegiving

4 Early implementation Medium sensemaking/sensegiving




8 Early implementation Low sensemaking/sensegiving


10 Early institutionalization High sensemaking/sensegiving

11 Late implementation Medium sensemaking/sensegiving


13 Early institutionalization High sensemaking/sensegiving







20 Mobilization Medium sensemaking/sensegiving


778 High Educ (2013) 65:761–780

123

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Table 3 continued

Institution Progress—mobilization, early implementation, lateimplementation, early institutionalizationa

Level of sense making—low,medium, highb








a Each campus was given one of four designations at the end of the project as: mobilization, earlyimplementation, late implementation stage, or early institutionalization. The seven cases identified as havingmade the most progress fell into the early institutionalization and late implementation stages. Campuseswere placed in designations based on the following criteria: 1. Mobilization—still focused on gatheringsupport for the change and only a few tangible changes; 2. Early implementation—general support for theinitiative was garnered, some tangible changes have been initiated, barriers experienced and resulted installing; 3. Late implementation—general support for the initiative was garnered, many tangible changeshave been initiated including general infrastructure, barriers experienced and overcome; 4. Early institu-tionalization—interdisciplinary was becoming part of the general value system, not an innovation orsomething seen as an add-on to other existing operations. ID was part of general operations. Only onecampus had reached early institutionalization, therefore, a section was not added to Appendix 2, this wasfolded into the late implementation stage campusesb The sense making/sensegiving efforts were evaluated at each campus and low represented being in thecolumns 1 & 2 of Appendix 2; medium being in column 4; and high being in column 5

High Educ (2013) 65:761–780 779

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