Sensemaking, metaphors and performance evaluation

Gerardo Patriotta and Andrew D. Brown

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2011, vol. 27, issue 1, 34-43

Abstract: Summary This paper analyzes the linkages between sensemaking, metaphors and performance evaluation in an organizational setting. Drawing on a study of how university students prepared for examinations, it argues that one way people make sense of being evaluated is through metaphors that conventionalize reality and thus contribute to the maintenance of continuity in everyday social action. This is because metaphorical understandings assist people's effort to assign events and situations to familiar categories and thereby turn the 'unusual' into 'business as usual'. Moreover, metaphors are cognitive and more broadly power-laden social resources, which individuals and groups employ in determining how to make sense of and deal with potentially unsettling events such as performance evaluations.

Keywords: Sensemaking; Metaphors; Performance; evaluation; Power; Students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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