In Weick’s discussion of sensemaking in organizations, he engages a process-oriented perspective toward sensemaking and discusses the difference between sensemaking and interpretation. I found that the differentiation speaks to a fundamental outlook on the nature of knowledge; that is, whether knowledge exists to be discovered (interpretation) or whether knowledge is created (sensemaking.) This points to a basic epistemological debate that underlies this conception of sensemaking, and a rather existentialist one at that.
Weick is credited with the concept of the enacted environment, as discussed by Pfeffer & Salancik, who seemed to define the environment as that which the organization knows it to be, which is to say that whatever the organization is not aware of, is not a part of its environment. Only the reality as known by the organization can be acted upon, even if that reality is not a very good representation of the environment. I find this perspective intriguing and also somewhat paradoxical; it implies an external subjective reality that can only be partially known by the organization, and that the portion that is known by the organization is its environment, which is socially constructed and subjective. This must be the main point of differentiation in the discussion of the enacted environment, as opposed to any other sort, is the enacted environment seems to be socially constructed, which would imply that non-enacted environments exist, and are not socially constructed. At the same time, I expected that the concept of an enacted environment might come closer to the idea of co-evolution of the organization and the environment, but from my reading, this does not really seem to be the case. Enactment puts control almost entirely in human hands.
Just to be picky, I would also flatly refute the assertion from Pfeffer & Salancik that “information is not neutral.” Information IS neutral. The perception and use of information is not neutral. The information itself does not take sides, though it may present a non-neutral perspective, which should instead be attributed the source of information.
Pfeffer, Jeffrey and Gerald Salanick, “The enactment process,” in The External Control of Organizations, 71-78. Harper & Row.
Weick, Karl, 1995. “The nature of sensemaking,” in Sensemaking in Organizations 1-16 Sage.