A hot topic in organizational science in recent years has been how organizational members conceptualize and make sense of their organizational worlds. The growing interest in cognition has coincided, not accidentally, with the increasing legitimacy of a constructionist point of view among organizational scholars.

Bringing together the scholars whose work has fueled these theoretical developments, this volume covers broad ground - from cognitive coordination on the bridge of a Navy ship, to cultural belief systems in the California wine industry. Yet each contributor applies the insights of modern cognitive science to problems of sensemaking and decision-making in organizations, creating a coherent volume and marking the contributions as the cutting edge of cognitive research within and between organizations.

Introduction - Joseph F Porac, James R Meindl, and Charles Stubbart

PART ONE: INDIVIDUAL COGNITION WITHIN ORGANIZATIONS

Comparative Cause Mapping of Organizational Cognitions - Mauri Laukkanen

Reasoning in the Executive Suite - Nancy Paule Melone

The Influence of Role/Experience-Based Expertise on Decision Processes of Corporate Executives

The Formulation Processes and Tactics Used in Organizational Decision Making - Paul C Nutt

Executive Judgment, Organizational Congruence, and Firm Performance - Richard L Priem

PART TWO: COGNITION OF GROUPS IN ORGANIZATIONS

Integrating Organizational and Individual Information Processing Perspectives on Choice - Patricia Doyle Corner, Angelo J Kinicki, and Barbara W Keats

Consensus, Diversity, and Learning in Organizations - C Marlene Fiol

Symbolism and Strategic Change in Academia - Dennis A Gioia et al

The Dynamics of Sensemaking and Influence

Designing Information Technology to Support Distributed Cognition - Richard J Boland Jr, Ramkrishnan V Tenkasi, and Dov Te'eni

PART THREE: COGNITION AND LEARNING

Organizational Culture and Individual Sensemaking - Stanley G Harris

A Schema-Based Perspective

Interpretive Barriers to Successful Product Innovation in Large Firms - Deborah Dougherty

Organizational Routes Are Stored as Procedural Memory - Michael D Cohen and Paul Bacdayan

Evidence from a Laboratory Study

Organizing Work by Adaptation - Edwin Hutchins

Intraorganizational Ecology of Strategy Making and Organizational Adaptation - Robert A Burgelman

Theory and Field Research

PART FOUR: COGNITION BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONS

A Socio-Cognitive Model of Technology Evolution - Raghu Garud and Michael A Rappa

The Case of Cochlear Implants

Industry Mindsets - Margaret E Phillips

Exploring the Cultures of Two Macro-Organizational Settings