19799: Organizations as Interpretive Systems: Exploring Opportunities for Reintegration & Reinvigoration

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

10:15 - 11:45 CEST (GMT+2)

Location: Bella Center: MR19

Session Type: Symposium (panel)
Orientation: Research
Highlight: Showcase Symposium
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/9WnXQB

Organizer(s)

NE

Natalie Eng

University of Alberta, Canada
JS

Jennifer Sloan

Alberta School of Business, Canada

Panelist(s)

CS

Christopher W. J Steele

U. of Alberta, Canada
JJ

John Joseph

U. of California, Irvine, United States
HT

Haridimos Tsoukas

University of Cyprus, Cyprus
EV

Eero Vaara

U. of Oxford, United Kingdom

Organizations have long been recognized as interpretive systems, possessing distinctive and often enduring orientations to collective sensemaking and action. However, though many streams of work provide insights into how organizations interpret the world and develop their distinctive interpretive orientations, such streams are evolving largely in separation. This panel symposium aims to resurrect an holistic notion of interpretive systems: both to synthesize insights across multiple streams of work on collective interpretation—including work on the attention-based view, sensemaking, and discourse—and to foreground opportunities for cross-fertilization. It also aims to explore the embeddedness of contemporary interpretive systems in a particular historical moment of rapid technological transformation, (digital) hyper-visibility, and a crisis in epistemic authority. In this way, the session seeks to contribute to both the reintegration and reinvigoration of an overarching interpretive model of organizations.