ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the key insights of sensemaking that have influenced the management accounting and control literature. It utilizes pragmatic constructivism to point out some of the weaknesses of the sensemaking concept and explains how pragmatic constructivism can contribute to the use of sensemaking in a management control context. Gioia and Chittipeddi combine sensemaking and sensegiving as a way of understanding an organisation undergoing strategic change. In sensemaking, members of organisations extract cues to action from the changing environment in which the organisation finds itself. In terms of the production of management control knowledge, pragmatic constructivist and sensemaking have many overlaps and complementarities. Pragmatic constructivist proposes that new business models may be developed by closing the gap between pro-active and pragmatic truth. Pragmatic constructivist emphasises learning rather than sensemaking; in particular closing the gap between pro-active truth and pragmatic truth.
