Sensegiving as mise-en-sens—The case of wind power development

In seeking to advance the understanding of the production, diffusion and negotiation of meaning in and between organisations, we introduce below the notion of mise-en-sens. Mise-en-sens refers to the performing art term of mise-en-scène and builds on the French term sens denoting meaning as well as direction. Starting from a qualitative analysis of how Swedish wind farm developers manage the permit-application process for their projects, we suggest in a first-order analysis that the activities of the developers consist in contextualising the project, ontologising it and neutralising criticism addressed to it. In a second-order analysis, we conceptualise these activities as a mise-en-sens. Mise-en-sens spells out the way in which developers, as meaning managers, stage the project and provide it with direction. Having positioned mise-en-sens in relation to the notions of sensemaking and sensegiving, we suggest in conclusion that mise-en-sens could serve to describe not only the activity of wind farm developers but also, for example, that of project managers or entrepreneurs in general since they too are engaged in the management of meaning.