Sensemaking, metaphors and performance evaluation

SummaryThis paper analyzes the linkages between sensemaking, metaphors and performance evaluation in an organizational setting. Drawing on a study of how university students prepared for examinations, it argues that one way people make sense of being evaluated is through metaphors that conventionalize reality and thus contribute to the maintenance of continuity in everyday social action. This is because metaphorical understandings assist people's effort to assign events and situations to familiar categories and thereby turn the ‘unusual’ into ‘business as usual’. Moreover, metaphors are cognitive and more broadly power-laden social resources, which individuals and groups employ in determining how to make sense of and deal with potentially unsettling events such as performance evaluations.

Research highlights▶ We analyze the linkages between sensemaking, metaphors and performance evaluation. ▶ We study student sensemaking related to the preparation of university examinations. ▶ We argue that one way people make sense of being evaluated is through metaphors. ▶ Metaphors assist people's sensemaking by relating situations to familiar categories. ▶ Metaphors conventionalize reality and promote continuity in social action.