Sensemaking Conflicts and Crisis Escalation: The Case of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster
This paper draws on previous sensemaking and sensegiving research in an attempt to explain how repeated situations of competing understandings around issues could lead to a catastrophic outcome. We provide insights to this question by drawing on qualitative data from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. We analyze four critical events (i.e., sensemaking conflicts) that took place during the months leading up to the disaster. These events have in common that 1) multiple understandings existed as to how the event should be dealt with; and, 2) action was required to overcome the event and proceed with the operations. Our findings suggest that these sensemaking conflicts were solved through a three-stage sensegiving process consisting of meaning exchange, meaning formalization, and meaning implementation, where organizational systems and procedures were used as devices to strengthen the effectiveness of sensegiving. We also suggest that access to such devices varied between organizational members, thereby creating a disadvantage for some of the members to successfully transmit their understanding to others. We propose that the recurrence of these sensemaking conflicts and their interconnectedness led the decision-makers to vastly underestimate the riskiness of the situation, thereby contributing to the occurrence of the disaster.