| Based on research in organizational studies, sociology, psychology, and neuroscience, I argue that emotions, embedded in sensemaking, play a fundamental role in interfacing between organizational structure and agency. My argumentation begins with a review of several representative social theories in the light of two distinctions. The former separates "structuralist" from "agentic" theories, depending on whether they privilege structure or agency as causal factors. The latter distinction---orthogonal to the former---is a tripartite one between syntactic, semantic and pragmatic theories, depending on whether they emphasize resources, meaning, or power and status as explanatory factors. The proposed review brings to light the need to take both structural and agentic causal factors into account (first distinction), as well as the ways in which the interfacing between structure and agency can take place (second distinction). I then review the most influential attempt at combining structural and agentic factors, structuration theory, and find it wanting because it fuses both elements and, therefore, proscribes exploring them independently and in their interrelationship. Based on recent evidence in neuroscience I point to emotions as the link needed to explain how structure impinges on agents and how agents respond to structural enablements and constraints. My biosemiotic-related elaboration of structure-agency interfacing substantiates how emotions, embedded in sensemaking, act as syntactic, semantic and pragmatic mechanisms. As syntactic mechanisms, emotions facilitate (or impede) exchange with others, modifying the distribution of conversations among agents and, therefore, changing the way they make sense of themselves and of their situations. As semantic mechanisms, emotions provide the relevance of a person, object or situation to the agent, thus tilting the enactment of the environment in specific ways. Finally, as pragmatic mechanisms, emotions help induce the emergence, maintenance or collapse of stratified orders. I illustrate how emotions enter and operate in agents' sensemaking through two studies. First, I revisit Barley's hallmark explorations of structuring processes in two radiology departments, and show how the introduction of emotions as causal mechanisms---present all through Barley's pages, though not recorded in his process model---enhances the explanation of the structural rewiring documented by Barley. Second, I use first-hand ethnographic data on a management consulting engagement to show how the conclusions reached in the first study can be replicated and deepened in a different knowledge occupation and at a much reduced timescale. Finally, I present conclusions and research implications. |
