What kind of intimacy is meaningful to you? How intimate interactions foster individuals' sensemaking of innovation

Abstract

This study examines how intimacy affects individuals' sensemaking of innovation in their organization. Although sensemaking facilitates understanding innovation and envisioning new worldviews, it involves a delicate process of self-disclosure, reflection, personal contact and communication. Intimacy focuses on time-bounded interactions that foster individuals' progressive self-disclosure and perceptions of mutual understanding. Therefore, drawing on intimacy theories, we investigate from a microlevel perspective how temporally bounded intimate interactions foster the meaningfulness of innovation for individuals. As sensemaking processes differ in large-scale radical and incremental innovations, we examine both contexts in a post hoc analysis. Through a field study, we show that different intimacy dynamics (emotional, cognitive and listening) influence meaningfulness perceptions. In particular, we find that the emotional intimacy dynamics positively influence meaningfulness perceptions in the context of radical innovation initiatives, while the cognitive and listening intimacy dynamics positively influence meaningfulness perceptions in the context of incremental innovation initiatives. This study contributes to the sensemaking innovation literature by introducing intimacy as an enabler of sensemaking. Our study also suggests that managers should encourage moments of intimate interaction when pursuing innovation to facilitate sensemaking of change.