A mise-en-sense process: Sensegiving and wind power development

This article intends to contribute to the conceptualising of organisationalsensegiving. Based upon a qualitative analysis of how Swedish wind farmdevelopers manage the permit application process for their projects, we describein a first order analysis how they contextualise and ontologise their projects anddefend them against criticisms. To emphasise the precarious conditions of agencythat govern the activity of sensegivers, we introduce in a second order analysisthe notion of mise-en-sens, a neologism that borrows both from the performing sensart notion of mise-en-scene and the fact that `sens' can in French mean bothmeaning and direction. Mise-en-sens underscores that stage-setting and directionproviding are key activities of wind farm developers. In our concluding remarkswe even suggest that mise-en-sens could serve to describe the activity of othersinvolved in sensegiving, for example project managers or entrepreneurs.Keywords:Mise-en-sens, sensegiving, wind power, infrastructure development