This article intends to contribute to the conceptualising of organisational
sensegiving. Based upon a qualitative analysis of how Swedish wind farm
developers manage the permit application process for their projects, we describe
in a first order analysis how they contextualise and ontologise their projects and
defend them against criticisms. To emphasise the precarious conditions of agency
that govern the activity of sensegivers, we introduce in a second order analysis
the notion of mise-en-sens, a neologism that borrows both from the performing sens
art notion of mise-en-scene and the fact that ‘sens’ can in French mean both
meaning and direction. Mise-en-sens underscores that stage-setting and direction
providing are key activities of wind farm developers. In our concluding remarks
we even suggest that mise-en-sens could serve to describe the activity of others
involved in sensegiving, for example project managers or entrepreneurs.
Keywords:
Mise-en-sens, sensegiving, wind power, infrastructure development