Summary
In contrast to accepted notions regarding the necessity of shared meanings for effective organizing, the basic premise of this paper is that organizational meanings are not shared as such but rather overlap to varying degrees, while they are used by organizational members as if shared. That is, following Weick (1979) it is argued that it is only necessary for organizational meanings to overlap among members to the degree that sense can be made and organization enacted. Secondly, it is argued in this paper that organizational activity is enacted despite, or more likely because of, the partially shared or overlapped nature of communication meanings. That is, because of the inherent ambiguity in symbolic language forms such as humour and metaphor, organizational members communicate as if they share meanings and thus exact their organization on the basis of the appearance of shared meanings. Finally, it is argued that the sense of community that results from shared activity and the appearance of shared meanings is more important to the process of group development than whether meanings are, in fact, shared.