STREAM 12 IDENTITY, METHODOLOGY AND THE RESEARCH’S CRAFT STREAM CONVENORS: Christine Coupland, Ann Cunliffe, Nic Beech, David Sims Is it Plausible? Rethinking identity through a Critical Sensemaking Framework Wendy Carroll Manning School of Business Acadia University Lead author: wendy.carroll@acadiau.ca Jean Helms Mills Jean.mills@smu.ca Albert J. Mills Albert.mills@smu.ca Sobey School of Business Saint Mary’s University Abstract As has been argued elsewhere, Weick’s (1995) notion of organizational sensemaking, with its focus on social-psychological properties, offers the potential for new theorizing on agency where it is linked to critical theories of structure and formative context (Helms Mills & Mills, 2000; Helms-Mills, 2003). A critical review of Weickian sensemaking suggests that it has much to offer critical management scholars by way of explanation of the social psychological processes through which power, legitimacy, and a sense of self are achieved (Helms Mills & Weatherbee, 2006; Mullen, Vladi, & Mills, 2006; Weick, 2005). In particular, Weick’s (1995; 2001) notion of identity and plausibility as psychological properties are rich areas for exploring not only how a sense of identity is processed and how sense is made of a given (or on-going) situation but also how identity and situation are relatively unstable and, as such, open to resistance (Mills & Helms Mills, 2004). In this paper we explore the notion of plausibility as a heuristic for understanding identity, resistance, legitimacy, and the viability of a critical sensemaking framework, i.e., the grounding of sensemaking properties in an agenda of social change, and its fusion with critical theories of structure (Mills, 1988), discourse (Foucault, 1979, 1988), and formative context (Unger, 2004). The themes of identity, resistance, legitimacy, plausibility, and critical sensemaking are explored through an on-going empirical study of the management of Canadian call centres (Carroll & Helms Mills, 2005; Carroll, Mills, & Helms Mills, 2006).