Service Workers’ Sensemaking Process of Customer Misbehavior: The Case of French Rail Transport

Abstract

Drawing on Weick’s sensemaking theory and based on an in-depth ethnography of a French public railway company, this article reveals the cognitive map that underlines the service worker’s interpretation of customer misbehavior. It appears that this process is ground on the sensemaking of the motive of customer misbehavior, of the service workers’ tolerance of the customer misbehavior, and of the customer misbehavior situations. This article also shows that this process is based on the adjustment of the meaning frame to the situation, on the construction of the framing by the service worker, on the negotiation of the framing between service workers, and on the competition between the framings in the organization. This research goes beyond a fragmented understanding of this sensemaking process, to give a more integrated understanding of it.