In attempting to understand the interactions between formal and informal communities, Cynthia Kurtz and Dave Snowden’s sense-making model the Cynefin framework challenges three key assumptions currently held within organizational theory: 1) ‘Order’ – that human interactions and markets possess fundamental cause and effect relationships; 2) ‘Rational choice’ – that rational decision making based on minimizing pain or maximizing pleasure (Skinner’s ‘operant conditioning’) can be manipulated through education and thus determine possible outcomes; and 3) ‘Intent’ – that individuals or communities acquiring capabilities show an intention to use that capability. While the above assumptions may be true in some cases, Snowden’s sense-making approach contends they are not true universally, despite the fact that the methods commonly used assume that they are. Data is frequently skewed by the fact that people not only have multiple identities of which they are often blind, but they do not follow rules or act on local patterns.

Snowden, D., & Kurtz, C. F. (2003). The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-Making in a complex and complicated world. IBM Systems Journal, 42(3), 35-45.