Collective sensemaking in interactive value formation: A study of conversational agents

As organizations increasingly integrate conversational agents (CAs) to support their customer-facing and internal processes, the emergent value of these tools seemingly depends less on their technical features than on how actors collectively interpret what the CA is, does, and should become. This study focuses on interactive value formation (IVF), understood as the process through which actors jointly create, negotiate, and stabilize value in service interactions. We examine IVF through a collective sensemaking lens, focusing on how service providers and client companies engage in collective interpretive processes during CA deployment and how these interpretive processes shape value outcomes. A multi-case qualitative study reveals that IVF around CA unfolds through four intertwined sensemaking dimensions: interpretive framing, narrative construction, relational legitimacy, and performative enactment. Misalignment across dimensions creates fragmented meaning, unstable enactments, and fragile value trajectories; alignment enables coherent expectations, coordinated adjustments, and durable integration into organizational practices. By conceptualizing IVF as an inherently interpretive and epistemic process, this study deepens value-formation theory to technology-intensive contexts and highlights how human actors negotiate the social and symbolic conditions in which smart technologies become meaningful, legitimate, and valuable in organizational life.