The Contribution of Experiential Learning and Sensemaking to the Development of Dynamic Capabilities in Contexts of Planned Organizational Change: A Multiple Case Study in Brazilian Companies

ABSTRACT This article explores how the interaction between experiential learning and sensemaking helps organizations develop dynamic capabilities essential for maintaining a competitive advantage during turbulent planned changes. It clarifies the microprocesses through which leaders and teams sense, seize, and transform opportunities in emerging market settings. A multiple case study was developed comprising four Brazilian companies, through in‐depth interviews, observation, and documents. The data analysis was through grounded theory procedures. As main findings, experiential learning in formal and informal aspects, within the context of organizational change, that is, strategy redefinition and leadership, intertwined with sensegiving and visual sensemaking, have resulted, through sensing, seizing, and transforming, in the development of the following dynamic capabilities—learning, reconfiguration, and technological, which depend on both the time and the change context, process and content. This study enables a greater understanding about contexts of change, experiential learning processes, and sensemaking in order to facilitate managers' and companies' practices toward the development of dynamic capabilities. We also highlight the role of the leader as sensemaker.