Abstract
Orientation: Corporate sustainability is an evolving construct shaped by multiple interpretations and contextual meanings. This plurality affects managerial action and underscores the need for studies to deepen theoretical and practical understanding.
Research purpose: This study aims to synthesise the scholarly debate through a structured scoping review at the intersection of sensemaking and corporate sustainability. The systematic synthesis of a decade of scholarship provides a firmer conceptual grounding for future research.
Motivation for the study: Despite growing interest, research at the intersection of organisational sensemaking and corporate sustainability remains fragmented and conceptually underdeveloped. This study addresses this gap by mapping thematic patterns, identifying silos, and exposing overlooked perspectives.
Research design, approach and method: Based on 104 peer-reviewed articles (2014–2024), this structured scoping review uses thematic analysis and bibliometric techniques to trace the field’s evolution, drawing on Scopus and ScienceDirect for cross-disciplinary synthesis.
Main findings: Three dominant thematic clusters around which sensemaking processes in corporate sustainability are articulated are revealed: (1) Responsibility, (2) Leadership, and (3) Strategy. An integrative conceptual framework is proposed, offering an interpretive lens to advance practice and future scholarship. The findings expose conceptual silos and underexplored empirical contexts as avenues for future research.
Practical/managerial implications: Management could utilise the study’s findings to provide actionable insights for aligning strategic intent with sustainable practice, especially in conditions of ambiguity.
Contribution/value-add: By presenting a framework that uncovers corporate sustainability interpretations in practice, the study not only advances scholarship in an underexplored domain but also highlights key theoretical tensions and outlines a future research agenda.
Keywords: corporate sustainability; sensemaking theory; triple bottom line; sustainability practices; bibliometric analysis; sustainable development.
Introduction
In an era of grand challenges, corporate sustainability (hereafter referred to as CS) is widely recognised as a strategic organisational imperative (Adu-Yeboah et al. 2023). Contemporary management challenges necessitate further studies exploring how organisations and practitioners operate within increasingly volatile and ambiguous environments (Goldman 2025). Even though organisations are known to play a critical role in driving the global sustainability agenda (Ofori, S-Darko & Nyuur 2014; Torres-Baumgarten & Rakotobe-Joel 2023), closer examination of literature reveals persistent ambiguity about what CS means and how it is enacted across studies and contexts (Monkge, Le Roux & Letsholo 2025). There appear to be diverse interpretations of the CS concepts as well as their inconsistent application (Landrum & Ohsowski 2018; Reynolds & Holt 2021). A review of the literature reveals that CS suffers from a plurality of meanings, competing priorities and interpretations (Govender & Smit 2022; Williams et al. 2021) that adversely affect both research and practice (Al Mubarak 2021). By focusing on sensemaking and CS, this research contributes to an improved understanding of how organisations ‘wake up’, interpret and adapt to challenges in a world characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA).
The plurality of meaning within CS discourse and the challenges associated with its implementation highlight the importance of further studies that offer an improved understanding of how organisations make sense of and enact CS (Acosta et al. 2024; Zoogah et al. 2024). The lack of conceptual coherence around CS not only weakens theory development, but also limits practitioners’ ability to translate CS goals into strategic and sustainable practice. This gap is underscored by an identified research agenda calling for studies that explore the intraorganisational dynamics of sensemaking in CS studies (Hübel 2022; Monkge et al. 2025). As such, studies that respond and contribute to a better understanding (Busch, Richert & Johnson 2020) are both timely and necessary.
Although scholars have applied sensemaking to CS, they have done so through various ontological and methodological lenses, resulting in conceptual ambiguity (Aguinis & Glavas 2019; Maitlis & Christianson 2014) and a fragmented research domain in need of a synthesis (Cronin & George 2023). Without such synthesis and exposure of shortcomings in the literature, it remains unclear how the field is comprehended, which could hinder practitioners from grasping key practical insights for implementation (Moosa, Khalid & Mohamed 2022).
Accordingly, we ask the question: How has discourse at the intersection of organisational sensemaking and CS evolved over the past decade, and what directions are emerging for future research? This question captures the central problem motivating this study and our curiosity to comprehend how scholars have constructed and contested the meaning of CS within organisational contexts over time. Against this backdrop, we further map the field’s thematic structure by examining the intellectual communities that have shaped it over time. This study’s unique contribution lies in its timely review that explores the intellectual structure of literature at the nexus of organisational sensemaking and CS. It also analyses prolific journals and authors in this research area. Thereby facilitating and inviting further inquiry and conversations in the academic discourse. The findings reveal insights into the geographical distribution of literature published within the scope of the study while simultaneously highlighting emerging directions for future research. Our guiding question anchors the study’s central aim, which is to trace and map how literature at the nexus of sensemaking and CS has unfolded and reshaped our understanding of the topic over time. In doing so, the study shifts the analysis from counting outputs to interpreting how discourse constructs and legitimises certain interpretations and ways of knowing in CS scholarship. Our critical reflections and contributions offer improved insight that influences how sensemaking of CS is theorised and applied.
Additionally, our findings are presented in an integrative conceptual framework that synthesises the three dominant thematic clusters (responsibility, leadership and strategy). This proposed framework serves as an interpretive lens for advancing practice and scholarship. These clusters emerged as the central cognitive anchors that supported our explanation of how CS sensemaking is constructed and enacted in organisations. These clusters form the basis of our contribution whilst simultaneously responding to the limited studies in literature at the nexus of organisational sensemaking and CS (Aguinis & Glavas 2019). Through these thematic and bibliometric analyses, the study clarifies how this scholarship has evolved and identifies gaps and pathways for future theoretical integration.
Building on this introduction, we present the theoretical background and methodological choices that underpin the study’s design. Thereafter, we present the findings and conclude with opportunities for future inquiry.
Theoretical background
Acknowledging the significant role of organisations in ensuring progress towards CS, there has been a recurring and growing call for corporates to enact their commitments and make a contribution towards the global sustainability agenda (Adu-Yeboah et al. 2023). Studies have explored various facets of CS, such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Al Mubarak 2021), CS reporting (Onkila, Mäkelä & Järvenpää 2018), sustainable development (SD) (Wang et al. 2022) and ecological sustainability (Perey & Benn 2015). While a growing body of literature explores organisational responses to the global sustainability agenda, the reality is that CS holds different meanings to different people (Adu-Yeboah et al. 2023; Perey & Benn 2015). This illustrates the existence of conceptual instability and the difficulty associated with translating CS ideals into organisational practice.
In this study, we align with Elkington’s (1998) view of CS as an integrated consideration of social, economic and ecological priorities. This conceptual positioning informs our inclusion of various keywords such as ‘sustainability’, ‘triple bottom-line’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘business sustainability’ as they capture the diverse ways in which the CS phenomenon has been articulated in the literature. Although these concepts commonly address the organisation’s multiple stakeholder obligations (Bansal & Song 2017), they differ in their breadth of application and level of integration, thereby reflecting the conceptual plurality that characterises the field (Meuer, Koelbel & Hoffmann 2019). Given the extent of the paradigmatic change required for CS enactment, it is unsurprising that practitioners describe the journey as complex and frequently report challenges with its implementation (Jungell-Michelsson & Autio 2023; Pálffy & Ablonczy-Mihályka 2024). These implementation challenges are often attributed to confusion associated with trade-off situations and the multiplicity of meanings attached to CS (Chen, Eweje & Kennedy 2021; Linnér & Wibeck 2020), as well as to difficulties embracing the new cognitive frames and lenses necessary for making sustainable decisions (Busch et al. 2020; Hahn et al. 2015).
To address the discrepancy between action and rhetoric associated with the multiplicity of CS interpretations (Al Mubarak 2021), sensemaking offers a viable cognitive approach (Preuss, Fischer & Arora 2024) for exploring CS meaning, which has a bearing on organisations’ CS responses (Govender & Smit 2022; Onkila et al. 2018). Sensemaking is a theoretical framework (Weick 1995, 2020) that enables a close inspection of how practitioners construct and make sense of ambiguous organisational responses to CS issues (Preuss et al. 2024; Williams et al. 2021). It manifests as a continuous process of interpreting and assigning meaning in response to environmental cues (Jungell-Michelsson & Autio 2023). Exploring the contextualised meanings associated with CS is critical to both local and global sustainability agendas (Molloy et al. 2020; Williams et al. 2021). Because of the complexity of CS discussed earlier, human agency is brought to the fore and is considered an essential construct for exploring CS enactment as it drives meaning and CS action (Govender & Smit 2022; Valor, Redondo & Carrero 2025).
In an effort to uncover how CS meanings have been produced, negotiated and incorporated in scholarly discourse, a rigorous research design was utilised and is described in the following research methods section.
Research methods and design
To capture both the breadth and depth of the field, a structured scoping review integrating thematic and bibliometric analysis was considered suitable to identify, map and synthesise existing research. This research method is suited to emerging or fragmented fields where conceptual boundaries are still forming (Linnenluecke, Marrone & Singh 2020; Patriotta 2020). Applying this design enabled the identification of how interpretive and cognitive framings at the intersection of sensemaking and CS have converged or diverged over time.
In conducting the review, we used thematic analysis to synthesise the extensive data objectively and systematically (Donthu et al. 2021). This interpretive first step allowed us to surface the underlying meanings, relationships and conceptual movements within the literature. After which, a bibliometric performance analysis was applied to support the visualisation and mapping of research at the nexus of sensemaking and CS (Makuyana & Dube 2024; Moosa et al. 2022).
Rigour and replicability were enhanced by following established review protocols (Wade & Griffiths 2022). The search and screening process incorporated transparency and was guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework (Donthu et al. 2021).
Search strategy determination
A predetermined search strategy was used to seek publications that report on the literature at the intersection of sensemaking and CS. The predetermined strategy used keywords and synonyms combined through Boolean operators. These keywords were identified in line with previous related literature (Pazienza, De Jong & Schoenmaker 2022; Perey 2015). For instance, broad keywords such as ‘sustainability’, ‘triple bottom-line’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘business sustainability’ were deemed appropriate for describing ‘corporate sustainability’. Meanwhile, terms such as ‘sensegiving’ and ‘sense-making’ were used to conceptualise sensemaking. The delineation to only the provided keywords was determined in cognisance of the database limitations and did not encapsulate all synonyms associated with these main concepts. The search strategy was applied to the title, abstract and keywords to ensure the inclusion of relevant data.
Database search results screening
Data were sourced from the reputable Scopus and ScienceDirect databases, which have been previously recognised (Makuyana & Dube 2024; Moosa et al. 2022) for their comprehensive coverage of management studies, as well as their ability ot enable precise data searches through their built-in filters. The use of two databases expanded the scope of the search, which enhanced the comprehensiveness of the review.
Data were gathered specifically from studies within a 10 year range (2014–2024). The database search results were screened for relevance using the inclusion and exclusion criteria in Table 1.
| TABLE 1: Inclusion and exclusion criteria. |
Consistent with previous similar review studies (Makuyana & Dube 2024; Tardin et al. 2024), only peer-reviewed journals were considered, while books, book chapters, dissertations and conference proceedings were excluded. This was done to enhance the objectivity and quality of the output. Journals were considered because of their documented influence as validated sources of knowledge within a field of study (Tipu 2022). The search was further limited to sources written in the English language to eliminate translation complexities. During pretesting, it was established that relevant publications were found within the main disciplines of Business Management, Accounting, Social Sciences and Environmental Sciences. This informed the decision to limit the search to these fields. To ensure the integrity of the process, the search was conducted according to the PRISMA framework (Moher et al. 2009), as depicted in Figure 1.
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FIGURE 1: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-based flow of data identification. |
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The database searches yielded 197 records, including 147 articles from Scopus and 50 from ScienceDirect. These studies were downloaded, and 18 duplicate studies were removed prior to screening. Based on the set evaluation criteria, the titles, keywords and abstracts of the remaining 179 articles were screened to ensure their relevance and alignment with the study’s purpose. Seventy-four articles did not mention both required concepts as per the set criteria and were discarded. Finally, the dataset of the remaining 104 articles (presented in Online Appendix 1) was downloaded for further analysis and reporting using VOSViewer (Version 1.1.20, Center for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands) and Microsoft Excel (Excel).
Data analysis
Following Galdino et al. (2018)’s approach, key elements of the extracted data were captured in Excel to facilitate the last phase of the review process. This phase involved analysing the data and culminated in reporting the findings. The data were thematically analysed using the six-step thematic analysis process, which entailed data familiarisation, initial code generation, theme development, reviewing themes, defining themes and preparing the report (Braun & Clarke 2006; Naeem et al. 2023). To explore the evolution of the discourse, a performance analysis was conducted to examine the intellectual communities that have shaped the field and trace these developments across journals, regions and time (Moosa et al. 2022). We employed science mapping to assess and visualise the field’s thematic structure, highlighting how thematic trends correspond to the evolving discourse over the period of the review (Akbari et al. 2020).
Ethical considerations
Ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the University of Pretoria Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences Research Ethics Committee (No. EMS042/24).
Results
Evolution of organisational sensemaking and corporate sustainability discourse
Analysing how research has evolved and how it relates to each other over the past decade is a challenging task, especially in today’s VUCA environment. Within the scope of this review, early discussions at the nexus of sensemaking and CS began with studies exploring meaning-making in organisational CS endeavours. These studies highlighted how CS sensemaking is influenced by decision makers’ cognitive (Hahn et al. 2014) and normative stances (Alexander, Walker & Naim 2014). Hahn et al. (2014) provide a key conceptual anchor for this field (see Table 2) and remain the most influential work in the dataset. Their study shifted the focus from what firms do to how decision-making in CS unfolds as a cognitive and interpretive process. There was also a noticeable reframing of CS as a sensemaking challenge rather than a compliance exercise.
The literature shows a progression from moral obligation to cognitive interpretation and enactment. Corporate sustainability is no longer viewed only as compliance but as a strategic sensemaking process through which organisations navigate ambiguity and align values with performance and sustainability goals. Building on this foundation, subsequent studies (Van Bommel 2018; Xiao et al. 2019) extended the discussion by examining the paradoxical dilemmas that decision makers face when balancing competing social, economic and environmental priorities. Collectively, these works mark a decisive turn in the literature towards understanding CS as a process of ongoing interpretation and negotiated meaning within organisations.
Beyond citation metrics, the intellectual influence of these studies was traced through thematic linkages in various cited works. The study found that the most cited publications anchor the field’s transition from normative framings of CS to interpretive and cognitive understandings. This interpretive tracing provided early signals of the thematic movements, which are later visualised in the co-occurrence mapping, lending credibility to the identified clusters.
Research on sensemaking and CS has expanded steadily over time, which reflects a deepening engagement with the topic (see Figure 2). This trajectory shows a transparent shift from normative and compliance-oriented approaches towards interpretive perspectives that view CS as a strategic concern for organisational adaptation and survival. Early studies positioned CS primarily as an ethical obligation (Elmes, Mendoza-Abarca & Hersh 2016). More recent work situates CS within strategic and operational contexts, including stakeholder management (Aguinis & Glavas 2019), artificial intelligence (Pan & Nishant 2023) and innovation (Denicolai & Previtali 2023). This progression signals the field’s movement from prescriptive discussions of CS responsibilities to analytical examinations of how organisations construct, interpret and enact CS within their strategic practices. The growth signifies a collective scholarly effort to reposition CS as a strategic practice (Baumgartner & Rauter 2017). Varying conceptual emphases have led to diverse interpretations of CS theorising and enactment examined across various domains, such as sustainable agricultural decision-making (Zanin et al. 2024), sustainability reporting (Onkila et al. 2018), sustainable supply chains (Xiao et al. 2019), climate change (Kawa 2021; Wade & Griffiths 2022), environmental sustainability (Kawa 2021; Perey & Benn 2015) and medical SD (Wang et al. 2022). This variation underscores the importance of examining how meaning is constructed within contexts, rather than assuming a stable or universally shared understanding of CS.
Sensemaking: The theoretical lens versus the object of enquiry
The literature reviewed reflects varying approaches to sensemaking within this field. These approaches give rise to two distinct orientations, namely sensemaking-inspired CS research and sensemaking of CS. This variation carries important theoretical implications in terms of whether one is using sensemaking as an analytical lens and framework or exploring it as a phenomenon of interest.
For instance, Friedrich, Faust and Zscheischler (2023) explored farmers’ sensemaking agency to drive CS transitions, while Elmes et al. (2016) studied the role of food bank leaders in ethical sensemaking around hunger and food-related illnesses. In these studies, sensemaking served as a mechanism through which CS is understood and enacted across contexts. Other studies such as those of Demastus and Landrum (2023) and Molloy et al. (2020) drew upon sensemaking as a framework for explaining CS adoption and performance (Onkila et al. 2018; Reynolds & Holt 2021). These studies explain how CS in organisations manifests, thus making CS the focal point. While these two schools of thought contribute to knowledge at the nexus of sensemaking and CS, they offer varying points of departure, which have significant implications for theory, practice and future research.
Organisational enablers
Several antecedents emerged as either enabling or constraining CS practice. These are context-specific forces (Dziubaniuk et al. 2024), and their influence differs across domains. Hussain and Malik (2020), for example, used sensemaking to identify factors that support environmental sustainability in supply chains. Similarly, Linnér and Wibeck (2021) showed that societal transformations towards sustainability are driven by education, lifestyle changes, values and leadership. Although these studies revealed multiple drivers for CS, they remain context bound and may or may not be transferable to other settings. Overall, we found that studies fell into two categories: either those that use sensemaking to explain how organisations interpret drivers for CS practice or those that apply sensemaking as a framework to reveal the cognitive and behavioural processes shaping CS responses in the context. This distinction underscores how enablers are both material and interpretive, depending on how organisations construct meaning around CS enactment.
Regional patterns and contextual influences in organisational sensemaking and corporate sustainability literature
Variations in how CS is understood across regions highlight the contextual nature of sensemaking and the uneven global production of knowledge. Studies in this review imply that CS meaning is variable and contextually bound (Kogi, Kristanto & Cao 2025; Williams et al. 2021). An analysis of the geographical distribution of literature in this review (provided in Figure 3) demonstrates patterns of intellectual leadership shaping the theoretical understanding of literature. The country affiliation of the corresponding authors’ institution is detailed in Figure A1-1 (Online Appendix 1). The map indicates a global spread of publications across the world, featuring representation from nearly all continents – North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. While the publications indicate a global spread of research output, this representation is disproportionate. Most studies stem from developed countries. Precisely, the top six countries leading the knowledge base in this area are the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia, followed by Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden in fourth position.
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FIGURE 3: The spread of publications across the world. |
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Additional insights from Figure 4 highlighted The Journal of Cleaner Production as a prominent contributor to scholarly discourse in this area. This outlet was followed by the MDPI Sustainability Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, Business Strategy and the Environment and Organisation and the Environment. Together, they represent the top five most influential journal outlets in terms of article quantity within the scope of this study. These multidisciplinary journal outlets focus on disseminating research that explores organisational practice and theory in relation to CS. The concentration of articles within these outlets suggests their central role in advancing discourse in CS and underscores the dominant themes identified in this study (see Figure 5).
Although the journal impact factor remains a debated quality indicator (Mahmood 2017; Sullivan et al. 2024), in this study, it was used to interpret publication patterns rather than to rank journals. The concentration of studies in well-established outlets shows how disciplinary communities define and validate credible knowledge on sensemaking and CS (Bansal & Gao 2006; Tipu 2022). This concentration indicates that discourse development is shaped by editorial and theoretical preferences that favour managerial and strategy-oriented framings of CS. These preferences have often been argued to have marginalised the more critical or context-specific perspectives (Hofstetter et al. 2022; Torres-Baumgarten & Rakotobe-Joel 2023).
The review shows that 45% of the studies were published in journals with an impact factor above five, while 20% appeared in journals rated below three. This trend signals growing research at the intersection of sensemaking and CS which appears most frequently in high-impact outlets, mainly from the Global North. These publication patterns are not measures of journal prestige, but indicators of how institutional and disciplinary boundaries influence the evolution of CS sensemaking research (Online Appendix 1). This dominance suggests that much of the theoretical framing in this field continues to reflect perspectives and assumptions rooted in developed contexts. As a result, the voices and realities of organisations in the Global South remain underrepresented, limiting the field’s capacity to capture the diversity of CS meanings and practices across regions (Acosta et al. 2024).
Temporal analysis of the research on organisational sensemaking and corporate sustainability
A keyword co-occurrence analysis was conducted using VOSViewer (see Figure 5). This method highlights how topics cluster and shift over time (Mehtaa, Pancholib & Saxena 2024; Soleymanzadeh & Hajipour 2025). Supporting the earlier observations, research in early years emerged as emphasising ethical and compliance perspectives on CS (Alexander et al. 2014; Elmes et al. 2016), whereas recent studies show a shift towards cognitive and behavioural interpretations that position CS as a strategic imperative (Aguinis & Glavas 2019; Pan & Nishant 2023)
The co-occurrence mapping reveals three connected thematic clusters (responsibility, leadership and strategy), which are central to this study’s contribution. These clusters represent the evolving cognitive map in the field and form the empirical base for the framework presented in Figure 6. Our analysis revealed that authors appeared to converge on shared conceptual conversations. For example, ‘ethics’ often co-occurs with ‘corporate responsibility’ and ‘stakeholder’, while ‘leadership’ links with ‘governance’ and ‘transformation’ (Lajnef & Dhifi 2024; Preuss et al. 2024). These linkages confirm the coherence of the three clusters and provide empirical patterns and grounding for the thematic interpretation developed in this study.
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FIGURE 6: Corporate sustainability sensemaking – Thematic pathways for future research. |
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The synthesis and critical reflection of thematic and bibliometric findings reveal that sensemaking and CS discourse have evolved over time through interpretive shifts as opposed to linear growth. The shifts reflect how practitioners construct meaning in response to CS priorities while balancing the associated tensions (Hahn et al. 2014; Reynolds & Holt 2021). Evidence from the mapping indicates that sensemaking theory is concentrated within these three interpretive frames of responsibility, leadership and strategy. Each frame reflects distinctive ways organisations make sense of CS demands. Scholarship appears to have often addressed what CS means, but less often described how meaning is enacted in practice. These findings set the stage for the proposed theoretical integration and future research directions.
Discussion
The study’s dual design and focus, combining interpretive synthesis with bibliometric mapping, allowed us to explore not only what has been written about sensemaking and CS but also how scholarly communities have collectively shaped that understanding over the last decade. Through this dual focus, the study ‘took stock’ of literature at the intersection of sensemaking and CS providing an overview of this research domain. The sensemaking approach illuminated how organisational practitioners and agents of change interpret CS and how they reconcile the gap between strategic intent and sustainable action. The sensemaking lens, along with the application of systematic mapping with bibliometric analysis techniques, facilitates the micro-foundational analysis of practitioners’ ability to make sense of and give sense to pertinent CS issues confronting the organisation. The study culminated in the offering of an integrative thematic framework that encapsulates the core insights of this phenomenon of interest and could be of value to management. By offering this contribution, the study addresses the conceptual silos that emerged from the mapping analysis and offers a basis for advancing theory and discourse (Busch et al. 2020; Hübel 2022).
Our discussion builds on the thematic structure identified in the findings. The clusters of responsibility, leadership and strategy are interpreted as interrelated lenses through which practitioners within organisations construct meaning around sustainability. Responsibility describes normative interpretations of organisational commitments and obligations. Leadership refers to how individual and collective sensemaking shapes CS action. Strategy represents the institutionalised meaning-making systems guiding the pursuit of long-term organisational-wide CS practice. By treating these three clusters as interlinked rather than isolated categories, we clarify the field’s theoretical evolution and expose opportunities for future conceptual integration.
Our findings reveal that research at the nexus of organisational sensemaking and CS has grown over the years, which is indicative of the development of this significant research focus area. Despite this decade of growth in research, it became evident that there remains distinct conceptual variability among the studies in this field. This was reflected in the analysis that demonstrated how the field is theoretically fragmented, thus offering opportunities and avenues for future research. Given the conceptual variability identified, and the importance of organisations in addressing the prevalent sustainability challenges (Preuss et al. 2024), future research should seek to address the unanswered question – how can research and practice both contribute to achieving the global CS agenda?
An analysis of patterns of intellectual leadership as part of the study’s focus demonstrates a disproportionate global representation. The publication patterns of these studies in high-ranking journals highlight the influential outlets that have been advancing research in this field over the last decade. These include the Journal of Cleaner Production, followed by the MDPI Sustainability Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, Business Strategy and the Environment and Organisation and the Environment. Hahn et al. (2014) produced the most cited contribution to this field, with 605 citations in the Academy of Management Review (AMR), highlighting the dispersed nature of publication activity in this area. Surprisingly, the AMR does not feature among the top five most prolific outlets. Even though there is an acknowledgement that high-ranking journals have a far-reaching global footprint with research that appeals to a wide audience, the observed dominance of these outlets based in the Global North marginalises voices from developing and emerging markets. This leaves unanswered questions on the absence or ‘silent voices’ contributing to scholarly discourse in journals from the Global south region. This supremacy not only builds on critical conversations in this journal but also exposes gaps for further research (Acosta et al. 2024; Goldman 2025).
While geographical and publishing outlet patterns (see Figure 3) contextualise the growth over the last decade and reveal certain sensemaking frames, we pause to reflect that they do not constitute the field’s theoretical centre. They may explain how different regions and disciplines rely on certain sensemaking frames, which is insightful. For instance, some studies from developed economies emphasised strategic and institutional logics, whereas findings in studies emanating from emerging contexts revealed a preference for ethical and responsibility-oriented frames of CS. These differences reveal how context shapes both how CS is interpreted and enacted within organisations. They also confirm that CS meaning-making is contextually bound (Kogi et al. 2025; Williams et al. 2021). As such, the dominance of insights emerging from developed contexts could potentially limit theoretical advancement, and we echo ongoing calls for future CS and strategy research from dynamic contexts like emerging markets (Busch et al. 2020; Hofstetter et al. 2022).
The persistent imbalance in the geographical distribution (Depicted in Figure 3) reveals how theoretical knowledge is concentrated in the Global North and prompts reflection on how this shapes what many perceive as a legitimate ‘global’ understanding of sustainability. The majority of the studies are concentrated in North America and Europe, which is a finding consistent with related past research (Makuyana & Dube 2024; Tipu 2022). The concentration of CS discourse in the Global North reveals that knowledge remains predominantly rooted in insights from developed market contexts (Tipu 2022). The findings also reveal that the six countries with the largest knowledge base in this area are the USA, the UK and Australia, followed by Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden in fourth position. Despite only contributing 6% of the studies in the review, countries from emerging markets included China, South Africa (RSA) and Brazil. This current limited scope of empirical research limits generalisation and if addressed could radically improve and support sustainability transitions towards the global sustainability agenda. The exposed gap presents various opportunities for future studies that explore underrepresented contexts to advance literature by offering a nuanced comprehension that is embedded in their contexts (Monkge et al. 2025).
Drawing on the study’s science mapping methodology of co-occurrence analysis and thematic analysis, the study identified and mapped the thematic evolution and progression of studies included within the data set. The temporal analysis of research at the intersection of sensemaking and CS indicates that research focus has indeed changed over time. For example, initial efforts in the field suggested that CS is multidimensional (Hahn et al. 2014) and revealed tensions at multiple levels of the organisation (Halttunen, Slade & Staffell 2022; Preuss et al. 2024). These tensions have propelled the growing interest in unpacking the central role of human agency as implementors and drivers of CS enactment (Grobler 2025; Valor et al. 2025) through the construction and sharing of meaning. Progressively, research has transitioned from ethical perspectives to more strategic interpretations that were informed by multidisciplinary perspectives around CS. The sensemaking approach enabled particular attention to areas such as leadership, innovation, climate change and environmental economics. This is consistent with observations from other scholars (Burbano, Delmas & Cobo 2023; Busch et al. 2020) in the literature and presents opportunities for promising research that offers broader, multidisciplinary perspectives for comprehensively exploring the phenomenon.
Proposed pathways for future research
Having identified various scholarly and conceptual gaps and patterns in our discussion, this section outlines the proposed pathways for future research that could advance our understanding of literature at the nexus of sensemaking and CS. The proposed research directions identify areas where theory development remains incomplete and present opportunities for future studies. The tracing of recurring keywords and author networks as part of the analysis exposed gaps such as the limited integration between leadership and strategy studies. This limits our understanding of how organisational practitioners coordinate sensemaking and decision-making for CS practice. As such, these areas are still under-applied in CS discourse.
Firstly, the pathway for future research focuses on responsibility, reflecting the scarcity of studies linking ethical framing with organisational action. Responsibility addresses how organisations interpret and act on their social and environmental obligations (Lajnef & Dhifi 2024). Keywords such as CSR, ethics, tension and environmental economics highlight ongoing debates about organisational responsibility and its practical enactment (Preuss et al. 2024). Future research that investigates how actors translate ethical meaning into operational routines and governance mechanisms is recommended. Additional studies at the nexus of responsibility and accountability could be valuable in explaining how CS principles shift from rhetoric to implementation.
Secondly, the pathway is leadership, which we acknowledge as central to translating CS intent into practice (Wade & Griffiths 2022). Yet, our findings reveal that leadership studies rarely examine how sensemaking operates across levels, nor do they tend to focus on how individuals and teams shape CS interpretation and enactment. Our choice of keywords revealed insights into how leaders navigate CS challenges and guide organisational transitions. Additional studies could focus on the distributed and collective sensemaking processes in cross-functional or multicultural settings (Linnér & Wibeck 2020). This would offer an improved understanding.
Thirdly, the pathway is strategy, which concerns how organisations enact CS in everyday practice (Johnson, Melin & Whittington 2003). Even though literature has confirmed that strategic approaches enable firms to achieve sustainable competitiveness and operational efficiency, innovation and value creation (Adu-Yeboah et al. 2023; Ofori et al. 2014), strategy-oriented research in Africa is limited; there is a need for further strategy research that focuses on the often overlooked micro-level cognitive processes that support enactment (Eticha, Brunninge & Tessema 2024).
The limited and uneven coverage of diverse contexts that emerged in the study highlights the need for future research in underrepresented regions, particularly Africa. This gap has been noted by various special issue calls for further research that is more inclusive and offers a pluralistic understanding of CS (Acosta et al. 2024; Makuyana & Dube 2024). Extending research to emerging contexts has the potential to deepen theoretical insight through examining how contextual realities shape CS meaning and practice (Kogi et al. 2025; Walls & Vogel 2023). The three pathways of responsibility, leadership and strategy revealed an underlying cognitive structure in CS research and avenues for future research. Studies that explore these will strengthen theoretical integration and contribute by moving the scholarly discussion beyond mapping knowledge to explaining how organisations construct, negotiate and apply the meaning of CS in practice.
Conclusion
This study’s contribution lies at the crossroads of sensemaking and CS. Discourse at this intersection has evolved over the past decade. The study demonstrates this evolution and that this discourse has shifted from ethical framings towards more strategic and interpretive understandings of CS over time. The findings also reveal how the field moved from describing CS as an obligation to exploring how practitioners construct and act on its meaning in practice. By tracing publication patterns and showing thematic linkages, the research field on sensemaking and CS has become increasingly reflexive and integrative. The study revealed how scholars construct meaning around CS through three interlinked lenses (responsibility, leadership and strategy) and how, together, these shape interpretations and actions. The main contribution of this study emerged from the synthesis of a fragmented domain through a semi-systematic scoping review of 104 articles that were published in the Scopus and Science Direct databases between 2014 and 2024. The synthesis also offered several pathways and prospects for scholars to further explore by applying the dominant thematic lenses identified in this review. Future studies could incorporate combinations of the various keywords used to provide broader perspectives, especially in different contexts. From these directions for the future, we invite scholars to explore and investigate the extent to which these thematic lenses advance knowledge and practice in the face of persistent global sustainability challenges in the VUCA environment.
Furthermore, the study exposes gaps for further theoretical and conceptual integration and exploration. It contributes to the literature, which was previously underexplored and also highlighted how this field of study has various untapped research opportunities. After noting that the field and current discourse have primarily been influenced by scholars from developed countries – the USA, the UK and Australia – an invitation to scholars and practitioners is made to expand research into the ‘uncharted territories’ and to include multidisciplinary perspectives. Research continues to be constrained by disciplinary and contextual silos, revealing limited dialogue between normative and cognitive approaches. The field still lacks integrative work that connects micro-level sensemaking with macro-level CS strategies. This was particularly evident in underrepresented regions such as Africa and Latin America. Future studies should interrogate how meaning-making processes differ across institutional settings and how they influence the translation of CS rhetoric into action. Further research from developing markets is critical to advancing CS meaning within a contextualised understanding (Kogi et al. 2025; Williams et al. 2021). We infer that there remains a critical and urgent need for studies that broaden the geographical scope of research in this field.
Researchers could benefit from utilising keywords such as ‘organisational strategy’, ‘supply chains’, ‘innovation’, leadership’, ‘environmental economics’ and ‘stakeholder management’ to offer more globally representative and critical research that enhances the current knowledge base. The study followed a semi-systematic review process and offered detailed steps, that ensured a rigorous search supporting a focused analysis of research that met the exclusion and inclusion criteria (Mehtaa et al. 2024). The process included a search string based on the researchers’ scrutiny of literature and informed judgement. Future research could extend this focus to broaden the range of perspectives and lenses utilised. Moreover, by combining output from two databases in this study, we sought to and enhanced prior research efforts. This approach also set the scholarly stage for future studies to embrace or even extend this focus, which could offer a wider reach and comprehensiveness.
Practically, this article identified the credible, recognised studies that practitioners can rely on for enhanced decision-making in similar contexts. Considering that CS meaning and practice are ambiguous, practitioners may rely on studies in similar contexts for navigating CS priorities such as in agriculture (Zanin et al. 2024), education (Dziubaniuk et al. 2024) and tourism (Bertella 2023). It provides a benchmark for practitioners by exposing underexplored potential areas of improvement relevant to organisations seeking CS enactment. Managers should acknowledge that CS challenges are shaped by how practitioners interpret competing demands. This implies that attention must be given to how CS is framed and discussed within the organisation, as these interpretations influence subsequent strategic choices. The findings suggest that managers can strengthen CS enactment by deliberately creating dialogue across functions. Such engagement will provide discursive spaces for dialogue on the different interpretations of CS, which could reduce misalignment between strategic intent and practice. The studies in the review as well as the overall contribution reinforces the importance of gaining a contextualised CS meaning in various settings, which is essential for scholars and practitioners to collectively construct and transform meaning for CS practice.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on research originally conducted as part of Tshegofatso Alice Monkge’s doctoral thesis titled ‘Exploring middle managers’ sensemaking practices for embedding corporate sustainability: the case of a sub-Saharan MNE’, which was submitted to the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, University of Pretoria in 2025. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Catherine le Roux and Dr Rebaona Letsholo. The article has since been revised and adapted for journal publication.
Competing interests
Author Tshegofatso A. Monkge reports receiving financial support for her doctoral studies. This support did not fund the research reported in this article and had no influence on the study design, analysis, interpretation, or writing. Catherine le Roux and Rebaona Letsholo have no competing interests to declare.
CRediT authorship contribution
Tshegofatso A. Monkge: Conceptualisation, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Visualisation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Catherine le Roux: Conceptualisation, Formal analysis, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Rebaona Letsholo: Conceptualisation, Formal analysis, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. All authors reviewed the article, contributed to the discussion of results, approved the final version for submission and publication and take responsibility for the integrity of its findings.
Funding information
Tshegofatso A. Monkge reports receiving financial support from the University of Botswana Staff Development Fund. This support relates to doctoral training and does not constitute funding for the research reported in this article. No external funding was received for this research.
Data availability
The authors confirm that the data supporting this study and its findings are available within the article and its listed references. Additional data may be provided by the corresponding author, Tshegofatso A. Monkge, upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and are the product of professional research. It does not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency or that of the publisher. The author are responsible for this article’s findings and content.
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