Sensemaking the external environment as strategic practice: evidence from a Global South organisation

Purpose This study examines how organisational actors make sense of the external macro environment and how these sensemaking processes shape strategic understanding and organisational action under conditions of persistent uncertainty. Moving beyond objectivist approaches to environmental analysis, the study positions sensemaking as a central strategic practice through which organisations interpret and respond to volatile, non-linear, and ambiguous external conditions. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative, interpretive research design based on an embedded single-case study of a Sri Lankan export-oriented manufacturing organisation operating in a Global South context. Data were generated through 38 semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted across multiple organisational levels, complemented by field observations. Data analysis followed Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterned meanings in how organisational actors interpret the external environment and translate these interpretations into strategic action. Findings The findings show that organisational actors do not treat the external environment as an objective or stable reality but actively construct it through multiple, overlapping modes of sensemaking. These include retrospective sensemaking following disruption, experiential sensemaking grounded in operational practice, narrative sensegiving to translate global pressures, emergent sensemaking through action and learning, and ethical sensemaking that humanises environmental pressures. These sensemaking processes directly shape strategic understanding and action by legitimising incremental and adaptive responses, enabling learning-oriented capability development, distributing strategic agency across organisational levels, and embedding ethical considerations into everyday strategic practice. Strategy emerges as an evolving pattern of action rather than the implementation of predefined plans. Originality/value The study contributes to strategic management and sensemaking literature by shifting attention from episodic crises to ongoing sensemaking of the macro external environment as a foundational strategic practice. It enriches strategy-as-practice scholarship by empirically connecting macro environmental pressures to micro-level action through interpretation. By offering a Global South perspective, the study challenges universalistic strategy assumptions and highlights the ethical and contextual dimensions of strategic sensemaking in environments characterised by structural uncertainty. This study extends existing sensemaking and strategy-as-practice research by showing how macro-environmental interpretation operates as an ongoing, ethically infused strategic practice. It advances understanding of how actors in structurally uncertain Global South contexts construct legitimacy and coherence under persistent volatility.