Mapping Managerial Sensemaking to Decode Soft Issues in Global Supply Chain Collaboration

Sammanfattning

Research questions: RQ1: How do managers in (Hitachi Energy’s GSC) make sense of their collaborative roles and relationships across the distributed organization? RQ2: What soft issues appear as salient triggers and objects of managerial sensemaking in GSCs collaboration, and how are they interpreted? RQ3: How does managers’ sensemaking of soft issues shape day‑to‑daycollaborative interactions and broader collaboration outcomes? Purpose: This study examines how managers in global supply chains make sense of relational and interpretive challenges—termed soft issues—in their day-to-day collaboration across distributed organizational boundaries. Specifically, it investigates how these managers interpret their collaborative roles and relationships, which soft issues trigger sensemaking, and how these interpretations shape collaborative interactions and outcomes. Method: A qualitative, abductive case study of Hitachi Energy's Power Grids and Grid Automation (PGGA) division was conducted using semi-structured interviews with seven supply chain managers across Sweden and Switzerland. Drawing on Microfoundations, Dynamic Managerial Capabilities, and Sensemaking theories, data were analyzed through systematic combining, iteratively matching empirical observations with theoretical constructs to identify patterns in managers' interpretations of soft issues. Conclusion: The study reveals that soft issues arise from the interplay of relational psychological contracts, trust-fairness-reciprocity judgments, psychic distance,and perceived digital augmentation. Managers actively respond through learning imperatives (inquirers, reflective learners, thinkers) and human workarounds that compensate for structural and digital limitations, thereby constituting a distance-management capability essential for sustaining collaboration. The findings advance microfoundations research by clarifying how individual-level sensemaking shapes collective collaboration outcomes in distributed supply chains.