Managerial sensemaking of interaction within business relationships: A cultural perspective

• We regard the application of cultural schemas in managerial sensemaking of business interaction.
• We apply a narrative approach and metaphor analysis investigating both sides of the dyads.
• Managers engaged use various types of cultural schemas in sensemaking.
• Interaction events sensemaking differs between “western” and “eastern” managers.
• We point to several cultural distinctions in sensemaking of managers from Russia and Finland.

In this study, we take the perspective of the individual manager in order to understand the role of culture in managerial sensemaking on interaction within business relationships. Extant literature has found business-to-business relationships and interaction between managers to be an essential part of conducting business. However, it has mostly ignored the role of culture in the process. This has not accounted for the possibility that managers with different cultural backgrounds may differently make sense about business interactions.Our aim is to fill this gap by investigating how deeply held cultural schemas contribute to managerial sensemaking of the interaction events in business-to-business relationships between firms from emerging and developed economies. We apply the narrative approach coupled with metaphor analysis to study the sensemaking of managers from two Finnish SMEs and the managers of their Russian partner firms engaged in mutual dyadic business-to-business relationships. Our results indicate that the cultural background of managers plays a major role in their sensemaking capabilities.Furthermore, we find the managers to have significant culturally based differences in their managerial understanding of the business interaction. The results contribute to the understanding of culture’s role in business-to-business relationships and interaction between managers with differing cultural backgrounds. This increased understanding can further help to mitigate misunderstandings between managers from developed and emerging economies.