Contracting as Sensemaking Infrastructure: Enacting Sustainability Strategy in Business‐to‐Business Relationships

Abstract

Firms articulate sustainability objectives but depend on suppliers and business partners to enact them. As commitments cross organizational and professional boundaries, their meaning may fragment even when parties agree in principle. This theory‐synthesis article examines B2B contracting as sensemaking infrastructure for enacting sustainability strategy across interorganizational relationships. Integrating sensemaking, proactive contracting, and contract design, it develops the sensemaking‐based contracting framework. The framework identifies four interdependent functions: framing clarifies what the relationship seeks to govern; translation connects that understanding to responsibilities, data, and routines; adaptation organizes legitimate revision; and signaling connects relationship‐level performance to external credibility. The article repositions contracting from downstream compliance to strategy enactment. It shows that preserving contractual wording is insufficient when purpose becomes disconnected from performance and directs managerial attention to connections among purpose, responsibility, capability, review, and evidence. Whether this infrastructure supports shared meaning depends on power, network position, and actors' ability to question established interpretations.