Diasporic sensemaking: A perspective on international business relationships and diaspora business networks

International business relationships, particularly in the business-to-business context, are crucial for successful international business. Situations such as foreign market entry or critical events that lead to failure processes are often explained with cultural differences and not addressed from their microfoundations perspective. Understanding international business relationships and the inherent interaction calls for examining the sensemaking of the participants. Yet, the migrant and diasporic business manager-entrepreneurs and networks are rarely addressed as business actors or sensemakers. This paper reviews and explores different angles of sensemaking and diasporas that may explain or influence business relationships and interaction in ways that tend to remain unexposed in mainstream literature and non-diasporic interaction. The conceptual discussion contributes with a multilayered view to international business relationships, critical events, and dynamic diaspora sensemaking. It proposes a view of sensemaking and sense-giving that involves socio-historical and cultural transfer effects and diverse underlying dynamics stretching from the individual dynamics to the community and collective sensemaking and sense-giving.