The existing literature on sensemaking has largely overlooked the importance of resource scarcity as a fundamental factor in strategy implementation and sustainability challenges. Sustainability strategy is typically implemented in organisations through sustainability working groups that develop action plans under resource scarcity. Resource scarcity often leads to conflicting interests among part-taking stakeholders, resulting in organizational tensions and negative emotions at the group level that threaten the development of group identity. Furthermore, despite its central role in successful strategy implementation and sensemaking, the literature on organizational identity has neglected the early stages of working group identity creation research. Groups acts as a practical tool for strategy implementation being part of the organizational management system. Therefore, this research combines sensemaking theory, based on Sandberg and Tsoukas' (2020) types, with self-categorisation theory (SCT), as originally proposed by Turner et al. (1987), to provide a more nuanced theoretical model of group identity creation. These different types of sensemaking have opened new research avenues by bridging the cognitivist and constructivist research streams, leading to a more nuanced understanding of the temporary and processual nature of sensemaking.

This research responds to the call from behavioural strategy scholars for more empirical research on strategy implementation by taking a socio-material approach to sensemaking and group identity creation. It follows the critical realism research philosophy in which material reality forms the objective nature of the world and social systems produce a framework for the way actors subjectively perceive the world. The socio-materiality perspective in sensemaking research recognizes the importance of the emotional needs of individual actors as a driving force behind social communication and the use and allocation of resources. Power processes and group dynamics are important elements within socio-materiality, and rituals, rules, resource allocation and use are intertwined with group structures and ongoing structuring processes, such as emerging group norms. The sociomaterial approach at the intersection of sensemaking and group identity creation is still a relatively unexplored area, which justifies the intertwined use of deductive and inductive approaches in this research.

The focus of the study is on exploring how the sustainability working group navigates and establishes itself amidst strategic objectives, expectations of primary stakeholders (including paradoxical expectations related to sustainability issues), emotional reactions and allocation of scarce resources during its early creation phase. The sociomaterial approach allows for the examination of social dynamics and organising within their material context under the framework of “practical rationality”. Taking a critical realism stance in sociomateriality allows us to analyse social and material structure and structuring (e.g. group identity process) as a separate constituent from actors’ actions (i.e. socially constructed through subjective experienced agency), while recognising that embodied actions or inactivity bring structure alive.

According to the findings in this study, the formation of a sustainability working group's identity is an iterative process that intertwines conscious cognitive mental models with unconscious cognitive and emotional processes of actors within the socio-material environment. Building on previous literature and informed by empirical observations, this research finalizes a theoretical model of early-stage group identity formation through abductive research logic. In addition, this study has identified the gradual emergence of various sensemaking types and the transitional periods in the creation of group identity from the individual to the group levels. Furthermore, a detailed codebook including guidelines has been created, which will provide directions for future research on collective sensemaking and group relationships in the field of behavioural strategy. This study provides insights into the dynamic interplay of group identity creation and internal processes within sustainability working groups. While recognizing the importance of exploring the effective management of paradoxical tensions in implementing sustainability strategies, the primary focus remains on examining the complex dynamics of group identity creation. This focal point aims to establish the groundwork for forthcoming research pathways and the development of practical instruments for managing sustainability. The ultimate goal is to increase the efficiency of implementing sustainability initiatives through the collaborative efforts of a sustainability working group.