Organisational Identity, Sensemaking, and Strategic Renewal in Nigerian Family-Owned Conglomerates: A Longitudinal Interpretive Study

This study investigates the role of organisational identity dynamics and sensemaking processes in shaping strategic renewal in Nigerian family-owned conglomerates, addressing a significant theoretical gap at the intersection of identity theory, sensemaking theory, and family business strategic management research. Family-owned conglomerates in Nigeria represent a distinctive organisational form where family identity, business legacy, and multi-generational continuity imperatives create unique strategic renewal constraints and enablers that existing frameworks do not adequately theorise. Employing a longitudinal interpretive case methodology over four years, this research investigates four major Nigerian family conglomerates through 90 interviews with family executives, non-family managers, board members, and long-tenured employees, supplemented by historical document analysis tracing strategic decisions over twenty years. The analysis reveals that strategic renewal in family conglomerates is fundamentally an identity negotiation process, in which the sensemaking of key organisational members determines whether renewal is framed as identity-threatening discontinuity or identity-consistent evolution. Three original theoretical constructs are generated: identity anchoring, capturing how family legacy constrains renewal ambition; identity bridging, describing how renewal narratives are legitimised through founder heritage connections; and identity transcendence, characterising transformative renewal that successfully integrates family continuity values with strategic transformation imperatives. These contributions advance family business theory, organisational identity theory, and sensemaking scholarship in the Nigerian and broader African family enterprise context. Keywords: organisational identity, sensemaking, strategic renewal, family conglomerates, Nigeria.