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A Typology Of Middle Manager Strategic Activity: An Exploration In An International Business Context, Dónal O’Brien
A Typology Of Middle Manager Strategic Activity: An Exploration In An International Business Context, Dónal O’Brien
Doctoral
There is a growing body of literature which recognises the strategic importance of middle managers (Westney, 1990, Kanter, 1982, Balogun, 2003, Balogun et al., 2011, Tippmann et al., 2013). Through enactment of strategic activities, middle managers influence how strategy develops in organisations (Aherne et al., 2014). Floyd and Wooldridge (1992) developed a model of upward and downward strategic activity which has been the basis for much of the research on middle managers. However, recent developments have highlighted the limitations in only researching upward and downward strategic activities (Rouleau and Balogun, 2011). Middle managers are engaged with interfaces above and below …
Do Middle Managers Contribute To Their Organisation's Strategy?, Tony Kealy
Do Middle Managers Contribute To Their Organisation's Strategy?, Tony Kealy
Conference Papers
This paper presents an empirical study on the contribution made by middle managers to the development of strategy in an organisation. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews with four managers in randomly-chosen companies. Two of the participant managers held senior management positions while the other two held middle manager positions. The data was analysed using a qualitative approach. Previous studies in this field were found to be wide and varied. An early study by Mintzberg (1978) found that strategy mainly forms from emergent influences at middle and lower levels of the organisation, as well as from deliberate influences emanating …
Can Middle Managers Make A Telling Contribution To Strategy Development In An Organisation, Tony Kealy
Can Middle Managers Make A Telling Contribution To Strategy Development In An Organisation, Tony Kealy
Other resources
The role of the middle manager in organisations has been the topic of much research over the past number of decades. Many articles have been published claiming the potential for middle managers to contribute significantly to strategic development. This research attempts to test the validity of this theory with a practical grounding. This research is based on a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with four managers in different organisations. The project relies on established typologies for middle management involvement in strategy and middle management activity depending on organisational type.
Middle Managers' Searching For Knowledge: The Repository-Interpersonal Dilemma, Esther Tippmann, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin
Middle Managers' Searching For Knowledge: The Repository-Interpersonal Dilemma, Esther Tippmann, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin
Conference Papers
Drawing on the organizational memory and strategy for managing knowledge literatures to develop a theoretical framework, we empirically examined the organizational memory contexts – interpersonal and repository logic - that set the broader conditions for middle managers’ knowledge searching. Contrary to most studies which examine knowledge storage processes, with the help of multiple case studies, we examined middle managers’ actual activities. Our findings reveal that in the interpersonal logic middle managers more actively engage in knowledge circulation and knowledge co-creation processes. In the repository logic instead, middle managers’ potential seemed to become confined because of cognitive inertia, leading to a …
Don’T Store It, Search For It: How Organizations Can Encourage Middle Managers To Search For Distributed Knowledge, Esther Tippmann, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin
Don’T Store It, Search For It: How Organizations Can Encourage Middle Managers To Search For Distributed Knowledge, Esther Tippmann, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin
Conference Papers
This qualitative study examined how middle managers, at the micro-level, search for distributed knowledge to resolve non-routine problems, and how the organizational context, at the macro-level, influences the knowledge search effectiveness. We find that middle managers proactively search organization wide knowledge resources, thus highlighting the significance of middle managers in integrating distributed knowledge. Further, our findings show the importance of the organization to provide supporting structures. In particular, we offer evidence that effective knowledge search does not rely on repositories but that organizational design aspects and a strategy for managing knowledge that emphasizes interaction opportunities, informality, and openness can promote …