The Role of Middle Management in the Implementation of Sustainability Strategies

This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the role of middle management in implementing sustainability strategies. We propose three main levers for the substantive implementation of sustainability strategies: virtues- and values-based staffing procedures for middle managers, their cultural alignment with corporate strategy, and a “middle-up-down role” for middle managers in performance measurement. Moreover, we argue that secondary stakeholder pressure impedes cultural alignment and thus such pressure generates a tradeoff to be managed. Our hypotheses are tested using survey data from 134 large companies