Strategy implementation: exploring roles, perceptions, and expectations of middle managers' practices

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University London.Strategy and its successful implementation is the responsibility of all stakeholders in an organisation; however, thus far, most empirical research in the field of strategy has mainly focused on Boards of Directors or senior management. The dearth of research, as evidenced from the review of the literature concerning the roles of middle managers in strategy implementation, coupled with the disagreement of senior management on their importance, leaves room for discovery. Acknowledging the importance of middle managers’ roles and agreeing what is expected from them in strategy implementation prompts organisations to create the conditions to enable them for strategy implementation. These ideas led to this investigation by exploring what enables the roles and practices of middle managers in strategy implementation. This research adopts the interpretive research approach in an effort to investigate middle managers’ involvement in strategy implementation across three industrial manufacturing organisations in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Through the development of a conceptual framework incorporating aspects of roles, role expectations, practices and context, the thesis highlights the difference between the perception of roles and expectations and roles in practice. The chosen respondents were senior and middle managers. The main findings of the research showed that there exists a gap between the perception of senior managers and middle managers on the roles of middle managers and on aspects enabling their strategic agency; this resulted in an ‘implementation gap’, which can hinder the successful execution of organisation strategy. This thesis discovers that the issues of management are the same regardless of the geographic situation or cultures within which the organisations operate, and that there are lessons to be learned from each other. A conceptual framework emerged from the exploratory qualitative research which confirms and opens up new avenues in understanding the roles of middle managers in practice in the area of strategy implementation. The implications are a need to understand it more empirically and a need to bridge the gap in practice. Key words: Strategy implementation, Middle manager, Roles, Role expectations, Practices