Middle managers, strategic sensemaking, and discursive competence

Journal of Management Studies

Volumn 48, Issue 5, 2011, Pages 953-983

  Rouleau, Linda ^a   Balogun, Julia ^b  

^a Lancaster University ^*

^b HEC MONTRÉAL   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79953033101     PISSN: 00222380     EISSN: 14676486     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2010.00941.x     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Alexiev, A. S., Jansen, J. J. P., Van den Bosch, F. A. J. and Volberda, H. W. 'Top management team advice seeking and exploratory innovation: the moderating role of TMT heterogeneity'. Journal of Management Studies, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2010.00919 (forthcoming).
2. Balogun, J. (2003). 'From blaming the middle to harnessing its potential: creating change intermediaries'. British Journal of Management, 14, 69-83.
3. Balogun, J. and Johnson, G. (2004). 'Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking'. Academy of Management Journal, 47, 523-49.
4. Balogun, J. and Johnson, G. (2005). 'From intended strategy to unintended outcomes: the impact of change recipient sensemaking'. Organization Studies, 26, 1573-602.
5. Balogun, J., Huff, A. and Johnson, P. (2003). 'Three responses to the methodological challenges of studying strategizing'. Journal of Management Studies, 40, 197-224.
6. Balogun, J., Hope Hailey, V., Gleadle, P. and Willmott, H. (2005). 'Managing change across boundaries: boundary shaking practices'. British Journal of Management, 16, 261-78.
7. Balogun, J., Pye, A. and Hodgkinson, G. (2008). 'Cognitively skilled organizational decision making: making sense of deciding'. In Hodgkinson, G. and Starbuck, W. H. (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Decision Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8. Bertaux, D. and Delcroix, C. (2000). 'Case histories of families and social processes'. The Turn to Biographical Methods in Social Sciences: Comparative Issues and Examples. London: Routledge.
9. Buchanan, D. A. (2008). 'You stab my back, I'll stab yours: management experience and perceptions of organization political behaviour'. British Journal of Management, 19, 49-64.
10. Corley, K. G. and Gioia, D. A. (2004). 'Identity ambiguity and change in the wake of a corporate spin-off'. Administrative Science Quarterly, 49, 173-208.
11. Currie, G. (1999). 'The influence of middle managers in the business planning process: a case study in a UK NHS'. British Journal of Management, 10, 141-56.
12. Currie, G. and Proctor, S. (2005). 'The antecedents of middle managers' strategic contribution: the case of a professional bureaucracy'. Journal of Management Studies, 42, 1325-56.
13. Dutton, J. E. and Ashford, S. J. (1993). 'Selling issues to top management'. Academy of Management Review, 18, 397-428.
14. Dutton, J. E., Ashford, S. J., Wierba, E. E., O'Neil, R. and Hayes, E. (1997). 'Reading the wind: how middle managers assess the context for issue selling to top managers'. Strategic Management Journal, 15, 407-25.
15. Dutton, J. E., Ashford, S. J., O'Neil, R. and Lawrence, K. A. (2001). 'Moves that matter: issue selling and organizational change'. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 716-36.
16. Fairhurst, G. (2007). Discursive Leadership: In Conversation with Leadership Psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
17. Floyd, S. W. and Lane, P. J. (2000). 'Strategizing throughout the organization: management role conflict in strategic renewal'. Academy of Management Review, 25, 154-77.
18. Floyd, S. W. and Wooldridge, B. (1994). 'Dinosaurs or dynamos? Recognizing middle management's strategic role'. Academy of Management Executive, 8, 47-57.
19. Floyd, S. W. and Wooldridge, B. (1997). 'Middle management's strategic influence and organizational performance'. Journal of Management Studies, 34, 465-86.
20. Gioia, D. A. and Chittipeddi, K. (1991). 'Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation'. Strategic Management Journal, 12, 433-48.
21. Gioia, D. A. and Longenecker, C. O. (1994). 'Delving into the dark side: the politics of executive appraisal'. Organizational Dynamics, 22, 47-58.
22. Hoon, C. (2007). 'Committees as strategic practice: the role of strategic conversation in a public administration'. Human Relations, 60, 921-52.
23. Huy, Q. N. (2002). 'Emotional balancing of organizational continuity and radical change: the contribution of middle managers'. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 31-69.
24. Jarzabkowski, P., Balogun, J. and Seidl, D. (2007). 'Strategizing: the challenge of a practice perspective'. Human Relations, 60, 5-27.
25. Johnson, G., Melin, L. and Whittington, R. (2003). 'Micro-strategy and strategizing: toward an activity-based view'. Journal of Management Studies, 40, 3-22.
26. Laine, P. M. and Vaara, E. (2007). 'Struggling over subjectivity: a discourse analysis of strategic development in an engineering group'. Human Relations, 59, 611-36.
27. Langley, A. (1999). 'Strategies for theorizing from process data'. Academy of Management Review, 24, 691-710.
28. Lawrence, T., Mauws, M. K., Byck, B. and Kleysen, R. F. (2005). 'The politics of organizational learning: integrating power into the 4I framework'. Academy of Management Review, 30, 180-91.
29. Ling, Y., Floyd, S. W. and Baldridge, D. C. (2005). 'Reading the wind in multinational corporations. The impact of culture in issue selling behavior'. Journal of International Business Studies, 36, 637-54.
30. Maitlis, S. (2005). 'The social processes of organizational sensemaking'. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 21-49.
31. Maitlis, S. and Lawrence, T. (2007). 'Triggers and enablers in organizations'. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 57-84.
32. Maitlis, S. and Sonenshein, S. (2010). 'Sensemaking in crisis and change: inspiration and insights from Weick (1988)'. Journal of Management Studies, 47, 551-80.
33. Mangham, I. L. and Pye, A. (1991). The Doing of Managing. Oxford: Blackwell.
34. Mantere, S. (2008). 'Role expectations and middle manager strategic agency'. Journal of Management Studies, 45, 294-316.
35. Orlikowski, W. J. (2002). 'Knowing in practice: enacting a collective capability in distributed organizing'. Organization Science, 13, 249-73.
36. Piderit, S. K. and Ashford, S. J. (2003). 'Breaking silence: tactical choices women managers make in speaking up about gender-equity issues'. Journal of Management Studies, 40, 1477-502.
37. Pye, A. (1995). 'Strategy through dialogue and doing: a game of Mornington Crescent?'. Management Learning, 26, 445-62.
38. Pye, A. (2002). 'The changing power of "explanations": directors, academics and their sensemaking from 1989 to 2000'. Journal of Management Studies, 39, 907-25.
39. Pye, A. and Pettigrew, A. (2005). 'Studying board context, process and dynamics: some challenges for the future'. British Journal of Management, 16, 27-38.
40. Raman, S. R. (2009). 'Middle managers' involvement in strategic planning: an examination of roles and influencing factors'. Journal of General Management, 34, 57-74.
41. Rouleau, L. (2005). 'Micro-practices of strategic sensemaking and sensegiving: how middle managers interpret and sell change every day'. Journal of Management Studies, 42, 1413-43.
42. Rouleau, L. (2010). 'Studying strategizing through narratives of practice'. In Golsorkhi, D., Rouleau, L., Seidl, D., and Vaara, E. (Eds), Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 258-70.
43. Samra-Fredericks, D. (2005). 'Strategy practice, discourse and the everyday interactional constitution of power effects'. Organization, 12, 803-41.
44. Sonenshein, S. (2006). 'Crafting social issues at work'. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 1158-72.
45. Taylor, J. R. and Robichaud, D. (2004). 'Finding the organization in the communication: discourse as action and sensemaking'. Organization, 11, 395-414.
46. Watson, T. J. and Bargiela-Chiappini, F. (1998). 'Managerial sensemaking and occupational identities in Britain and Italy: the role of management magazines in the process of discursive construction'. Journal of Management Studies, 35, 285-301.
47. Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. London: Sage.
48. Westley, F. (1990). 'Middle managers and strategy: micro dynamics of inclusion'. Strategic Management Journal, 11, 337-51.
49. Wooldridge, B., Schmid, T. and Floyd, S. W. (2008). 'The middle management perspective on strategy process: contributions, synthesis, and future research'. Journal of Management, 34, 1190-221.
50. Yang, J., Zhang, Z.-X. and Tsui, A. S. 'Middle manager leadership and frontline employee performance: bypass, cascading, and moderating effects'. Journal of Management Studies, 47, 654-78.