Hostname: page-component-669899f699-swprf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T17:33:16.743Z Has data issue: true hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Vertical and lateral dynamics of middle managers’ strategizing for institutional complexity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2024

Charlotte Jonasson Open the ORCID record for Charlotte Jonasson [Opens in a new window]  and
Toke Bjerregaard Open the ORCID record for Toke Bjerregaard [Opens in a new window]
Charlotte Jonasson*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University, Aarhus C, Denmark
Toke Bjerregaard
Affiliation:
Department of Management, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
*
Corresponding author: Charlotte Jonasson; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Research suggests that institutional complexity is of strategic importance and recent calls have been made to investigate organizational strategizing in such a situation of multiple institutional logics. We therefore investigate middle managers’ strategizing for institutional complexity. In doing so, we follow theoretical suggestions of a renewed practice-based view on strategizing as a broad social accomplishment beyond top management activities. Based on a qualitative field study in a company under influence of substantive financial reform, findings show that middle managers re-strategize institutional complexity at the vertical interstices of top management strategies and the distributed agency of their followers. Furthermore, the study highlights the character and effects of lateral dynamics of middle managers’ competing strategizing. We explain how these vertical and lateral dynamics provide insight into strategizing for institutional complexity as a distributed, situated, and emergent social accomplishment. Such strategizing practices have unintended organizational consequences beyond both top and middle management control.

Keywords

strategy-as-practiceinstitutional complexitymiddle managerseconomic reformvertical dynamics of practicelateral dynamics of practicequalitative field study
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , First View , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alford, R. R., & Friedland, R. (1985). Powers of theory: Capitalism, the state, and democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Almandoz, J. (2014). Founding teams as carriers of competing logics: When institutional forces predict banks’ risk exposure. Administrative Science Quarterly, 59(3), 442–473.Google Scholar
Andersson, T., & Gadolin, C. (2020). Understanding institutional work through social interaction in highly institutionalized settings: Lessons from public healthcare organizations. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 36(2), .Google Scholar
Atkinson, P., & Coffey, A. (2011). Analysing documents. In Silverman, D. (Ed.), 3rd. Qualitative Research, 3rd ed. (pp. 77–93), London: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Bae, J. (1997). Beyond seniority-based systems: A paradigm shift in Korean HRM? Asia Pacific Business Review, 3(4), 82–110.Google Scholar
Bae, J., & Rowley, C. (2002). The impact of globalization on HRM: The case of South Korea. Journal of World Business, 36(4), 402–428.Google Scholar
Balogun, J., Best, K., & Lê, J. (2015). Selling the object of strategy: How frontline workers realize strategy through their daily work. Organization Studies, 36(10), 1285–1313.Google Scholar
Balogun, J., & Johnson, G. (2004). Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 47(4), 523–549.Google Scholar
Balogun, J., & Rouleau, L. (2017). Strategy-as-practice research on middle managers and sensemaking. In Floyd, S. W. & Wooldrige, B. (Eds.), Handbook of middle management strategy process research. Sheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.Google Scholar
Battilana, J., & Dorado, S. (2011). Building sustainable hybrid organizations: The case of commercial microfinance organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 53(6), 1419–1440.Google Scholar
Bernard, R. H. (2006). Research methods in anthropology, qualitative and quantitative approaches. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.Google Scholar
Bertels, S., & Lawrence, T. B. (2016). Organizational responses to institutional complexity stemming from emerging logics: The role of individuals. Strategic Organization, 14(4), 336–372.Google Scholar
Besharov, M. L., & Smith, W. K. (2014). Multiple institutional logics in organizations: Explaining their varied nature and implications. Academy of Management Review, 39(3), 364–381.Google Scholar
Bhappu, A. D. (2000). The Japanese family: An institutional logic for Japanese corporate networks and Japanese management. Academy of Management Review, 25(2), 409–415.Google Scholar
Binder, A. (2007). For love and money: Organizations’ creative responses to multiple environmental logics. Theory and Society, 36(6), 547–571.Google Scholar
Birollo, G., Rouleau, L., & Teerikangas, S. (2023). In the “Crossfire” of the acquisition process: Exploring middle managers’ unfolding mediation dynamics. European Management Journal In press.Google Scholar
Birollo, G., & Teerikangas, S. (2022). Acquired middle managers’ strategy roles and value creation in cross-border acquisitions. European Management Journal, 40(6), 895–905.Google Scholar
Bjerregaard, T. (2011). Institutional change at the frontlines: A comparative ethnography of divergent responses to institutional demands. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 6(1), 26–45.Google Scholar
Burgelman, R. A., Floyd, S. W., Laamanen, T., Mantere, S., Vaara, E., & Whittington, R. (2018). Strategy processes and practices: Dialogues and intersections. Strategic Management Journal, 39(3), 531–558.Google Scholar
Chin, T., Shi, Y., Rowley, C., & Meng, J. (2021). Confucian business model canvas in the Asia Pacific: A Yin-Yang harmony cognition to value creation and innovation. Asia Pacific Business Review, 27(3), 342–358.Google Scholar
Cho, Y. (2008). The national crisis and de/reconstructing nationalism in South Korea during the IMF intervention. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 9(1), 82–96.Google Scholar
Cloutier, C., & Langley, A. (2013). The logic of institutional logics: Insights from French pragmatist sociology. Journal of Management Inquiry, 22(4), 360–380.Google Scholar
Demers, C., & Gond, J.-P. (2020). The moral microfoundations of institutional complexity: Sustainability implementation as compromise-making at an oil sands company. Organization Studies, 41(4), 563–586.Google Scholar
Durand, R., Szostak, B., Jourdan, J., & Thornton, P. H. (2013). Institutional logics as strategic resources. In Lounsbury, M. & Boxenbaum, E. (Eds.), Institutional logics in action, part A (vol 39, pp. 165–201). Leeds: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.Google Scholar
Ericson, M., & Melin, L. (2010). Strategizing and history. In Golsorkhi, D., Rouleau, L., Seidl, D. & Vaara, E. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of strategy as practice (pp. 326–343). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G., & Hamilton, A. L. (2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15–31.Google Scholar
Goodrick, E., & Reay, T. (2011). Constellations of institutional logics: Changes in the professional work of pharmacists. Work and Occupations, 38(3), 372–416.Google Scholar
Greenwood, R., Raynard, M., Kodeih, F., Micelotta, E. R., & Lounsbury, M. (2011). Institutional complexity and organizational responses. Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), 317–371.Google Scholar
Gümüsay, A. A., Smets, M., & Morris, T. (2020). “God at work”: Engaging central and incompatible institutional logics through elastic hybridity. Academy of Management Journal, 63(1), 124–154.Google Scholar
Haveman, H. A., Joseph-Goteiner, D., & Li, D. (2023). Institutional logics: Motivating action and overcoming resistance to change. Management and Organization Review, 1–26.Google Scholar
Heyden, M. L., Fourné, S. P., Koene, B. A., Werkman, R., & Ansari, S. (2017). Rethinking ‘top‐down’ and ‘bottom‐up’ roles of top and middle managers in organizational change: Implications for employee support. Journal of Management Studies, 54(7), 961–985.Google Scholar
Høiland, G. C. L., & Klemsdal, L. (2022). Organizing professional work and services through institutional complexity – How institutional logics and differences in organizational roles matter. Human Relations, 75(2), 240–272.Google Scholar
Horak, S. (2017). The informal dimension of human resource management in Korea: Yongo, recruiting practices and career progression. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 28(10), 1409–1432.Google Scholar
Horak, S., & Taube, M. (2016). Same but different? Similarities and fundamental differences of informal social networks in China (guanxi) and Korea (yongo). Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 33(3), 595–616.Google Scholar
Hung, S.-C., & Whittington, R. (2011). Agency in national innovation systems: Institutional entrepreneurship and the professionalization of Taiwanese IT. Research Policy, 40(4), 526–538.Google Scholar
IMF. (2000). Recovery from the Asian crisis and the role of IMF. Retrieved March 1 from, https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/ib/2000/062300.htmGoogle Scholar
Iszatt-White, M. (2010). Strategic leadership: The accomplishment of strategy as a ‘perennially unfinished project.’ Leadership, 6(4), 409–424.Google Scholar
Janelli, R. L. (1996). Making capitalism: The social and cultural construction of a South Korean conglomerate. Reedwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P. (2005). Strategy as practice: An activity-based approach. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., & Bednarek, R. (2018). Toward a social practice theory of relational competing. Strategic Management Journal, 39(3), 794–829.Google Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Kaplan, S., Seidl, D., & Whittington, R. (2016). On the risk of studying practices in isolation: Linking what, who, and how in strategy research. Strategic Organization, 14(3), 248–259.Google Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Kavas, M., & Krull, E. (2021). It’s practice. But is it strategy? Reinvigorating strategy-as-practice by rethinking consequentiality. Organization Theory, 2(3), .Google Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Seidl, D., & Balogun, J. (2022). From germination to propagation: Two decades of Strategy-as-Practice research and potential future directions. Human Relations, 75(8), 1533–1559.Google Scholar
Jarzabkowski, P., Smets, M., Bednarek, R., Burke, G., & Spee, P. (2013). Institutional ambidexterity: Leveraging institutional complexity in practice. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 39b, 37–61.Google Scholar
Jonasson, C., Mette, K. A., & Shubhra, O. M. (2018). Dynamics of distributed leadership during a hospital merger. JHOM, 32(5), 691–707.Google Scholar
Jonasson, C., Mäkitalo, Å., & Nielsen, K. (2015). Teachers’ dilemmatic decision-making: Reconciling coexisting policies of increased student retention and performance. Teachers and Teaching, 21(7), 831–842.Google Scholar
Kellogg, K. C. (2019). Subordinate activation tactics: Semi-professionals and micro-level institutional change in professional organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(4), 928–975.Google Scholar
Kim, A. E., & Park, G.-S. (2003). Nationalism, Confucianism, work ethics and industrialization in South Korea. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 33(1), 37–49.Google Scholar
Klemsdal, L., & Wittusen, C. (2023). Agency in compliance with institutions: The case of professional expert-organizations and politico-ethical agency. Organization, 30(4), 712–729.Google Scholar
Kohtamäki, M., Whittington, R., Vaara, E., & Rabetino, R. (2022). Making connections: Harnessing the diversity of strategy‐as‐practice research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 24(2), 210–232.Google Scholar
Laasch, O., & Pinkse, J. (2020). Explaining the leopards’ spots: Responsibility-embedding in business model artefacts across spaces of institutional complexity. Long Range Planning, 53(4), .Google Scholar
Lee, B.-H. (2003). Globalization and industrial relations in Korea. Korea Journal, 43(1), 261–288.Google Scholar
Lê, J. K., & Jarzabkowski, P. A. (2015). The role of task and process conflict in strategizing. British Journal of Management, 26(3), 439–462.Google Scholar
Liu, F., & Maitlis, S. (2014). Emotional dynamics and strategizing processes: A study of strategic conversations in top team meetings. Journal of Management Studies, 51(2), 202–234.Google Scholar
Lok, J. (2010). Institutional logics as identity projects. Academy of Management Journal, 53(6), 1305–1335.Google Scholar
Lounsbury, M., Steele, C. W., Wang, M. S., & Toubiana, M. (2021). New directions in the study of institutional logics: From tools to phenomena. Annual Review of Sociology, 47(1), 261–280.Google Scholar
MacKay, B., Chia, R., & Nair, A. K. (2021). Strategy-in-Practices: A process philosophical approach to understanding strategy emergence and organizational outcomes. Human Relations, 74(9), 1337–1369.Google Scholar
Malhotra, N., Zietsma, C., Morris, T., & Smets, M. (2021). Handling resistance to change when societal and workplace logics conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 66(2), 475–520.Google Scholar
Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2018). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook. London: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Mirabeau, L., & Maguire, S. (2014). From autonomous strategic behavior to emergent strategy. Strategic Management Journal, 35(8), 1202–1229.Google Scholar
Ocasio, W., & Gai, S. L. (2020). Institutions: Everywhere but not everything. Journal of Management Inquiry, 29(3), 262–271.Google Scholar
Ocasio, W., & Radoynovska, N. (2016). Strategy and commitments to institutional logics: Organizational heterogeneity in business models and governance. Strategic Organization, 14(4), 287–309.Google Scholar
Oh, T. K., & Kim, E. (2002). The impact of Confucianism on East Asian business enterprises. In Rhee, Z. & Chang, R. (Ed.), Korean business and management: The reality and the vision. Seoul: Hollym.Google Scholar
Olsen, T. H., & Solstad, E. (2020). Changes in the power balance of institutional logics: Middle managers’ responses. Journal of Management & Organization, 26(4), 571–584.Google Scholar
Pache, A.-C., & Santos, F. (2010). When worlds collide: The internal dynamics of organizational responses to conflicting institutional demands. Academy of Management Review, 35(3), 455–476.Google Scholar
Park, G.-S. (2004). Economic restructuring and social reformulating: The 1997 financial crisis and its impact on South Korea. Development and Society, 33(2), 147–164.Google Scholar
Park, G.-S., & Kim, A. E. (2005). Changes in attitude toward work and workers identity in Korea. Korea Journal, Autumn, 36–57.Google Scholar
Pfister, J. A., Jack, S. L., & Darwin, S. N. (2017). Strategizing open innovation: How middle managers work with performance indicators. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 33(3), 139–150.Google Scholar
Radoynovska, N., Ocasio, W., & Laasch, O. (2020). The emerging logic of responsible management: Institutional pluralism, leadership, and strategizing. In Laasch, O., Suddaby, R., Freeman, R.E. & Jamali, D. (Eds.), Research handbook of responsible management (pp. 420–437). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.Google Scholar
Rantakari, A., & Vaara, E. (2016). Resistance in organizational strategy-making. In Courpasson, D. & Vallas, S. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of resistance (pp. 208–223). London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Raynard, M. (2016). Deconstructing complexity: Configurations of institutional complexity and structural hybridity. Strategic Organization, 14(4), 310–335.Google Scholar
Reay, T., & Hinings, C. R. (2009). Managing the rivalry of competing institutional logics. Organization Studies, 30(6), 629–652.Google Scholar
Rouleau, L. (2005). Micro-practices of strategic sensemaking and sensegiving: How middle managers interpret and sell change every day. Journal of Management Studies, 42(7), 1413–1441.Google Scholar
Rouleau, L., & Balogun, J. (2011). Middle managers, strategic sensemaking, and discursive competence. Journal of Management Studies, 48, 953–983.Google Scholar
Rouleau, L., Balogun, J., & Floyd, S. W. (2015). Strategy-as-practice research on middle managers’ strategy work. In Golsorkhi, D., Rouleau, L., Seidl, D. & Vaara, E. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of strategy as practice (pp. 598–615). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rouleau, L., & Cloutier, C. (2022). It’s strategy. But is it practice? Desperately seeking social practice in strategy-as-practice research. Strategic Organization, 20(4), 722–733.Google Scholar
Rowley, C., & Bae, J. (2004). Human resource management in South Korea after the Asian financial crisis. International Studies of Management and Organization, 34(1), 52–82.Google Scholar
Sharma, G., & Good, D. (2013). The work of middle managers: Sensemaking and sensegiving for creating positive social change. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 49(1), 95–122.Google Scholar
Smets, M., Greenwood, R., & Lounsbury, M. (2015). An institutional perspective on strategy as practice. In Golsorkhi, D., Rouleau, L., Seidl, D., and Vaara, E. (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of strategy as practice (pp. 283–300). Cambridge: University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Smets, M., & Jarzabkowski, P. (2013). Reconstructing institutional complexity in practice: A relational model of institutional work and complexity. Human Relations, 66(10), 1279–1309.Google Scholar
Smets, M., Jarzabkowski, P., Burke, G., & Spee, P. (2015). Reinsurance trading in Lloyd’s of London: Balancing conflicting-yet-complementary logics in practice. Academy of Management Journal, 58(3), 932–970.Google Scholar
Splitter, V., Jarzabkowski, P., & Seidl, D. (2023). Middle managers’ struggle over their subject position in Open Strategy processes. Journal of Management Studies, 60(7), 1884–1923.Google Scholar
Suddaby, R., Seidl, D., & Lê, J. K. (2013). Strategy-as-practice meets neo-institutional theory. Strategic Organization, 11(3), 329–344.Google Scholar
Tarakci, M., Ateş, N. Y., Floyd, S. W., Ahn, Y., & Wooldridge, B. (2018). Performance feedback and middle managers’ divergent strategic behavior: The roles of social comparisons and organizational identification. Strategic Management Journal, 39(4), 1139–1162.Google Scholar
Tarakci, M., Heyden, M. L., Rouleau, L., Raes, A., & Floyd, S. W. (2023). Heroes or Villains? Recasting middle management roles, processes, and behaviours. Journal of Management Studies, 60(7), 1663–1683.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. J., & Bogdan, R. (1984). Introduction to qualitative research methods: The search for meanings. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley.Google Scholar
Thornton, P., Jones, C., & Kury, K. (2005). Institutional logics and institutional change in organizations: Transformation in accounting, architecture, and publishing. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 23, 125–170.Google Scholar
Thornton, P., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The institutional logics perspective: A new perspective to culture, structure and process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Toubiana, M. (2020). Once in orange always in orange? Identity paralysis and the enduring influence of institutional logics on identity. Academy of Management Journal, 63(6), 1739–1774.Google Scholar
Vaara, E., & Whittington, R. (2012). Strategy-as-practice: Taking social practices seriously. The Academy of Management Annals, 6(1), 285–336.Google Scholar
Van Rensburg, M. J., Davis, A., & Venter, P. (2014). Making strategy work: The role of the middle manager. Journal of Management & Organization, 20(2), 165–186.Google Scholar
Vermeulen, P., Zietsma, C., Greenwood, R., & Langley, A. (2016). Strategic responses to institutional complexity. Strategic Organization, 14(4), 277–286.Google Scholar
Wenzel, M., & Koch, J. (2018). Strategy as staged performance: A critical discursive perspective on keynote speeches as a genre of strategic communication. Strategic Management Journal, 39(3), 639–663.Google Scholar
Wenzel, M., Stanske, S., & Lieberman, M. B. (2020). Strategic responses to crisis. Strategic Management Journal, 41(7/18), .Google Scholar
Whittle, A., Mueller, F., Gilchrist, A., & Lenney, P. (2016). Sensemaking, sense-censoring and strategic inaction: The discursive enactment of power and politics in a multinational corporation. Organization Studies, 37(9), 1323–1351.Google Scholar
Zilber, T. B. (2011). Institutional multiplicity in practice: A tale of two high-tech conferences in Israel. Organization Science, 22(6), 1539–1559.Google Scholar