Intersecting the Middle Management Perspective and Strategy as Practice: a literature review

This thesis explores how middle managers contribute to strategy work through a literature review situated within the Strategy-as-Practice (SAP) framework. Drawing on 30 peer-reviewed studies published between 2010 and 2025, it examines how middle managers act not simply as implementers of top-down plans but as active participants who interpret, adapt, and shape strategy in everyday organizational life. The review identifies four core themes: strategic agency, implementation practices, strategizing under constraint, and the role of tools, emotions, and sensemaking. Across these areas, middle managers are portrayed as practitioners who navigate ambiguity, resource limitations, and institutional tensions through negotiation, improvisation, and relational work. Strategy emerges as an evolving and socially embedded process—one that depends on judgment, emotional engagement, and contextual understanding rather than formal planning alone. The study contributes to SAP theory by highlighting the relational and affective dimensions of strategizing and by reframing agency as a situated and adaptive practice. It concludes with practical recommendations for organizations to provide middle managers with greater interpretive space, peer support, and recognition of their invisible strategic labour, while encouraging future research in diverse cultural and digital contexts.