Middle Managers' Involvement and Influence in Strategic Renewal: A Qualitative Study of Middle Managers’ Role in the Development of Strategic Practices

This study’s main research question is how middle management is involved in, and influences strategy formation and strategic renewal. To provide an answer, a series of top-middle management pairs from a number of Italian manufacturing firms have been interviewed with the intent to investigate how the relationship between the pairs, together with the degree of autonomy granted to middle managers, enable strategic divergent behaviors and how these behaviors influence the strategy process through the mechanisms of the sensemaking and sensegiving as practices. The analysis will be conducted through an abductive approach so the literature reviewed and the theoretical framework that has been presented will be used as guidelines.