战略过程中的中层管理者

Middle Managers in the Strategy Process

在动态、不确定、复杂和模糊的经营环境下,中层管理者作为企业联通战略制定与执行的关键环节,其角色和价值越来越受到学术界和企业界的关注。然而,当前围绕战略过程所开展的中层管理者研究还较为分散,缺乏对中层管理者角色及行为的系统性研究,尤其对中国情境下的中层管理者管理实践认识不足。本文试图对1986—2020年间国内外顶尖期刊发表的103篇中层管理者文献进行分析,提出一个整合的中层管理者概念框架。本文首先对中层管理者的概念内涵及其在战略过程中的角色作用进行系统阐述;接着分别梳理了中层管理者在战略决策和战略执行过程中的作用机理;最后,总结了现有研究的不足并提出在中国制度文化和数字化情境下开展中层管理者研究的建议。本文构建了中层管理者研究的整体概念框架,厘清了中层管理者参与企业战略过程的作用机理,提出了中国情境下未来研究的发展方向,为进一步推动中层管理者研究的发展奠定了基础。

Middle managers(MMs) are playing an increasingly important role in the era of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity(VUCA). They are central to effective strategy formulation and implementation, and thus are one of the sources of firms’ competitive advantage.Previous research has studied middle managers’ impact on corporate entrepreneurship(Ren and Guo,2011;Burgess, 2013), product innovation(Grimpe et al, 2019), corporate strategy formulation(O’Shannassy, 2014) and strategy implementation(Hirte, 2018). All these studies share the premise that middle managers are central to explaining key organizational outcomes.While previous studies have demonstrated the importance of middle managers in the strategy process, they lack a comprehensive understanding of MMs’ roles and behaviors. First, there are insufficient theories to explain how MMs influence organizational outcomes and integrate their multiple roles. Second, little research has provided a systematic understanding of MMs’ dynamic interactions with their situated environments, especially in the digital age, resulting in a lack of insight into the role of middle management in strategy formation. Third, neither have these studies paid attention to the unique roles played by MMs in China, where both formal and informal institutions differ dramatically from those of developed economies.This paper offers a comprehensive review of the literature on MMs. First, we systematize the conceptualization of MMs and explain their roles in the strategy process;then we identifiy MMs’ roles in strategy decision-making and strategy implementation respectively;finally, we suggest that future research needs to incorporate the institutional environment, social culture and digital economy with Chinese characteristics into the middle manager framework. This paper constructs a conceptual framework for middle management research, clarifies the role mechanism of middle managers in the strategic process, and proposes future research directions in the Chinese context, laying the foundation for further promoting the development of middle management research.