A Justice-Power Perspective on Middle Managers’ Involvement in Strategy Process

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of middle managers’ strategy involvement on their commitment to organizational strategies and their strategic alignment with the CEO. We stress the mediating role of managers’ procedural justice perceptions about the strategic decision-making process, and the moderating role of hierarchical position. Data from 342 middle managers in a large service organization support our theorization. Our results ascertain that although strategic involvement leads to enhanced procedural justice perceptions of the strategy formation at all hierarchical levels, its effect on strategic alignment is higher for the managers at the lower organizational levels. We also unearth the multi-level effects of team level variables, such as the consistency of a strategic involvement pattern among middle management peers. This study expands the procedural justice research in strategy formation to middle and lower levels of the organization while providing empirical evidence for the importance of strategic involvement in successful strategy implementation. We discuss several theoretical and practical implications.