Developing a Model of Antecedents to Middle Managers’ Strategic Role Conflict

Abstract

Strategic role conflict has been identified in the literature as a hindrance, even an impediment, to effective middle-management involvement in strategy. Despite a growing body of theoretical work by scholars on the strategy process, there has been limited empirical research of the antecedents of strategic role conflict. This study explored the effects of middle managers’ demographic characteristics, the nature of their position within the organization, the quality of their relationships with top management, and the extent of dissimilarity of environmental perceptions between the middle manager and their top manager on the middle manager’s experience of strategic role conflict. A large, global manufacturing company based in the United States participated in the study. Survey data was collected from 249 middle managers at four organizational levels within two divisions. Two structural models were tested. Data showed that the more parsimonious model was not supported while the less parsimonious model was supported. Results indicated that key predictors of middle manager’s strategic role conflict were the amount of boundary spanning that middle managers engage in as part of their jobs, the extent of disparity in their perception of the products and factors markets vis-à-vis top management, the frequency of their direct communication with their top manager, the amount of mutual trust between the top middle manager and the top manager, and the amount of disparity in the feelings of mutual affect between the middle manager and his/her top manager.