Title: Place of middle managers on the relationship between creativity in strategy and organisational performance

Authors: Fakher Jaoua

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, College of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; P.O. Box 582, 3000 Sfax, Tunisia

Abstract: In recent years, the literature reveals that creativity is an essential ingredient for strategy formulation. This creative potential in strategy formulation is manifested by four strategic roles played by middle managers: facilitating adaptability, implementing deliberate strategy, synthesising information and championing alternatives. In this perspective, the purpose of this research is to investigate the direct impact of strategic roles of middle managers (SRMMs) on the creativity in strategy, and the moderating effect of SRMMs on the relationship between the creativity in strategy and organisational performance. A survey questionnaire has been distributed to 350 CEOs of large Tunisian companies involved in the upgrading program. The results of the application of structural equation methods show a central roles of strategic middle managers both in its relationship to creativity in strategy, as in the relationship between creativity in strategy and organisational performance.

Keywords: creativity in strategy; middle managers; organisational performance; strategy formulation; strategy involvement; middle management; firm performance; Tunisia; structural equation modelling; SEM.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMDM.2016.077762

International Journal of Management and Decision Making, 2016 Vol.15 No.2, pp.113 - 133

Received: 02 Dec 2015
Accepted: 09 Mar 2016
Published online: 14 Jul 2016 *

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