Middle Management Strategizing Fatigue – When Middle Management Inclusion Goes South

While previous research has highlighted the many benefits of middle management inclusion in strategizing, this paper analyses the flipside of middle management inclusion and how engagement of middle managers can turn sour. Drawing on extensive data collected in a large, mature multinational engineering company, Mobility Solutions Inc., our study traces the unfolding relational dynamics between top and middle managers causing middle managers to withdraw and disengage from their strategizing tasks. We explore this process in the context of a strategic initiative where initial enthusiasm to engage decreases over time and leads to what we conceptualize as “strategizing fatigue”. We introduce the concept of strategizing fatigue as the subjective feeling of exhaustion in middle managers when their strategizing efforts over time are not sufficiently recognized by top management and discuss antecedents and consequences of such fatigue.