Universities should be developing female middle-managers for reasons of gender balance (Aitkin 2001), the skills shortage, pending mass retirements (Chesterman 2004) and sustainable, postbureaucratic organizations (Kira and Forslin 2008). Investigating the learning and development of women managers is timely. Research assumes that women in academe have the qualifications, experience and skills ...

This paper seeks to better understand the way middle managers contribute strategically to the development of an organization by examining how they enact the strategic roles allocated to them, with particular reference to strategic change. Through vignettes drawn from the authors’ current research, a framework is developed that shows two situated, but interlinked, discursive activities, ‘perform...

We consider the elastic and orientational response of a uniform nematic elastomer subjected to an extension perpendicular to its director. By allowing a possibility of local shear in the material, we show that the effect of "soft elasticity" leads to a new regime of director reorientation, through a highly non-uniform stripe domain state (in contrast to earlier predictions and observations of a...

The role of middle managers in agriculture and agribusiness has been neglected by applied—as well as disciplinary—research, while gaining increasing importance in practice. This study provides an overview of middle management research and analyzes middle managers’ authority in human resource decision-making and human resource management practices based on in-depth interviews analyzed through a ...

The ever dynamic nature of the world of work requires that organisations constantly review factors that energise managers (particularly middle level managers) towards achievement of set goals. This category of employees translates strategic decisions by top management into action through the operational employees. They (middle level managers) therefore serve as a link between top management and...

Dedicated and qualified medical direction is required to ensure safe and quality patient care. Medical direction is a fundamental element of the emergency medical services (EMS) system. It is essential that the lead agency for EMS within the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the territories of Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mari...

While prior research has emphasized middle managers’ important role in the strategy process and the benefits of their involvement, little is known about their role in the strategy process in medium-sized firms and, specifically, their participation in the internationalization strategy process (ISP). Our analysis of interviews conducted with the complete layer of middle managers at a medium-size...