Organizational path transformation in response to disruptive environmental changes: The role of middle managers

Abstract

Organizations need to shift from the existing path and form a new path (i.e., realizing path transformation) after disruptive environmental changes, and yet it is a difficult process hardly known in the literature. This study reports on a comparative case study to examine middle managers’ roles in organizational path transformation. We show that middle managers can facilitate organizational path transformation first by breaking the lock-in state via individual exploration and collective assessment, and then by triggering self-reinforcing effects to form a new strategic pattern via external resource acquisition and synergistic internal deployment. In contrast, middle managers who conduct individual exploration, individual assessment, and independent resource deployment can create obstacles for organizational path transformation. Organizational contexts are likely the underlining cause for the differences between these two kinds of behaviors. This research contributes to the literature by revealing how middle managers facilitate or impede path transformation, and by identifying organizational contexts that influence their different behaviors.