As strategy-as-practice adopts a situated approach to social practices, an important contingency to consider in this thesis is time, chronologically, and historically. A temporal lens is used here to e te d Flo d a d Woold idge s (1992, 1994, 1996) typology of middle manager roles. Ancona et al (2001: 660) suggest that the la guage of ti e... ill sha pe ou o te tual u de sta di g of behaviours in organisations. Hu : a gues that ha ge age ts need to have temporal capability: the ability to comprehend various seemingly opposite te po al o eptio s a out ha ge…[so] that the a oth i teg ate a d differentiate multiple temporal constructs and perform multiple and seemingly pa ado i al a ti ities. Hu (ibid: 611) identified four behaviours of commanding, engineering, teaching, and socialising that reflected change archetypes of
commander, analyst, teacher, and facilitator. These roles map on to Floyd and Woold idge s t polog of i ple e ti g, s thesizi g, ha pio i g, a d facilitating.
Floyd and Wooldridge (1992, 1994, 1996) do not provide an in-depth
consideration of contingent factors such as time in their model. The upper middle managers studied in this thesis are working in many temporal dimensions. Time scales may clash in business schools for different teaching, publishing, and budget cycles. In order to understand how different aspects of time influence practices, Ta le o i es Tuttle s (1997) four perspectives on time in processual research
91 ith Flo d a d Woold idge s (1992, 1994, 1996) model. Tuttle s atego ies include:
(i) Physiological: body clock, life cycle
(ii) Objective: chronos, clock time, punctuality
(iii) Psychological: kairos, orientations to the past, present, future, and (iv) Socially constructed relative time: contextualised, cultural.
Table 4: Strategic activities from time-based perspectives
Physiological Time: Facilitating
Nurturing future generations for their careers, timing career opportunities at different life stages, discussing ideas at appropriate times of the day, week, year. Ensuring recovery time to re-energise after international travel, major events. Physiological Time: Synthesizing
Older, more experienced middle managers may be better listeners, more
networked, while younger newer recruits could be more receptive and ask naïve questions that lead to improved understanding. Need to balance ideas from veterans and novices to gain a range of insights. Fatigue from endless meetings. Physiological Time: Championing
Entrainment, timing of energy levels for announcements when listeners are alert. Selling benefits to people at different stages of their careers. Physically coping with dinners, energy for corridor conversations.
Physiological Time: Implementing
A new middle manager may have higher energy levels to get things done faster and cope with international travel. A more experienced incumbent may be better at delegating and deliberating and have more time to attend to the job with an established track record, fewer domestic commitments with adult children. Offsetting declining productivity over tenure.
Objective Time: Facilitating
Ensuring sufficient time allocations for accelerating new ideas, networking. Building in breaks, time for play, improvisation (Crossan et al, 2005), emergence. Objective Time: Synthesizing
Managing diary appointments to have time to reflect, balancing time, being internally and externally aware. Prioritising agenda items before and within meetings.
92 Objective Time: Championing
Scheduling meetings to optimise championing opportunities, publicity, public speaking availability.
Psychological Time: Synthesizing
Timetabling milestones to keep progress on track and for timely interventions. Ensuring achievements are highlighted at times of contract renewals, appraisals. Delegating to allow time for strategic focus and planning.
Psychological Time: Facilitating
Mentoring, timing announcements when an audience is receptive, learning from failure. Allowing time to build trust. Building a consensus, shared purpose, respecting the past.
Psychological Time: Synthesizing
Deciding on acceptable levels of disruption and discontinuities for momentum, framing, envisioning. Sequencing and regulating upheavals, settling down periods. Mentally changing gears. Adopting different mind sets takes time. Psychological Time: Championing
Linking selling and storytelling with legacy, current realities and aspirations to optimise receptiveness, emotional coping, windows of opportunity to engage with dissent. Timing when an audience is receptive to the promotion of new ideas. Allowing time to build trust. Building a consensus, shared purpose, respecting the past.
Psychological Time: Implementing
Celebrate and reward achievements for maximum impact but being wary of the dangers of success (Miller, 1994). Psychological quick wins. Building maps of clear targets for performance management, overcoming psychological inertia.
Socially Constructive Relative Time: Facilitating
Slack time allows for experimentation (Nohria and Gulati, 1996) and emergence. Respect different cultural norms, especially cross- cultural differences. Pace setti g e pe tatio s, a do ultu e.
Socially Constructive Relative Time: Synthesizing
Small talk and debate are used for intelligence gathering, consulting. Different orientations to dealing with multiple issues and national perceptions of
acceptable feedback mechanisms. Professionals have different time horizons, e.g. s hola s pu li atio s, audito s espo se ates, jou alists deadli es.
Socially Constructive Relative Time: Championing
Time out at social events, informal sessions allows for promulgating the message across multiple professional boundaries, and reconciling differences.
93 Socially Constructive Relative Time: Implementing
Urgency of deadlines in different industries, countries, e.g. a hybrid manager brings commercial high velocity pacing (Eisenhardt, 1989b) into an academic culture as a catalyst for new ventures (Gersick, 1994) but needs to be context sensitive. Succession effects – comparisons of pe fo a e ith p ede esso s records.
If the dimensions of time and strategic roles are considered at the five levels of individual manager, business unit, institution, industry and wider environment, it
a e see that the uppe iddle a age s atte pts to e o te t se siti e a e fraught with multiple considerations. For example, synthesizing information is influenced by different stages in the life cycles of the middle managers, whether they are mid-career or close to retirement in terms of their intellectual and physical energy to travel, their propensity to take risks, and tolerance for coping with the daily grind. For example, dealing with the deadl dull issue of u i e sit
ad i ist atio Dea lo e, can really enervate deans. Middle managers eed to e a a e of path depe de ies a d the i issitudes of the u it s performance when formulating strategy. Other time-related considerations
include the cycle of the te u e of the iddle a age s superior, successor effects (Brown, 1982; Beatty and Zajac, 1987), timing of strategic reviews, lags (typically two years in league table results and for publishing journal articles), psychological shocks in consulting about new ideas. In complex public sector organisations like u i e sities, iddle a age s oles a e shaped the diffe e t te po al perceptions within professional subcultures internally and externally such as the acceptability and sequencing of evolutionary and revolutionary change (Tushman and O'Reilly, 1996), financial and quality audito s e pe tatio s. The iddle
a age s a ti ities i ol e e t ai e t, i.e. the adjust e t of the pa e o le of one a ti it to at h o s h o ize ith that of a othe A o a a d Cho g,
94 1996: 251). Middle a age s roles demand that they facilitate windows of
opportunity for serendipity, boundary spanning, mentoring, negotiating, timely announcements, down time for reflection, delegating to avoid overload, fatigue, and stress caused by time famine (Perlow, 1999). They need space to add value and to enhance their personal productivity. All these activities amount to a real balancing act within a fixed-term tenure just for the synthesizing roles in Floyd and Woold idge s (1992, 1994, 1996) framework given here as an example. This is in an environment when tangible results are expected and there are clear constraints on management autonomy.
In drawing on temporal literature, this thesis is mindful of i di iduals iog aphies and career trajectories. It is aware of how different type of institutions and the business school industry have evolved. The study also considers changes over time in UK public sector policy such as That he s edu atio uts, the i t odu tio of significant tuition fees in England, and the impact of global recessions.
At the le el of the iddle a age , Ha i k a d Fukuto i s fi e seaso s of a CEO s te u e a e applied to the se io iddle a age s ha gi g
mandate in one particular position. This model explains h a age s strategic practices shift as they focus on different tasks at various stages in their tenure as they move through the five seasons of:
(1) response to mandate (2) experimentation
95 (4) convergence, and
(5) dysfunction
The argument is that often executive tenures of long duration result in declining performance. In Ha i k a d Fukuto i s (ibid) framework, following initial experimentation with the going-in mandate, an executive fixes on a strategy but if they stay too long or fail to implement strategic renewal, they can experience strategic drift. Gabarro (1985, 2007) notes that it takes a new manager a long time to take charge in the first season through the processes of taking hold, immersion, reshaping, consolidation, and refinement. In their models, neither Hambrick and
Fukutomi (1991) nor Flo d a d Woold idge , , o side a age s
behaviours prior to being appointed and taking up a new role. This period may represent a significant opportunity for synthesis and for revisiting the going-in
a date. A te ede ts a d o se ue es atte i o ga isatio s histo ies. Figure 4 depicts Hambrick and Fukuto i s o eptualisatio g aphi all fo o e example as an executive attends to tasks in different seasons. The co-authors acknowledge that the seasons are not necessarily linear, sequential or all fulfilled within a tenure. Hambrick and Fukutomi admit that their model can apply to any
a age , ot just the uppe e helo s. I thei f a e o k, a a age s task knowledge rises over the tenure then plateaus. Task interest is high at the outset
then falls. Commitment to the going in paradigm may initially fall as the gap between reality
and aspirations stated at the appointment interview is re-interpreted and then it strengthens. The e e uti e s power increases year-on-year as the range of sources of information the individual manager draws on declines.
96
Ha i k a d Fukuto i s fi e seaso s of a CEO s te u e a e applied at the senior middle management level in this study. While the article is conceptual, the model ould e used diag osti all to ap a dea s t aje to . The f a e o k assumes that a e e uti e s pa adig is ased o the i te pla et ee the i u e t s s he a a d epe toi e, i.e. cognitive map and toolbox such as experiences of negotiating. This paradigm changes over the course of the tenure. Hambrick and Fukutomi (ibid: 728) suggest in relation to the experimentation stage of a e e uti e s te u e: During this phase CEOs may relax their
commitment to their paradigms, attempt new approaches to running their Figure 4: An example of variations in tasks over a e e uti e s tenure
Five Seasons
Behaviours Strength of
97 enterprises, and generally try broader gauged methods than they were willing to atte pt i the i itial da s of thei te u es. This e hoes Flo d a d Woold idge s (1992, 1994, 1996) facilitating adaptability role. Hambrick and Fukutomi (1991) see the first season as an opportunity for reshaping previously agreed strategy. Respo se to a date i Ha i k a d Fukuto i s i id odel aps o to Flo d
a d Woold idge s , , s thesizi g i fo atio , aki g se se of
the given strategy. The third season of an enduring theme allows for championing a message, while the fourth season of convergence echoes Floyd and
Woold idge s (ibid) role of implementing deliberate strategy. The final season of d sfu tio a li k to Flo d a d Woold idge s egati e ste eot pes.
98 Table 5: Ha i k a d Fukuto i s fi e seaso s odel
Season One: Response to mandate
Du i g the fi st seaso , the goi g-i a date , the o ga isatio s i pli it spe ifi age da as to why the executive was appointed e.g. o ti uit , adi al ha ge a d the i u e t s i itial promises based on their track record are reviewed. This stage is ha a te ized the CEO s
elati el high o it e t to his o he pa adig …, elati el lo task k o ledge, use of di e se info atio sou es, high task i te est, a d lo po e Ha i k a d Fukuto i, : .
Season Two: Experimentation
This includes a phase of reshaping and considering divergent options.
Season Three: Enduring theme
The third stage is when there is recrystallisation of the paradigm, refinement, and readjustment.
Season Four: Convergence
I the fou th seaso , [t]he CEO s o it e t to his o he pa adig is st o g a d getti g
stronger; task knowledge has increased greatly since the CEO arrived, but it has reached a plateau; the person is exposed to an ever narrower and more filtered information flow; task interest has sta ted to a e, ut the CEO s po e is elati el g eat a d is still i easi g i id: .
Season Five: Dysfunction
Season fi e a e uite p olo ged. At this ti e, [j]o aste gi es a to o edo ; e hila atio to fatigue; st ategizi g to ha ituatio …i a dl the spa k is di ; ope ess a d espo si e ess to stimuli are diminished..[the executive] will become more involved in ceremonies that are
o fo ta le a d less i ol ed i a ts of su sta e…[thei ] outside i te ests a i ease as [the ] sea h fo e sti uli…[ e ause the a e] dise gaged ps hologi all .
Middle managers with experiences of working in high velocity environments (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997) adopt distinct behaviours because of intense competition. Attitudes are also influenced by career progression, for example the state of iddles e e he a age s a e [ ]u ed-out, bottlenecked, and
o ed Mo iso et al, : as i di ated i Ha i k a d Fukuto i s
dysfunctional season. The ability of middle managers to perform strategic roles is also affected by practical issues like executive travel (DeFrank et al, 2000) and more broadly by management fashions (Birnbaum, 2000), economic turbulence impacting on leaders (Lorange, 2010), industry dynamism (Henderson et al, 2006) over time, and locally by levels of centralisation which may swing like a pendulum du i g a i stitutio s histo .
99
7. Summary and conclusion
This chapter has reviewed two literature streams, firstly on strategy-as-practice (SAP) and middle managers, and secondly research on time in organisations as a contingent factor in extending Floyd and Wooldridge s , , oles to contextualise practices. Studies of middle managers have neglected the multiple temporal dimensions of upper middle manage s st ategi eha iou s i the pu li sector. There is also a research gap in understanding social constructions of mid- level strategists over time at multiple levels (the individual, business unit, institution, industry, and society) who engage with a gamut of different
professionals in complex settings. This thesis seeks to enhance our understanding of upper middle managers in a professionalised business unit. It connects
i di iduals i o- strategizing i Flo d a d Woold idge s , , ole typology with local and macro contingencies to inform categories of strategist archetypes.
100
CHAPTER FOUR: THE RESEARCH SETTING
1. Introduction
This chapter provides insights into the research context to understand the backdrop against which the middle managers in this study are operating as strategic actors. To support a contingency approach, historical industry and institutional dynamics are considered here. With the exception of Gallos (2002), there is little research on business school leaders as middle managers to illustrate the experiences of these hybrids in professionalised contexts. Thomas et al
: a gue that: Busi ess s hool dea s a e o f o ted ith leadi g ot only complex organisational forms but also reconciling diverse stakeholder interests in an era of h pe o petitio and et the e is o l li ited o e age of the p a ti e a d ole of dea s. Wilkins and Huisman (2012: 381) admit in their research on rankings that they overlooked the individual level of the dean in not
olle ti g data to i estigate i -depth particular strategies of individual business schools. Neither have we been able to detect the impact of great leaders of
usi ess s hools. The pluralistic culture of an academic department in a
professional school lends itself to an investigation of hybridity and the challenges of leading from a middle position.
Chapter four comprises a literature review of: (i) debates on business schools; (ii) an analysis of articles on business and management education in nine leading publications; (iii) a review of global developments in the business school industry; (iv) the policy context for British management education 1945–2013; (v) a specific overview of the development of Warwick Business School as the main institutional study in the second phase of the empirical data collection; and finally
101 (vi) literature on the business school deanship. These insights help to understand dea s eha iou s, strategic choices, and macro-drivers influencing their micro- practices.