Cette thèse étudie les relations entre contrôle et stratégie. Elle vise à enrichir le cadre théorique des quatre leviers du contrôle de Simons (1995) en s’intéressant aux interactions entre les acteurs de l’organisation, autour des dispositifs de contrôle, pour élaborer et mettre en œuvre la stratégie. Mobilisant le cadre théorique de la sociologie de l’acteur-réseau (ANT), ce travail, basé sur une étude de cas, met en évidence un double processus de traduction de la stratégie. D’une part, les dirigeants conçoivent les systèmes de contrôle pour intéresser les cadres intermédiaires à la stratégie globale, d’autre part les cadres intermédiaires utilisent ces mêmes systèmes pour intéresser la direction à leurs propres propositions de stratégie locale. Dans ce double processus de traduction, le levier interactif de contrôle, basé sur des interactions en face-à-face, joue un rôle central. La recherche permet d’identifier deux usages différents du levier interactif : un usage ouvert, permettant l’émergence de stratégie et un usage plus fermé permettant la mise en œuvre de stratégies délibérées. Cette mise en évidence de deux usages différents du levier interactif permet d’expliquer les contradictions apparentes des recherches mobilisant le cadre théorique de Simons et ouvre la voie à de futures recherches sur les liens entre contrôle et innovation / This thesis analyses the relationship between strategy and management control systems. Its aim is to refine Simons’ four levers of control framework in studying the interactions between top and middle managers around management control tools in order to form and implement the strategy of the organization. Using the actor-network theory (ANT) in a case study, this thesis reveals a double process of translation. On the one hand, top managers design management control systems in order to interest their subordinates to the global intended strategy. On the other hand, middle managers use the same control systems to translate their own local strategic intentions. This double translation process is made possible by two different uses of the interactive lever of control, based on face to face discussions. The first one is non invasive, inspirational and allows strategy emergence, the second one is invasive and allows top managers to implement the intended strategy in involving themselves in the decisions of their subordinates. The evidence of two different uses open ways of research on the relationship between management control systems and strategy or management control and innovation

<p>Syftet med denna undersökning har varit att kartlägga vad som driver människor att söka sig till eller anta mellanchefspositioner. En kvalitativ intervjustudie har genomförts utifrån en induktiv ansats då intresseområdet tidigare har varit obeforskat och ambitionen har varit att undersöka det unika inom detta. Tio intervjuer har utförts i vilka samtliga respondenter, vid undersökningstillfället, har befunnit sig på mellanchefspositioner inom antingen privat- eller offentlig sektor. Data har transkriberats och senare analyserats utifrån en induktiv tematisk analys vilken har resulterat i fyra övergripande teman för vad som driver människor att söka sig till eller anta mellanchefspositioner. Dessa teman benämns som: Utvecklingen – en strävan efter utveckling på det personliga planet, Makten – att ha makt och därigenom kunna påverka såväl organisationen som sin egen arbetssituation, Att klättra i karriären – mellanchefspositionen som en fas i karriären på väg uppåt i karriärvärlden, Bekräftelsen – en önskan om att bli omtyckt, att få bekräftelse från folk i sin omgivning för att man har lyckats åstadkomma något. Resultatet har jämförts mot befintliga psykologiska teorier och slutsats har dragits i form av att ovanstående teman beskriver vad som driver människor att söka sig till eller anta mellanchefspositioner. Avslutningsvis har förslag till vidare forskning presenterats för att exemplifiera hur man vidare kan kartlägga det som här har undersökts.</p> / <p>The purpose of this research has been to map out what drives people to strive towards or accept middle management positions. A qualitative interview study has been conducted with an inductive approach since the area of interest until now had not been researched and that the ambition has been to examine the unique within this. Ten interviews were carried out in which all of the respondents, at the time of the study, were working as middle position managers within either the private or public sector. The data has been transcribed and then analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis which resulted in four overall themes answering what drives people to strive towards or accept middle management positions. These themes are denominated as following: The Development – a strive towards a development on a personal level, The Power – to have power and through it the possibility to influence as well the organization as the own work situation, Career advancement – the mid-level management position is seen as but a step in the career advancement, The Confirmation – a wish to be liked, to be confirmed by those in your surroundings for having accomplished something. The results have been compared with existing psychological theories and a conclusion has been made that the above themes describe what drives people to strive towards or accept middle management positions. To conclude, suggestions about future research have been presented to exemplify how to further map out what has been researched here.</p>

Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

The existing literature dealing with corporate growth in relation to lower level management is limited; instead the main focus in the past has been put on the top management perspec-tive. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to investigate and describe middle management in four growth companies. Middle management can be defined in many different ways, and the definition that has been applied in this thesis is; middle managers are working below the CEO and have a managing and/or leading position including responsibility for lower level managers and/or employees. From the theoretical section we have created a model that connects the theories about cor-porate growth and middle management. Corporate growth includes growth strategies and growth influencers, whereas middle management discuss the managerial roles, leadership in connection to growth and modern leadership in connection to organizational structure, as well as communication, motivation, and organizational change. Regarding the method used to fulfil the purpose of our thesis, we decided to conduct a qualitative study with face-to-face semi-structured interviews with ten middle managers at four companies. Our scientific approach is thus interpretive and our research approach is abductive. The selected companies have experienced an increase in the number of employees and turnover per year during five to ten years. Finally, our findings resulted in a thorough description of the perceived growth strategies used at the respective companies resulting from the perceptions of the middle managers. In addition, we confirmed that most challenges in relation to growth that middle managers encountered are related to restructurings, changes in culture, uncertainty among employees, pressure to achieve profitable growth, as well as how to attract competent and highly edu-cated employees. Moreover, in regards to the leadership styles practiced among middle managers, the mod-ern features seemed to dominate at all the investigated companies, and these could in some cases also be connected to a loose, idea based organization. Lastly, we believe that the mid-dle managers in our study have the possibility to influence growth either directly or indi-rectly depending on their positions. Directly through participating in the executive group for example, and indirectly though motivating and engaging the lower level managers to be innovative and reach the set out growth goals of the organization.

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&amp;As) are a popular strategy companies undertake in order to create value and synergies, and also to increase the competitiveness of the firm.  Findings from previous studies show that many M&amp;As fail to create value, however there is also existing evidence that they do, where the execution plays a major role. The success of an M&amp;A depends on both internal and external factors such as the competitive strengths of the firm, strategic fit, and growth of the market. It is argued that problems such as poor management within M&amp;A processes could affect the outcome of the M&amp;A in a negative way. Previous research shows that middle managers play a key role in strategic change processes such as M&amp;As. When companies go through strategic change, the entire company gets involved; however the middle manager is the one who must keep in contact with co-workers, customers, suppliers, and top management at the same time. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate middle managements’ perception of changed competitiveness after an M&amp;A has been completed. In order to fulfill the purpose, we used a qualitative approach where we conducted a case study and made interviews with middle managers at Toyota Material Handling’s German subsidiary that had recently gone through an M&amp;A process. Our findings show that when a company is buying another company it needs to see the positive assets from another perspective than only through possible gains in market shares and synergies. When the two companies merge they must take advantage of each other’s specific resources that have made each company successful. Furthermore what fosters increased competitiveness after a merger is good information and communication about goals and strategies. What in turn hinders increased competitiveness after a merger is low flexibility in terms of not being able to adapt to market changes fast enough, and to have an organization that does not make it possible for employees to bring up their opinions.

As middle management is pillar of enterprise, so to develop middle management¡¦s professional competence is the key factor for enterprise¡¦s growth and competitiveness. To strengthen middle manager¡¦s management skills that can improve business performance and could be the key process for nurture of future successor. In an organization, middle management plays the key role to integrate and adjust organizational competence, therefore the ability to build network relationship among members and cooperate with other people to enhance social capital, develop human capital and cumulate personal physical capital is the most important objectives. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation of social capital, job performance and career success. In this study, social capital is defined as independent variables, job performance and career success are defined as dependent variable. Furthermore, using the organization climate and shared normative frameworks as the interfered variable to investigat the effect of interference to social capital, job performance and career success. This study adopted questionnaire survey and target on middle management in various industry. The data were analyzed by reliability analysis, factor analysis, one-way ANOVA and hierarchical regression analysis to discuss the relationships between social capital, job performance and career success and the moderating effect of interference for organization climate, shared normative frameworks. The findings of the study are as follows. (1) Micro level and meso level of social capital correlates positively with career success. (2) Micro level and meso level of social capital correlates positively with job performance. (3) Organization climate and shared normative frameworks causes partially intervention on relation of micro level and meso level of social capital and career success. (4) Organiztion climate and shared normative frameworks causes intervention on relation of micro level social capital and job performance is partial significant. (5) Organiztion climate and shared normative frameworks causes intervention on relation of meso level social capital and job performance is not significant. According to the results, we offer the following suggestions: (1) For enterprise: To enhance information and resource flow, promote high quality leadership and communication, reinforce recruiting, talent selection strategy and organization climate; (2) For employee: To reinforce social capital to improve job performance, cultivate learning, responsible attitude.

Globalization is in highly competitive era, talents are company's most important assets, the especially fine one hits the managerial cadre of the steps and is managed with one of the key factors of growing up continuously continuously forever by the company even more, this research object restricts the trade (industry ) , restricts the department , the steps executive is research objects that direct against Chinese enterprise of areas of both sides of the Straits (Jiangsu and Taiwan ), collect and research and analyse samples. With the research of the management function, hope to find out the management function which the steps executive should possess in the company objectively, offer enterprises to recruit and select the just , reference foundation of fostering and forming talents, it set up select Human Resource Department , not educating, with, leave managerial talent the systems at, probe into the result tentatively , expect that can propose a nucleus administrator's function way for enterprise's firm name in most key key management functions needed. So study the steps executive's management function in enterprises , operate for improving enterprises with the theoretical foundation of having the essence of national competitiveness and discussion value. This research questionnaire investigation analysis result is found, in Taiwan in the steps administrator studies in the management function index , and ' mood control ability ' superior to continent managerial cadre of the steps among the district in innovate with learning ability , surmount ability oneself.

Most organizations of today are more or less influenced by the globalization. This phenomenon has led to that changes belong to the everyday concern of companies in order to be ahead of the competition. Simultaneously, when it comes to discussions about change failures and successes, it mainly is the top management standing in the spotlight. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to take a glance backstage of organizational changes while focusing on middle management. The purpose of this research is to examine how the middle manager can become a change agent and what contributions this new role can bring to the company. A glimpse on the historical evolution of the middle manager´s role and status helps to identify the underlying causes for the existing stereotype of this management group as well as the reasons for why middle management seems to belong to the ‘forgotten breed’ in organizations. Furthermore, the concept of changes and change management is outlined in order to clarify why changes fail and how those failures can be prevented with the help of a change agent. Based on this theoretical framework, the potential of middle managers acting as change agents is discussed. Additionally, due to the fact that the middle manager’s role as a change agent is not fully recognized yet, an own developed concept is outlined. This model is created as a result of empirical research in terms of interviews with consultants as well as extensive literature studies within this research area. The concept demonstrates how a middle manager can become a change agent and which contributions this new role can bring to the organization. Overall, it can be concluded from the research that it is time for organizations to recognize the potential of middle managers; they are the ones who can make changes happen.

The rapid changes in the world of online technology during the last two decades brought along new challenges and opportunities for public relations practitioners. Literature has proven that the interactive capabilities of web-based technology have the possibility to build and maintain relationships with stakeholders and create two-way symmetrical communication opportunities. One such technology is an intranet, which could have an immense impact on an organisation's internal communication environment. If managed and applied correctly the intranet has the possibility to build two-way symmetrical relationships with an organisation's internal stakeholders - often described as one of the organisation's most strategic stakeholder groups. In this applied research study, the contribution of an international mining organisation's intranet to internal two-way symmetrical communication was explored and described. An extensive literature study was conducted to determine how an intranet could contribute theoretically to two-way symmetrical communication. The empirical findings were obtained by means of two main research methods: a qualitative content analysis and semi-structured interviews with middle management employees. The content analysis described how the basic principles of two-way symmetrical communication were applied on the Lonmin Platinum intranet. The semistructured interviews with middle management explored and described how they perceived and used the intranet with regard to two-way symmetrical communication. It was concluded that the Lonmin intranet did not contribute to two-way symmetrical communication. A critical conclusion is that an intranet as a mediated communication medium could not contribute to two-way symmetrical communication if the internal communication climate does not facilitate the specific values related to the Excellence Theory and two-way symmetrical communication principles. Another conclusion is that Lonmin's intranet was too technologically focussed. There was no management of strategic communication or ownership, and as a result the intranet did not contribute to two-way symmetrical communication in the organisation. It is suggested that future studies describe the contribution of the Lonmin intranet to two-way symmetrical communication after the communication department had commenced with strategic intranet management. The relation between the contribution of the intranet to two-way symmetrical communication in the organisation and the general communication climate could also be explored in future research studies. / Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Since the beginnings of venture creation the traditional role of the entrepreneur changed from only being the owner of a small business to include those individuals within a large company who has entrepreneurial skills and applies these to benefit the company. In an ever faster growing global economy the role of the entrepreneur within the large organization becomes more and more important to ensure the company keeps the competitive edge. Corporate entrepreneurship is characterized by individuals who are innovative, creative, spend time and take risks. To support these entrepreneurial activities, the organization needs a climate and culture that is beneficial to these activities. An entrepreneurial orientation within an organisation is marked by dimensions such as innovativeness, pro-activeness, risk-taking, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy. The entrepreneurial behaviour among middle level managers is most critical to the effective implementation of corporate entrepreneurship. Middle managers are in a position to influence their subordinates' commitment to entrepreneurial activities once they have been initiated. BHPBilliton is a world class company with a world class management strategy and systems to support the strategy. Part of the BHPBilliton Management strategy is "innovation", wanting to give all employees the opportunity to contribute to improvement by sharing their ideas with the company. This study was done at Metalloys, Meyerton, part of the Manganese Customer Sector Group, within BHPBilliton. Metalloys embarked on various programmes to create opportunities for employees to think in an entrepreneurial way. Middle managers at Metalloys play an important role in the innovation programs implemented at Metalloys. Against this background, this study seeks to confirm whether Metalloys, Meyerton has a true entrepreneurial climate and whether the middle management level involved with these initiatives share this perception. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.