and poor performance (Oertqvist & Wincent, 2006). Conceptually, role stress is thought to be derived
from role conflict as well as role ambiguity. Whereas, rROHFRQIOLFWLV³WKHGHJUHHRILncongruity or
incompatibility of expectations associated with a role ́ (Miles & Perreault, 1976, p.2), role ambiguity
reflects an employHH
V XQFHUWDLQW\ DERXW RWKHUV¶ H[SHFWDWLRQ RI WKH HPSOR\HH
V MREdue to lack of
information (Behrman & Perreault, 1984).
Kahn et al (1964) suggested that role conflict and role ambiguity were probably greater at the middle
management level than at either the top-level or lower-level. Sinha and Subramanian (2012) likewise
reported that middle managers felt the greatest stress, they felt that their role offered them a very low
or no level of personal and professional growth. While Chandler (1977) emphasized in the 1970s that
PLGGOH PDQDJHUV¶ MREV FRYHUed exclusively the supervision of the lower hierarchical levels, the
realization of organizational strategies is often fueled by the agency of non-senior managers, which
has given rise to a literature focusing on the impact of middle manager agency on the organizational
strategy process (Balogun & Johnson, 2004; Burgelman, 1983; Floyd & Lane, 2000; Floyd &
Wooldridge, 2000; Wooldridge & Floyd, 1990). Many results have been published that show that
PLGGOHPDQDJHUVFDQEHWKHGULYHUVRIRUJDQL]DWLRQDOVWUDWHJ\&RQVLGHUIRULQVWDQFH%XUJHOPDQ¶V
(1983) FODVVLF DFFRXQW RI ,QWHO¶V EXVLQHVV H[LW ZKHUH PLGGOH PDQDJHUVSOD\HG D NH\ UROH in
transforming from the memory business into the processor business. Hence, middle managers are
therefore expected to play both a supervisory and strategic leadership role. In fact, previous studies
investigating middle managers can be divided into two categories. One of them examined the top-
level manager- middle manager relationship (Dutton et al., 1997; Nonaka, 1988; Pappas et al., 2003;
Schilit, 1987) while the others dealt with the middle-level manager ± lower-level manager relationship
(Crouch & Yetton, 1988; Glasoe & Einarsen, 2006; Xin & Pelled, 2003). Illustratively, Ireland (1992)
provided a definition of middle managers where he described them as employees working between an
organizaWLRQ¶VORZHU-level and top-level managers. According to Ireland a middle-manager contained
WKH LQWHJUDWLRQ RI ³WKH LQWHntions of top-level managers with the day-to-day operational realities
experienced by first-OHYHO PDQDJHUV ́ (Ireland, 1992, p.18). Hence, to fulfill their tasks, a middle
manager must be capable of quickly switching from attending to one relationship to another
(Uyterhoeven, 1972). From the above, one may conclude that especially middle managers¶ MRE
satisfaction is strongly related to the strategic leadership behavior of their respective top-level
manager, for it determines the strategic leadership role to be played out by the middle manager.
H3: Strategic leadership of top-level managers is the most significant predictor for the job
satisfaction of middle managers.