Acquired middle managers’ strategy roles and value creation in cross-border acquisitions

Middle managers (MMs) are important organisational players. In intra-organisational settings, their enactment of strategy roles has been linked to value creation. In this paper, we study this question in the context of acquisitions. An acquisition removes the acquired MMs' upward links towards top management and introduces new players (i.e., acquiring MMs) who influence their work. This paper explores whether acquired MMs are able to enact their strategy roles in the post-acquisition era, and if so, how this contributes to acquired-unit value creation. Adopting an actor-based, mixed-methods research design studying cross-border acquisitions, our findings contribute to the debate on managerial roles and acquisition value creation. We found that value-creating transactions are represented by acquired MMs' enactment of the strategy roles of implementing and championing, while value-declining transactions are represented by acquired MMs' enactment of the synthesising role. Notwithstanding, the relationship between acquired-firm value creation and acquired MMs' strategy role enactment is contingent upon acquired and acquiring MMs' relationships. Going forward, we call for more research on managers’ effects on acquisition value creation.