How Much Do Middle Managers Matter, Really? An Empirical Study on Their Impact on Sustained Superior Performance

Prior research on middle managers has emphasized their vital role in the strategic and entrepreneurial process of established organizations. Yet we still know relatively little about how their actual behavior translates into superior performance. In this paper I examine how entrepreneurial behavior of middle managers - defined as innovative use of resources to explore and exploit opportunities - affects sustainable superior results at the subunit level. My analysis of 120 middle managers of a large European financial services firm suggests that entrepreneurial behavior triggers profit growth at the subunit level. Furthermore I find that individual characteristics - gender and education - are significantly related to superior performance