Stimulating Non-Management Employees’ Contribution to Strategy Implementation : An Analysis of Non-Management Employees’ Strategically Aligned Behavior in the Strategy Implementation Process

Abstract: The importance of strategy formulation is well known and has consequently received a lot of attention from researchers and managers alike, however, strategy is not of any use if it cannot be implemented successfully. The field of implementation has received more and more attention lately but there is still much left to study and understand. One gap in the area is related to non-managers as executors and how they can contribute to a successful implementation; the purpose in this study is therefore to provide an initial foundation to fill this gap but also to link the factors to a context. To gauge the success of implementation as influenced by the non-management, the smoothness of the implementation was considered, i.e. how frequent the problems were. The first step was therefore to find possible problems affected by the actions of the non-management and then to consider why they occurred. This was done with the help of the theory of strategy aligned behavior. A qualitative study using interviews with managers and employees from two medium-sized manufacturing companies within a regional cluster in southern Sweden was chosen to gain the necessary data in order to reach the purpose of our study. In the analysis of the research, the theory was found to be closely correlated to the empirical findings for the most part. With attention to the type of implementation discussed, the findings could be related to a context of where they occurred and then presented in a 2x2 matrix using measures of competence and company linkages. The findings include, as theory emphasizes; the importance of communication, not only in general but also in specific contexts. Further, an importance of the difference of strategic purpose and strategic effects could amongst other things also be seen.