Middle managers’ regulation of the emotions of others in strategy implementation: a process perspective

Journal article

This article develops a process model of how middle managers regulate the negative emotions of their team members to support strategy implementation. Based on a nine-month ethnographic study in a public broadcasting company, we examine how managers navigate emotionally charged resistance to top-down strategic themes during meetings. While prior research emphasizes individual techniques, we show that emotion regulation of others (ERO) unfolds as a sequenced process involving three interconnected phases: understanding emotional status, interpersonal tuning, and encouraging reappraisal. Our findings highlight that emotional influence is not achieved through isolated tactics, but through temporally coordinated and relationally attuned practices. In doing so, the study reconciles the tension between validating negative emotions and enabling emotional change. It advances research on middle managers by theorizing how they navigate emotional resistance in real time and contributes to ERO theory by demonstrating the importance of temporal coordination between validation and reappraisal.

Authors: Franck, H; Gylfe, P; Vuori, T; Vaara, E

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Journal of Management Studies
• Publication date: 2025-11-04
• Acceptance date: 2025-10-13
• DOI: 10.1111/joms.70027
• EISSN: 1467-6486
• ISSN: 0022-2380
• Language: English
• Keywords: emotion regulation of others (ERO); ethnography; middle managers; strategy implementation; workplace emotions