CEO Succession Within Public Enterprises in Uganda: A Phenomenology of Middle Managers’ Experiences

Abstract

This paper explores the experiences of middle managers during a leadership succession within public enterprises in Uganda. Using a descriptive phenomenological approach involving in-depth interviews of middle managers across 5 public enterprises, the study found that middle managers sensed impending change, grappled with the rationale for change, exhibited a variety of emotions and experienced altered relationships with supervisors and subordinates. Basically, the findings indicated that middle managers are impacted by CEO succession in an African context and this situation has implications for organizational performance. Whereas middle managers who went through a smooth CEO succession were motivated, engaged and committed to the organization, it was the opposite in difficult CEO transitions where the supervisory role of the middle managers also declined. It is therefore important that the government, board and senior management in public enterprises involve middle managers in key processes of CEO succession.