Middle managers’ roles and activities in international partnerships: examining the FinTech industry in Africa

The important role of international partnerships (IPs) in the internationalization process is well recognized, but it is also known that IPs face high rates of failure. Adopting and integrating understandings from partnership formation and strategy process research into our internationalization process framework, the roles and activities of different types of managers are investigated in the preformation, formation, implementation, and evaluation phases of IPs, focusing on the formal and informal activities of middle managers. Our qualitative process study of four high-technology (finTech) international partnerships between midsized firms in Africa focuses on the activities and perceptions of the middle managers and reveals that middle managers not only initiate and manage the development of these opportunities and partnerships but also manipulate their firms’ strategies toward them. These managers’ informal activities within their own firms and the partnerships act to help knowledge exchange and commitment between the partners, but the search for their own advantage can also undermine trust and result in disadvantage to the partner firms and their partnership.