Objectives and key results as a tool for middle managers to enhance the process of strategy implementation

• OKRs as shapers of a formative context promote key mechanisms for strategy implementation. • OKRs support middle managers in der interpretive and communicative roles. • OKRs influence the continuous interplay of critical sensemaking and sensegiving. • OKRs as structural managerial actions assist coordination, commitment, and competency. In today’s fast-changing business environment, middle managers play critical, increasingly multifaceted roles in translating strategy into action. This article examines how objectives and key results (OKRs)—a goal-setting framework stemming from the management-by-objectives approach—can support middle managers to facilitate critical sensemaking and sensegiving, translate strategic goals into actionable steps, and thereby foster intra-organization alignment. Qualitative research with experts from 22 organizations revealed how OKRs promote key mechanisms by reinforcing goal orientation, fostering reflection, encouraging feedback, empowering employees, enhancing and requiring transparency, and facilitating communication. Those mechanisms, in supporting middle managers in their interpretive and communicative roles, influence the continuous interplay of critical sensemaking and sensegiving, in a dynamic that enhances strategy implementation by enhancing coordination, commitment, and competency. Overall, the article contributes to the literature on strategy implementation by positioning OKRs as a key tool for middle managers that shapes a formative context to enhance the strategy implementation process.