Abstract
Ambiguity is a defining feature of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), organizations where political oversight, shifting policy priorities, and layered accountability routinely produce directives that are broad, symbolic, and difficult to operationalize. While prior ambiguity research has shown how senior leaders use it to enable flexibility, far less is known about how middle managers interpret and respond to ambiguous directives in practice. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork across three subsidiaries of a central Chinese SOE, this study examines how middle managers navigate ambiguous demands under conditions of institutional constraint and political risk. We analyze and identify a recurring four-part repertoire – comprising speculative interpretation, processual buffering, distributed responsibility, and ritualised compliance – through which middle managers delay commitment, disperse accountability, and maintain visible alignment without advancing substantive implementation. Rather than signalling resistance or incapacity, we argue that these patterns constitute a coherent inaction loop that stabilizes ambiguity, protects managers from blame, and preserves organizational legitimacy amid shifting expectations. Our study contributes to literatures on organizational ambiguity, middle managers and sensemaking through this novel conceptualization of inaction. Our findings also have implications for accountability structures, managerial feedback mechanisms, and governance reforms in Chinese SOEs and other organizations characterized by persistent ambiguity arising from complex, hybrid, political environments.