Examining Role Involvement of Top and Middle Management in Organizational Change

Abstract

With the blurring distinction between strategic and tactical roles, it is becoming increasingly evident that joint influence of top and middle management on change is important. In this study we look at role involvement, i.e. change initiation and change management, of the aforementioned actors. We contend that that these distinctive, yet interdependent, behaviors associated with different roles played by these actors serve as an important mechanism that connects organizational change processes to employee support for change. We develop and test hypotheses based on survey data from 1,795 respondents in 468 organizations undergoing change. Our results suggest that change initiated by middle managers and managed by top management engenders the strongest degree of employee support for change –although this was the least common form of role involvement observed. These findings suggest a positive impact of change initiatives that are expected to be sensitive to operational realities of employees, paired with the legitimacy of top management.