Middle Management in an Era of Corporate Restructuring: A Case Study of Retailing

Abstract

This article reports on the impact of corporate restructuring on middle management at Australia's largest specialty retailer. The first section reviews existing literature on middle managers in the context of organisational change. This is followed by an overview of the particular characteristics of the retail industry and the implications of these for the place of middle managers. The report on the case study starts by outlining the main features of the change that took place at the company in question in the period from 1992 to 1995. This is followed by a review of middle management attitudes at one of the company's largest divisions. Questions focus in particular on the key issue of how managers rationalise their situation after their numbers and career paths have been undermined. The case study illustrates the critical impact of the managers' immediate peer environment as a factor affecting the ways in which this rationalisation occurs and the results that follow.