Role Of Middle Managers Research Articles

Expert insights on successful multinational ecodesign projects: A guide for middle managers

Both the conception and the implementation of ecodesign require a strong focus on change management due to the risk of failure. This study examines the pivotal role of middle managers (MM), which have been overlooked in terms of ecodesign, despite their importance to organizations. This research builds on the multiple case study method, addressing this gap in the literature by analyzing successful projects orchestrated by MMs. The findings indicate that MMs develop various actions according to the relevant phase of the project. In the initial phase, MMs tend to expand their knowledge of the benefits of ecodesign, as well as assessing their top managers’ (TMs’) expectations regarding ecodesign. In the planning phase, MMs encourage engagement in the planning process, while also liaising with ecodesign professionals, identifying actions and accumulating new information. During the implementing phase, MMs seek support and engagement from TMs, improving ecodesign knowledge across the organization. The limitations of this study stem from the methods and geographical focus: multiple case studies cannot be generalized, nor does the focus on Brazilian branches allow direct generalizability to other regions, although the insights can be useful for other emerging economies. However, these limitations present possible avenues for future research.

Lean Six Sigma in higher education institutes: an Irish case study

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to a developing literature on continuous improvement (CI), enabled by Lean Six Sigma (LSS), in higher education institutions (HEIs). It reports on the key learning points arising from the initial steps taken by an Irish university on its CI journey. Design/methodology/approach A case study strategy was adopted following a participatory research approach. This approach supports reflexivity and also provides access to all relevant documentation and staff within the case university. Thematic analysis was supported by data reduction and display techniques. Findings The introduction of a LSS approach rather than a reliance on lean alone introduced a structured methodology (DMAIC) that supported simplification of a number of administrative processes. A number of specific improvements were achieved including: Cycle time and cost reduction; customer or employee satisfaction; and rework and error reduction. The findings support the importance of the Readiness Factors as identified by Antony (2014), with particular insight into the role of senior and middle management, the impact of training and deployment of expertise. Research limitations/implications This paper is based on an ongoing, longitudinal, empirical study of a single case study in Ireland. Originality/value This paper tracks the development of CI in a HEI in a longitudinal manner and adds to the emerging the literature in this area. The paper evaluates the role of management at various levels, analyses the use of LSS tools and techniques and evaluated the role of training and capacity building. Implications for Management are shared including: design and role of training programmes, role of champions at various organisational levels, including key functional areas and sustaining momentum.

Manager, clinician or both? Nurse managers' engagement in clinical care activities.

To explore the extent of Australian nurse managers' engagement in clinical care activities. Hybrid nurse manager roles lack clarity in the optimal balance between the clinical and other activities, resulting in stress and challenges in recruiting and retaining nurse managers. In a national survey using the Advanced Practice Role Delineation tool, Australian nurses self-assessed their level of engagement in activities across five domains of nursing practice. The subset sample analysed comprised 2,758 registered nurses, 390 clinical (front-line) nurse managers and 43 organisational (middle) nurse managers. Median domain scores were compared with non-parametric tests of difference. Clinical nurse managers were in a hybrid role, reporting high levels of engagement across the domains. Lower scores observed for organisational nurse managers highlight the shift to strategy-focussed activities that occurs as nurses up the management hierarchy. By indicating their engagement in the clinical care domain, respondents demonstrated that clinically focused activities were not entirely lost from either front-line or middle-management roles. Nurse managers equipped with clinical and management skills, and allowed time to remain engage in clinical care activities are critical for patient-centred and cost-effective care in today's complex health care environments.

Operationalizing Learning from Rare Events: Framework for Middle Humanitarian Operations Managers

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the learning from rare events and the knowledge management process involved, which presents a significant challenge to many organizations. This is primarily attributed to the inability to interpret these events in a systematic and “rich” manner, which this paper seeks to address. We start by summarizing the relevant literature on humanitarian operations management (HOM), outlining the evolution of the socio‐technical disaster lifecycle and its relationship with humanitarian operations, using a supply chain resilience theoretical lens. We then outline theories of organizational learning (and unlearning) from disasters and the impact on humanitarian operations. Subsequently, we theorize the role of middle managers in humanitarian operations, which is the main focus of our paper. The main methodology incorporates a hybrid of two techniques for root cause analysis, applied to two related case studies. The cases were specifically selected as, despite occurring twenty years apart, there are many similarities in the chain of causation and supporting factors, potentially suggesting that adequate learning from experience and failures is not occurring. This provides a novel learning experience within the HOM paradigm. Hence, the proposed approach is based on a multilevel structure that facilitates the operationalization of learning from rare events in humanitarian operations. The results show that we are able to provide an environment for multiple interpretations and effective learning, with emphasis on middle managers within a humanitarian operations and crisis/disaster management context.

When the ‘well-oiled machine’ meets the ‘pyramid of people:’ Role perceptions and hybrid working practices of middle managers in a binational organization – ARTE

This article examines the middle management representations of organization and managerial roles within a specific bicultural organizational context. The argument explores the extant cross-cultural management literature and identifies two predominant positions: a functionalist-stable stance and a dynamically interpretive perspective of culture. Historically, both positions have contributed to understanding management roles and behaviours in different cross-cultural contexts; however, each also possesses limitations. In response, the argument elaborates a multi-paradigmatic model and framework that synergise elements of the respective approaches. An interpretive methodology using a distinctive qualitative case study of the Franco-German collaborative media venture ARTE is developed. The researchers conducted 31 interviews with French and German ARTE middle managers in order to determine their perceptions of middle-manager roles in this context. The article identified differences in managerial role perceptions and behaviours as well as hybrid working practices as a result of intercultural adaptation and learning in addition to implications, limitations and future directions in the study.

District micropolitics during principal professional learning

Principal professional learning is shifting in many districts in the United States of America away from didactic, central office-managed workshops to include more peer-led learning opportunities. Yet researchers have largely failed to examine issues of positionality and authority in principal professional learning, despite international scholarship that demonstrates the influence of micropolitics on the enactment of change. Using event analysis of a critical case study in an urban district in the northeast USA, we examine three chains of events. Principals and central office administrators used a variety of tactics – cooperation, compromise, and co-optation – to navigate overt and covert conflict during implementation of peer-led principal professional learning. Principals and central office administrators encountered micropolitics as they determined authority over the learning agenda, negotiated a redefinition of a new principal role, and co-constructed official spaces for peer-led learning. Findings provide lessons for educational leaders and those responsible for professional learning in districts with middle manager roles in any context, as well as suggesting that future research on the micropolitics of principal professional learning is warranted.

Reorienting the Role of Middle Managers for Creating Value within the Organization: an Economical, Social and Ethical Proposal

Many studies have focused on customer value and how it is created based on the performance of front-line employees in addition to the unquestionable role of top management. It is also necessary to analyze the creation of value within the organization from the role of middle managers. These managers are crucial to orient employees for promoting value for customers that in turn creates value for stakeholders. Using an anthropological model we analyzed the creation of value in three organizational dimensions: economical, social and ethical, and how the role of middle managers contributes to this purpose. We applied a survey to 263 middle managers to identify their views about their role and their needs for assuming it. We designed and executed a program for developing the competencies and personal qualities required for fulfilling their role focused on the creation of value. This study included semi-structured interviews to explore the experience and beliefs of these managers about the main tasks they face according to the three dimensions of the model. Through the results obtained we designed a scheme to arrange the role of these managers. Finally, we validated a model to prepare them as leaders for creating value.

Process to practice: The evolving role of the academic middle manager in English further education colleges

The English further education sector has undergone significant change since the Further and Higher Education Act (1992) encouraged a culture of entrepreneurship, competition and the use of what was seen as best practice from the commercial sector. This led to a cultural shift and the introduction of many new initiatives – a situation that still exists now. The implementation of these initiatives was often delegated to middle managers – a group of people who occupied the gap between the senior leaders and the lecturers in the classroom. Current austerity measures, restructuring and the shift towards the creation of larger organizations have resulted in reorganizations that could present opportunities for middle managers to participate in the strategic processes and leadership of the organization, further developing their role ( Greatbatch and Tate, 2018 ). The purpose of this article is to investigate the leadership and management aspects of the middle-manager’s role within the context of further education in England. Although many managers in the sector are reluctant to identify as leaders ( Briggs, 2006 ), our research shows that their role has evolved so that they are undertaking a range of activities that could be classified as leadership. We suggest that using ‘practice’ rather than ‘process’ as a descriptor of the role would reframe, identify and bring forward the leadership aspects of what they do. Encouraging a focus on a holistic, practice-based approach, rather than a succession of process-driven tasks, could help managers to perform their role more effectively. Findings taken from interviews with 32 participants and a questionnaire with 302 responses are used to illustrate our argument.

The role of middle managers in the implementation of national public policy

Recent policy implementation studies have considered the processes by which the top down objectives of policy designers conflict with the bottom up responses of local actors within functional teams. Our paper extends that body of research by analysing the, hitherto underexplored, role of hybrid middle managers (HMMs) who combine their professional expertise with management responsibilities to locally forge compromises when implementing national policy interventions. Drawing from a recent study of the implementation of the Welsh national patient safety programme, this paper presents a detailed analysis of the activities deployed by HMMs to broker policy interventions within their local teams. We provide an analytical model to direct attention towards the varied activities performed by HMMs from different occupations. Our empirical findings reveal how policy implementation processes can be better understood, and planned, if HMMs are differentiated by their occupational background.

Navigating in a Hierarchy: How Middle Managers Adapt Macro Design

With the emergence of new organizational forms promoting de-layering, downscoping, and self-management, middle managers have been under attack in recent years. Organizational design has traditionally been concerned with how top management designs organizations, and little is known about the role of middle managers in organizational design. Based on a case study of a reorganization in a leading food production company, this paper contributes to existing research on organizational design by advancing the knowledge of the role of middle managers in organizational design. It contributes to an understanding of organizational design as an iterative process that require active involvement of middle managers in designing micro dimensions of a macro design. In doing so, I provide an extension of prior work, which mainly focuses on vertical interactions and middle managers’ efforts to implement the intent of top management. I introduce a new middle manager role, designing, that relies on lateral rather than vertical coordination and interaction. I show how this role creates micro-level organizational elements needed to realize the intent behind top management’s strategy and make the macro structural arrangements work. These findings elevate the importance of middle managers in new forms of organizing.

Sandwiched: Exploring role and identity of middle managers in the genuine middle

This article explores middle managers in the professions from their position in the sandwiched middle. Based upon interviews with senior academics in management roles and their subordinates in UK business schools, we investigate this experienced middle through a metaphor that informs one particular subject position: to be an umbrella carrier. This position entails protecting subordinates from what is seen as unnecessary and/or damaging initiatives and information from top management above, in order to allow for good professional work to take place below. This form of countermanagement, which aims to weaken hierarchical pressure rather than enforce or uphold it, is informed by a stronger identification with the profession and subordinates below than with the leader role or the superiors above, and aids the middle managers in their identity work.

Strategy as Practice and the Role of Middle Manager in Organizations: The future of the field

Research on strategy as practice (SAP) or strategizing focuses on understanding the development of strategy as a situated and socially acquired activity, based on the interaction between various actors and micro activities carried out by people within the organization (Jarzabkowski, 2005; Whittington, 2006). In this scenario, middle manager (MM) plays the role of an articulator in the strategy formation process and sensemaking activities (Balogun; Johnson, 2004; Rouleau, 2005). Since both research topics are gaining notoriety in the scientific community, we conducted a systematic analysis of the literature on SAP and the role of the MM inside organizations, covering the scientific production related to the subject between 2005 and 2015. This resulted in the selection of 77 relevant articles from the Web of ScienceTM Core Collection database. This set of articles may serve as a milestone to future theoretical background studies, to assist scholars leading new researches related to SAP and the role of MM since this study indicates an avenue concerning the relations and behaviors of the practitioners in the action of making strategy in different levels of involvement in that process.

How middle managers facilitate interdisciplinary primary care team functioning

BackgroundThe Veterans Health Administration (VA) primary care is organized as a Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) that is based on continuity management of patient panels by interdisciplinary “teamlets” consisting of primary care providers, nurses, and clerical associates. While the teamlets are envisioned as interdisciplinary in this model, teamlet members may continue to report separately to middle management supervisors within their respective disciplines. Little is known about the role of middle managers in medical home implementation; therefore, the study purpose is to examine and characterize teamlet members’ perceptions of middle managers’ role in primary care operations and teamlet functioning in an outpatient setting. MethodsThis study applied a formal qualitative data collection method and analysis based on semi-structured interviews of 79 frontline interdisciplinary staff (primary care providers, nurses, and clerical associates) in VA Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACT) teamlets. Interviews were analyzed using a method of constant comparison. ResultsTeamlet members recognize that their supervising middle managers are essential to daily functioning of PACT teamlets in terms of clarifying roles and responsibilities, setting expectations, providing coverage strategies, supporting conflict resolution, and facilitating teamlet-initiated innovation. Teamlet members identified challenges when middle manager involvement was lacking. ConclusionWithin a multilevel system, frontline interdisciplinary staff continue to perceive the need for leadership by middle managers from their own professional disciplines for solving interdisciplinary problems, setting role-specific schedules and expectations, and fostering innovation. As such, greater focus on the structure and training of middle managers for participation in PCMH models is needed.

Methods of motivation and incentiveness of average price managers in credit and financial organizations of Russia

Nowadays the situation in the sphere of social and economic development of Russia determines the special importance of organization activity of credit and financial orientation. The insufficient efficiency of activities of the credit and financial organizations of modern Russia is a consequence the low production of personnel’s work, one of the reasons of which is the existing system of motivation and stimulation. Middle managers in financial institutions are an important part of management personnel. They are the link in the organization: it is impossible to obtain results from managers of other levels and the organization as a whole without their effective work. Today the role of middle managers in achievement of efficiency of organizational activities is underestimated. The system of their motivation and stimulation needs enhancement. The article presents the data of a sociological survey, which analyzed the state of the system of motivation and incentives for managers of middle management in 10 modern Russian credit and financial organizations, and the application of specific methods, forms and tools of motivation are explored. The methods and their forms of motivating and stimulating the work of mid-level managers in the credit and financial organizations of modern Russia do not constitute a system. It is a conglomeration of different approaches, schemes, methods, means that do nоt constitute a single whole. At the present time the system of motivation and stimulation of middle managers can not be considered balanced and sufficient. It lags far behind the best foreign analogs and needs substantial optimization. Moreover, the task of catching-up modernization, and the task of primacy in the world market of banking services, is not facing Russian financial institutions The authors formulate directions for improving the motivation and incentives for middle managers in Russian credit and financial organizations, and give recommendations on the use of motivational methods and tools.

Rhetoric and Reality in Middle Management: The Role of Heads of Academic Departments in UK Universities

There is a dissonance between the formal role of head of academic department represented in institutional discourses and the reality of heads’ working practices. This paper provides insight, from the perspective of heads, about how the role is experienced and enacted in one institution. Data are derived from 20 semi-structured interviews with heads of department in a teaching-focussed university in the UK. The findings show that there is autonomy in how individual heads structure, manage and lead their departments, and so the role is performed in significantly different ways. Nevertheless, for all heads, the development of a clearer institutional mission, vision and strategy had meant that the scope for strategic initiatives at departmental level was more circumscribed, and there was a significant issue for many heads about how to make the time and space available for this aspect of the role, given the competing operational demands. Derived from these findings, the paper informs practice by making recommendations about how heads of department may operate more effectively. We suggest that a mesopolitical lens, exploring how social practices are shaped by specific disciplinary and departmental contexts and cultures, may provide a productive perspective on the role of middle leaders and managers.

Role of middle managers in strategic renewal

The present study discusses the development of strategic renewal through the role of middle managers who pay proper attention to changes in their respective business environments. The following three approaches are used in this study: strategic renewal, the attention-based view and the strategic role of middle managers and uses the state-owned enterprise infrastructure in Indonesia to illustrate that middle managers can influence the course of a firm's strategy. Middle managers at a particular position are more likely to change their firm-level strategies. Middle managers exert their influence by directing the attention of the top management to strategic opportunities. Such an effort is possible if middle managers pay attention to the changes in the firm's environment, which requires support from several organisational factors as well. However, such a middle manager role is more effective when it is played by managers who are knowledgeable and experienced.

Role of middle managers in strategic renewal

Role of middle managers in strategic renewal

Manager Interaction and the Formation of Strategic Consensus: The Moderation Effect of Manager Role

In the dynamic environment the role of middle managers is becoming increasingly important in strategic management. From the perspective of middle managers, Using the method of theoretical deduction, this thesis analyses the influence of interaction between top management team and middle managers on the formation of strategic consensus and the moderation effect of manager role on integrating the theories of top management team and middle managers. This study concludes that the more sufficient information exchange between top management team and middle managers, and the greater the cross-influence between top management team and middle managers, the higher the strategic consensus. And the participatory leadership of top management team and the active participation of middle managers play a positive moderating role in the relationship between managers' interaction and strategic consensus.

Not All Managers Are Managerial: A Self-Evaluation of Women Middle-Managers’ Experiences in a UK University

The focus of this small-scale self-evaluation is the implementation of a new middle-management role in a post-92 UK university. A realist appreciative inquiry was undertaken with five women who had been promoted to a middle-management role 18 months prior to the inquiry. This evaluation for knowledge offered an opportunity to reflect on experiences in practice and sought to understand the experiences of the women in this role and how they cope with the challenges middle-management brings. Particular challenges (instability-generating) accorded with existing literature and included: lack of role clarity, lack of pre-preparation for management role, colleagues’ views of management, including perceptions of women in management roles and malicious intent of managed academics in rare cases. Supportive factors (provisional-stability-generating) included: personal resilience, informal peer support, external support and reflection. The co-evaluators offered reflections for the future from this co-evaluation. These suggest that training may contribute to provisional-stability in role and should be considered for new entrants to middle-management. The alternative construct of humanistic management is proposed as a way of understanding these women’s values-based decision-making practices in complex situations.

“I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous”: Middle Management Roles in Organizational Ambidexterit

Efficiently exploiting existing business while simultaneously exploring new opportunities can generate tensions for actors who find themselves at the crossroads. It is the case of exploration entities’ managers, who have to pursue a long term exploration mission, while being often evaluated through short term exploitation-oriented corporate governance rules. Based on four longitudinal studies of exploration entities, we shed light on the middle management practices and roles undertook by the entities’ managers in order to overcome this tension: promotion, conformism, transformation, decoupling. Our results illustrate how these roles are linked to the dynamic of the exploration entities over time, and how they facilitate or refrain the organizational ambidexterity.