scholarly journals Barriers to Lean Implementation: Perceptions of Top Managers, Middle Managers and Workers

Procedia CIRP ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 595-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eirin Lodgaard ◽  
Jonas A. Ingvaldsen ◽  
Inger Gamme ◽  
Silje Aschehoug
Keyword(s):  
Middle Managers ◽  
Lean Implementation ◽  
Top Managers

Management as a Limit to Organizational Change

2016 ◽  
pp. 1730-1749
Author(s):  
David R. King
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Inherent Difficulty ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Organizational Challenges ◽  
Organizational Identities ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Successful Change ◽  
Direct Change

Acquisitions inherently involve change, but the success of desired change varies. This reflects the inherent difficulty of organizational change and attempts to maintain a fit with an organization's environment. A possible limitation to successful change is that the managers responsible for it face conflicting demands. This chapter develops multiple ways that acquisition circumstances and involved managers can limit organizational change. For example, middle managers can have information about organizational challenges but not the authority to direct change, while top managers have the authority but face implementation constraints. Acquisitions may also offer a solution to these challenges through the reconfiguration of a firm's management to increase management perspectives and to update organizational identities. Implications for management research and practice are discussed.

scholarly journals The politics of sensemaking and sensegiving at work

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathrine Filstad
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Style ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Middle Management ◽  
Top Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Depth Interviews

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate how political activities and processes influence sensemaking and sensegiving among top management, middle management and employees and to examine its consequences for implementing new knowledge. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected in a Norwegian bank using in-depth interviews with middle managers and financial advisers. Observations of meetings, informal conversations and verbatim notes were also used in data collection among top managers. A practice-based approach was used as an analytical lens. Findings – Top managers' political activities of excluding others from the decision process affect their sensemaking and resulted in sensegiving contradictions between spoken intent and how to change practice. Middle managers' political activities were to accept top managers' sensegiving instead of managing themselves in their own sensemaking to help financial advisers with how to change their role and practice. As a result, middle managers' sensemaking affects their engagement in sensegiving. For financial advisers, the political processes of top and middle managers resulted in resistance and not making sense of how to change and implement new knowledge. Research limitations/implications – A total of 30 in-depth interviews, observations of five meetings and informal conversations might call for further studies. In addition, a Norwegian study does not account for other countries' cultural differences concerning leadership style, openness in decisions and employee autonomy. Originality/value – To the author's knowledge, no studies identify the three-way conceptual relationship between political activities, sensemaking and sensegiving. In addition, the author believes that the originality lies in investigating these relationships using a three-level hierarchy of top management, middle management and employees.

How and when environmental regulation induces middle managers’ proactive behavior

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 438-452
Author(s):  
Haixu Bao ◽  
Haizhen (Jane) Wang ◽  
Chenglin Sun
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Listed Company ◽  
Proactive Behavior ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
Regulation Strength

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how middle managers respond to the career challenges caused by environmental regulation. In particular, this paper examines whether environmental regulation strength is positively related to middle managers’ openness toward change, and whether middle managers’ openness toward change is positively related to proactive behavior. Furthermore, the moderating role of top managers’ bottom-line mentality in these two relationships is examined. Design/methodology/approach Cross-sectional survey research (n=155) was conducted. During a training program, data were collected from 155 middle managers from a listed company that manufactures primary products. With these data the authors examined the main relationship and also explored the moderating effect of top managers’ bottom-line mentality. Findings Analysis of the findings indicates that perceived environmental regulation strength influences middle managers’ openness toward change and consequently their proactive behavior. In addition, top managers’ bottom-line mentality moderates both the link between environmental regulation strength and openness toward change and the link between openness toward change and proactive behavior. Originality/value The findings of this study reveal how environmental regulation induces middle managers’ proactive behavior, and the influence of top managers’ mentality on how middle managers respond to environmental regulation both cognitively and behaviorally.

Reversing competition: the case of corporate governance

Competition ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 189-201
Author(s):  
Fabien Foureault
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Firm Performance ◽  
Private Equity ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Operating Units

This chapter tries to identify the conditions under which a fourth party can tame competition in order to achieve cooperation. It relies on an in-depth case study of a multinational corporation acquired by a private equity firm through leveraged buy-out during the 2000s. It is shown that the private equity firm wanted to foster collaboration among competing operating units to increase firm performance but that it failed, despite the interest of many middle managers. The main reason was that top managers of these operating units, facing the great recession, strategically impeded cooperation because they thought that the private equity firm could break up the corporation in the near future, a belief inscribed in the ‘moral economy’ of managerialism. It is concluded that competition may be more easily reversed in firms with different types of owners or in other sectors where self-interested behaviour is less institutionalized.

scholarly journals Middle manager role and contribution towards the competitive intelligence process: A case of Irish subsidiaries

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Willie Chinyamurindi
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporation ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Competitive Intelligence ◽  
Middle Manager ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Interview Technique ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
Manager Role ◽  
Economic Austerity

Background: Calls have been made especially during a period of global competition and economic austerity for research that focuses on how competitive intelligence (CI) is actually generated within organisations.Objectives: The aim of this study was to understand the views and experiences of middle managers with regard to their role and contribution towards the CI process within Irish subsidiaries of the Multinational Corporation (MNC).Method: The study adopts a qualitative approach using the semi-structured interview technique to generate narratives and themes around how CI is generated using a sample of 15 middle managers drawn from five participating Irish subsidiaries.Results: Based on the analysis of the narratives of the middle managers, three main themes emerged as findings. Firstly, the process of gathering CI was facilitated by the reliance on internal and external tools. Secondly, information gathered from the use of such tools was then communicated by middle managers to top managers to inform the making of strategic decisions. Thus, (and thirdly), middle managers were found to occupy an important role not only through the execution of their management duties but by extending this influence towards the generation of information deemed to affect the competitive position of not just the subsidiary but also the parent company.Conclusion: The study concludes by focusing on the implications and recommendations based on the three themes drawn from the empirical data.

A Multilevel Analysis of Middle Manager Performance: The Role of CEO and Top Manager Leadership

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (02) ◽  
pp. 275-297
Author(s):  
◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Exchange ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Middle Manager ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
Ceo Leadership ◽  
Modelling Analysis ◽  
Top Manager ◽  
Manager Performance ◽  
Task Oriented

Abstract We investigate the multilevel interactive effects that CEO leadership behaviours and top-level managers’ support have on middle managers’ performance in China. Our sample consists of 608 middle managers and 140 of their direct supervisors (top managers) from 40 companies. After controlling for middle managers’ demographic variables, hierarchical linear modelling analysis shows that when non-caring, authoritative, or task-oriented CEOs lead the organization, supportive top managers more positively enhance middle manager performance. Contributions to multilevel leader influences and social exchange research are discussed.

scholarly journals Middle managers’ roles after a hospital merger

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-99
Author(s):  
Elsa Solstad ◽  
Inger Johanne Petterson
Keyword(s):  
Management Practices ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Professional Staff ◽  
Social Aspect ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Hospital Merger ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Controls ◽  
Knowledge Intensive

Purpose Mergers are important and challenging elements in hospital reforms. The authors study the social aspects of management and the roles of middle managers in the aftermath of a hospital merger. Especially, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how professional staff and middle managers perceive their relationships with top managers several years after the merger. Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted among the professional staff in two merging hospitals’ units six years after a merger. Based on the main findings from this survey, a follow-up interview study was done with a group of middle managers. Findings The management practices were diagnostic with few interactive or communicative activities. The respondents expressed that mistrust developed between the staff and the top management, and a lack of involvement and interaction lead to decoupled and parallel organizations. Social controls, based on shared norms, had not been developed to create mutual commitment and engagement. Practical implications Policy makers should be aware of the need in profound change processes not only to change the tangible elements, but to take care of changing the less tangible elements such as norms and values. Professionals in hospitals are in powerful positions, and changes in such organizations are dependent on trust-building, bottom-up initiatives and evolutionary pathways. Originality/value The paper addresses the need to understand the dynamics of the social aspect in managing hospitals as knowledge-intensive organizations when comprehensive restructuring processes are taking place over several years.

scholarly journals Team building as a management tool for building a professional team

2020 ◽  
pp. 52-59
Author(s):  
Alla Zlenko ◽  
Elena Isaikina
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Team Building ◽  
Psychological Climate ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
Common Goals ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
Active Recreation

The need to form a team may arise in different situations of organization development. Rapid changes in both politics and business pose a number of challenges related to team building. Most often there is a request for the formation of operational teams to work in a limited time; uniting top managers in order to more effectively exchange information, increase creativity and join forces to achieve the goals of the enterprise as a whole; uniting employees within the unit (department) in order to increase the efficiency of management of subordinates and increase the efficiency of the unit; uniting middle managers in order to accelerate the flow of information, improve the psychological climate. One of the most effective methods of personnel management, which is used not only by commercial companies, but also by public organizations, is team building. After all, the success of the company depends not only on the professionalism of employees and their competent management, but also on a close-knit friendly team. The main purpose of team building (team building) – emotional cohesion of the team, increasing the return on teamwork. The essence of «Team Building»: creating the necessary conditions for employees to develop skills to work effectively in a team and in person, the ability to work in a team and identify leaders, unite the team and create an atmosphere of informal communication. Team building trainings, business trainings, active recreation of employees – an effective tool for forming a professional team. Experts have noticed that building a system of an effective team, united and committed to a common goal, significantly contributes to the modeling of situations when employees are involved in a new, unusual for them process. The subject of research is team building (team building) as an effective tool for forming a professional team. The purpose of writing the article is to study the theoretical aspects of the use of team building, identify the advantages, disadvantages and feasibility of its use in practical management. The results of the work can find their practical application in the management of modern domestic enterprises and organizations. Thus, team building is a way for individual professionals to create a team that is focused on achieving common goals, an important investment in the future of any company. Such activities help employees to get to know each other better and establish communication, form a corporate culture, and increase work efficiency.

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