Public sector managers of human services : their challenges and strategies : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand

Middle managers of human services in the public sector have a unique role that allows them to be part of the lives of clients and their families by implementing the strategic vision of political leaders. The expectations of middle managers can be complex and contradictory and therefore challenging. This research identifies the challenges middle managers of human services in the public sector encounter and the strategies that they have developed to deal with these. The support that senior managers in public sector organisations can offer to their middle managers in this process is also discussed. The study is qualitative and placed in a post-modernist position and social constructive perspective. Data is collected through the use of semi-structured interviews and examined using an interpretative thematic approach. The analysis identified a range of challenges for middle managers in the public sector and strategies these managers use to deal with them. Interestingly a number of identified challenges are also identified as a strategy depending on the support middle managers receive from the senior managers in their organisation. The findings identify that a strong strategic vision needs to be in place in public sector organisations to develop clear roles and responsibilities for middle managers with allocated resources. Middle managers need access to training, supervision and networking to deal with additional challenges such as changes in funding and information management. Recommendations are made to public sector organisations to support the development of effective strategies to deal with the challenges identified by their middle managers. Recommendations are made to middle managers in the public sector to prioritise and advocate for their own needs and requirements as they do for their clients and their staff. This research will support both senior and middle managers in public sector organisations in finding strategies to support middle managers to fulfil their role effectively

The middle manager: Friend or foe of employee involvement

Middle management resistance has been frequently identified as a significant barrier to the success of employee involvement practices. This paper reviews evidence from the literature and from 12 case studies on the role played by middle managers in employee involvement initiatives. There is evidence that middle management resistance often acts as a significant impediment to employee involvement. However, there is also evidence that this resistance is often a symptom of inconsistency between organisational systems and the goals of employee involvement and of inadequate training and support for middle managers. Employee involvement initiatives should pay attention to aligning organisational systems with the goals of employee involvement and treat middle managers as the targets as well as the implementors of employee involvement

Caught in the Middle: Empowerment in Middle Managers

Citation: Doty, N. (2017) Caught in the Middle: Empowerment in Middle Managers. Unpublished manuscript, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS.Kirmser Undergraduate Research Award - Individual Non-Freshman Category, grand prizePrevious studies on the topic of middle management focus on how these specific managers drive the organizations they are a part of, how they motivate their subordinates to work effectively and efficiently, how middle managers create excitement, and how their leadership style helps their followers find purpose in their work. And yet, little is done to flesh out how these strong MMs are created, what motivates them, and how they succeed in their position (Kominis & Emmanuel, 2007). These MMs are the “basis of strategic renewal” in bettering an ever-changing organizational environment and, conversely, can even “sabotage implementation efforts” in the changing strategy of the workplace (Mantere, 2008, p. 294). This paper aims to discover what factors influence the empowerment of middle managers for the purpose of better understanding and development of MMs in organizational and workplace structures. Motivation is the influence on a person’s “direction, vigor and persistence of action” (Rajhans, 2012, p. 82). The current literature on the subjects of management, motivation, and work performance focus on the topics of role expectations, and empowerment, and are typically viewed through the theoretical lenses of structural empowerment and psychological empowerment, which are outlined below

Energizing middle managers' practice in organizational learning

Purpose This paper aims to consider middle managers' influence on organizational learning by exploring how they cope with demands and tensions in their role and whether their practice affects available team energy. Design/methodology/approach In total, 43 managers from three large organizations involved in major change assessed their group's energy using a tested and validated instrument, the OEQ12©. This generated six distinct categories of team energy, from highly productive to corrosive. Thirty-four of these managers, spread across the six categories, completed a Twenty Statements Test and a follow-up interview to explore their cognitive, affective and behavioural responses to coping with resource constraints and tensions in their role. Findings The research provides preliminary insights into what distinguishes a middle manager persona co-ordinating teams with highly productive energy from those managing groups with less available energy to engage with knowledge and learning. It considers why these distinctions may affect collective sensitivities in the organizational learning process. Research limitations/implications Informants were not equally distributed across the six team energy categories; therefore, some middle manager personas are more indicative than others. Practical implications This research suggests areas where middle manager development could potentially improve organizational learning. Originality/value This study offers early empirical evidence that middle managers' orientation to their role is entangled with the process of energizing their teams in organizational learning during change

Middle Management in Agriculture: Roles, Functions, and Practices

The role of middle managers in agriculture and agribusiness has been neglected by applied - as well as disciplinary - research, while gaining increasing importance in practice. This study provides an overview of middle management research and analyzes middle managers' authority in human resource decision-making and human resource management practices based on in-depth interviews analyzed through a grounded theory approach. Results show that these middle managers use both traditional and participative management practices to accomplish organizational goals, but would benefit from training tailored to their industry and specific needs.Case study research method, grounded theory, human resource management (HRM) practices, middle manager, supervisor, supervisory function, Agribusiness, Labor and Human Capital,

Planning as an integrative device

Middle managers’ shared understanding of organizational priorities is a key determinant of successful goal implementation. In this paper, we analyze whether involving middle managers in the strategic planning process and communicating the agreed-upon goals to them afterwards reduce the bias of their managerial role and thus increase the convergence on their assessments of operational priorities. In a sample of 164 manufacturing plants from five different countries and three industries, in which we asked three middle managers about the organizational priorities, we find that the managerial position bias is strong and that communication but not involvement reduces it.Strategic planning; integration; organizational priorities; middle-management; role bias; managerial position; involvement; communication; MTMM analysis; manufacturing

From Bureaucracy to Enterprise? The Changing Jobs and Careers of Managers in Telecommunications Service

This paper analyzes how organizational restructuring is affecting managerial labor markets. Drawing on field research from several Bell operating companies plus a detailed survey of managers in one company, this paper considers how organizational restructuring affects the employment levels, the nature of work, and the career trajectories of lower and middle level line managers. Does restructuring lead to a loss or managerial power and a convergence in the working conditions of managerial and nonmanagerial workers? Or, conversely, do managers stand to gain from the flattening of hierarchies and devolution of decision-making to lower organizational levels? The paper\u27s central argument is that a new vision of organization has taken hold – one that replaces bureaucracy with enterprise. This vision, however, entails sharp contradictions because it relies on two competing approaches to organizational reform: one that relies on decentralizing management to lower levels to enhance customer responsiveness; the other that relies on reengineering and downsizing to realize scale economies. While the first approach views lower and middle managers as central to competitiveness, the second views them as indirect costs to be minimized. The central question is whether or how the two approaches can be reconciled. The evidence from this case study shows that restructuring has had the unintended consequence of creating new organizational cleavages: between lower and middle level managers on the one hand, and top managers on the other

Management economics in a large UK retailer

We study the link between middle-management ability and shop labour productivity using data from 245 shops of a UK nationwide retailer. The company scores six broad areas of management practice, the most important of which turns out to be "commercial awareness", where able managers achieve 17% higher labour productivity in their shops compared to less able ones. We further show that the managers’ incentive pay scheme, required to encourage them to exert their ability in full, is implicitly an insurance one, with managers taking a share in deviations of actual sales from expected. At the same time, abler managers do not receive higher pay all else equal, which implies that middle management ability is not fully tradeable.