Middle managers during organizational change : A qualitative study on middle managers role, ability, and approach to resistance in the process of operational change

Abstract: Middle managers have come to be a natural part of large companies' structure. In additionto this, change has become more prominent for all types of businesses because of rapidchanges in demand. However, change is not an easy phenomenon to deal with, nor hasthe prior research reached a consensus about middle managers’ involvement in theprocess of change. Based on prior research the role of middle managers has changed overthe years. From existing only to assist and unload the work of senior managers, to a rolewhere they themselves are crucial and noticeable actors who are in a unique position tomake changes and further develop the organization. Different types of changes have beenintroduced to companies while they aim to improve efficiency, profits, customer, andstaff satisfaction etc. Companies today focus more on innovation and their ability toquickly adapt to changing environments to stay competitive.Previous research is lacking a deeper knowledge on what role a middle manager hasduring organizational change. It is unclear how much a middle manager can contribute toorganizational change and what tools they need to be productive. While middle managers'role and ability as well as resistance are acknowledged in the literature to be of highrelevance, it is still unclear how they are connected and how they influence the processof organizational changes in large corporate companies. To fill this research gap, thisresearch is based on the research question:How do the middle managers’ role, ability, and approach to resistance influence theprocess of operational change in large corporate companies?A theoretical framework was based on prior research. Furthermore, a qualitative studywas conducted to answer the research question. To obtain a deeper understanding of thechosen themes; middle managers’ role, ability and approach to resistance, interviewswere conducted on eight middle managers at a large corporate company. All interviewedmiddle managers worked at IKEA in Sweden. To facilitate the process of conductinginterviews, an interview guide that contained the themes was constructed. Based on theempirical findings of this study, middle managers can possess multiple rolessimultaneously, a key role or a supporting role. Moreover, a middle manager's differenttypes of abilities such as organizational and personal abilities were studied, and findingsshowed that both types play a pivotal part of how they influence the process of operationalchange. Finally, this study has created a deeper understanding of how middle managers'approach to resistance influences the process of operational change in large corporatecompanies. A conceptual model was developed that displays how the study further founda connection between ability and the amount of resistance during the operational changeprocess