Fast Cultural Change

The Role and Influence of Middle Management

M. Nieswandt

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137515506
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Organizational change is still an issue of high importance for organizations, yet many change initiatives fail. These failures are often attributed to a lack of consideration of existing organizational culture. This book explores ways to undertake cultural change within a shorter time span without losing sight of complexity and sustainability.

1

Introduction: Research Background

1.1   Practical relevance

Especially in times of economic pressure, organisations seek success factors that support a competitive advantage. Organisational culture has been regarded as one of those factors at least since the 1980s (e.g., Alvesson 1990; Bate 1994; Deal and Kennedy 1982, 2000; Neubauer 2003; Peters and Waterman 1982). Although the definitions of organisational culture differ (Alvesson 1990; Bate 1994; Neubauer 2003; Sackmann 2006; Saunders et al. 2012), as do approaches (Hatch 1993; Hatch and Cunliffe 2006; Sackmann 2006; Schein 2004; Trice and Beyer 1993), the topic is still of great interest.

Today, change initiatives are no longer the exception, but are the rule (Neubauer 2003). At the same time, many of these initiatives still fail (Beer et al. 1990; Cameron and Quinn 2006; Kotter, 1996; Neubauer 2003). Some authors blame these failures on a lack of consideration for the organisation’s culture during the change process (Cameron and Quinn 2006; Kotter and Heskett 1992). Others highlight the low involvement of a large number of managers in the change process – managers from across the whole organisation (Franken et al. 2009) – instead emphasizing the role of top management (e.g., Mintzberg 2009; Roederer 2011), with the result that the burden to change an entire organisation is concentrated on this group.

At the same time, research about strategic change suggests that another group within organisations plays a crucial role, too. Research about the role of middle management demonstrates that it plays an important part in achieving successful strategic change. (Brians 2007; Rauh 1990; Wooldridge et al. 2008). As middle management is positioned between the work force and upper management, it is an important link between these levels with a strategic perspective and decisions based upon this, and the working level that has to operationalise these strategies with their units (Frohman and Johnson 1993; Leavitt and Whisler 1985; Mintzberg 1979, 2009). In addition the interface between top management and middle management is discussed and considered only rarely (Raes et al. 2011).

Still, there are many changes undertaken in many organisations. As research has proven, the consideration of organisational culture is important. Literature about cultural change in organisations often discusses definitions and concepts in detail (Hatch 1993; Sackmann 2006). In addition, examples of successful organisations are given to show how change can be initiated (Sackmann 2006; Schein 2004). The role and importance of top management is discussed in detail in this literature, whereas the importance and roles of middle managers often are mentioned only briefly, if at all. Sackmann (2004, 2007) emphasises in her work the need for involvement of the organisation’s entire management in the cultural change process, and she offers some recommendations for how to develop a management that acts in a culturally aware way. Nevertheless, she mainly refers to management as one group. However, the demands concerning top management, higher management, middle management and lower management are quite different. Whereas top management is required to think much more strategically, middle management and lower management are requested to think and act much more operationally. It is very likely that the personal interests between these levels also are different. Consequently, the integration of middle management into cultural change in an organisation must take this into account. This integration suggests, firstly, exploring the importance of middle management and its roles within this change. Until today there seems to be a lack of works that explicitly attend to middle management. According to the relationship between organisational culture and successful organisational change – and with regard to the high potential for failure, it is in the interests of organisations to find ways to bring about successful cultural change in order to achieve their change goals. If the middle manager plays a crucial role in strategic change, as the literature suggests (for example Mantere 2008; Wooldridge et al. 2008), it is only sensible to examine whether this role should be the same with organisational cultural change. The results can be used to develop a model of integrating middle managers actively into the change process and using their creative potential.

So, we find a linkage between successful change in organisations, the roles of middle managers, the consideration of cultural change and the need for such change. Therefore, to examine the importance and roles of middle management in cultural change is relevant for organisations. This process was studied by the present author during fundamental change undertaken at a medium-sized organisation. This organisation, with 320 employees, develops and budgets projects concerning real estate. Here, we refer to the company by the pseudonym, German Real Estate (Chapter 4), a firm that was facing the need for change, as it had to adapt its structure and alignment to the current market situation. Right from the beginning the company board identified organisational culture as an important aspect that should be considered. As a result, the board offered me the opportunity to attend to this process and explore the role of middle management.

By working with middle management and developing its maturity, it was possible to accomplish successful cultural change within the phenomenal timespan of only two years. Current contacts with German Real Estate show that this cultural change was no one-hit-wonder but is still lasting. In addition, the author had the opportunity to accompany organisational cultural-change projects in not only medium-sized organisations but, at the time of writing this book, is taking part in a management-culture change in a company with more than 10,000 employees. These change projects are entirely accompanied by evaluations and so the findings of the pristine research work could be confirmed.

1.2   Relevance for research

The quantity of research exploring the roles of middle management has increased in recent years (e.g., Mantere 2008; Willcocks and Griffiths 2010; Wooldridge et al 2008). Mostly, this research deals with the general role of middle management or with its role in the process of strategic change. During the literature review, sources could not be found that dealt explicitly with middle management from a cultural-change perspective. This appears to indicate a gap between the importance of organisational culture and the role of middle management. This present work aims to bridge this gap and contribute to knowledge about middle management.

1.3   Research question and objectives

The aim of this research has been to explore the influence of middle management on organisational culture change. By undertaking this project, the existing dearth of research in this area will begin to be redressed. Hence, the overall aim has been to explore the following question:

Does middle management influence organisational cultural change, and, if so, how important is that influence?

This research is intended to contribute to the understanding of middle management and its roles in cultural change in organisations. In addition, the research aims to explain how organisations could prepare middle management for accepting these roles. Therefore, the objectives of this work are:

(1)To explore whether middle management plays a role in cultural change;

(2)To explore whether the roles middle management plays in strategic change are as valid for cultural change as well;

(3)To explore whether there exist additional roles;

(4)To explore whether middle managers take over these roles when the organisation creates an environment to support cultural change.

Chapter 2 and 3 present the theoretical background forming the basis of this research. A definition of ‘organisational culture’ is given. The debate that organisations are and have organisational cultures is discussed, as well how the cultures influence the model of cultural dynamic change. Also, the influence and roles of middle management are reviewed. These literature review chapters close with a formulation of the research question and objectives that underlie this work. This research is based on the philosophical perspective of critical realism. Chapter 3 reasons why this perspective and action research fit and have been chosen as appropriate research design strategies.

The empirical part is grounded in these perceptions. Whereas Chapter 3 presents action research from a general view, the action-research cycles relating to the consultancy work are presented first within Chapter 4. These cycles are the basis for the research cycles discussed in Chapter 5. According to the chronology of events, the methods of data collection are presented and discussed.

Chapter 6 discusses the findings drawn from the data, and Chapter 7 contains the overall conclusions and recommendations for further research and practical work with organisations. In addition, limitations of the research are presented.

2

Changing Organisational Culture: A Review of the Literature

2.1 Introduction

In the early 1980s the term ‘organisational culture’ appeared in practitioner management publications, and was no longer confined to research literature (Neubauer 2003). Books by Deal and Kennedy (1982, 2000) and Peters and Waterman (1982) draw attention to this term, and with the success of books such as In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman 1982), the topic of organisational culture suddenly became a part of many discussions between CEOs and consultants. Organisations were searching for mechanisms that would help them to positively differ from competitors and thereby be more successful. For example, Peters and Waterman (1982) presented data leading to the conclusion that successful (and outstanding) organisations would rest upon a system of values that would be visible. This prompted many organisations to start working upon values and how to make them visible.

Various authors (Alvesson 1990; Neubauer 2003) trace this growing interest back to, among other things, the growing competition in the world market. When citing Frost et al. (1985), Alvesson (1990) provided three reasons for the increasing interest in organisational culture. These reasons were: (a) economic – the rise of Japan at this time; (b) quality and sense of work; and (c) dissatisfaction with the results of organisational theory (Alvesson 1990). The second-mentioned aspect (quality of work) still appears to prevail: a 2007 study about organisational culture, quality of work and employee commitment, conducted in Germany by the Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales (BMA; Federal Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs; Hauser et al. 2007), used a sample of 314 German companies and 37,151 employees, which showed that only 77 percent of participants were satisfied with their work; 23 per cent admitted that their satisfaction had declined over the past three years and only 18 per cent said their satisfaction had increased; 77 per cent wanted to stay with their companies at that time, but just 31 per cent were really motivated in their work and with their companies. The results of the study present an interrelation between organisational culture and socio-demographic factors, as well as commitment of employees and success. One can assume that the basic conditions have not really changed. Gallup’s yearly survey on the State of the Global Workplace (www.gallup.com) regularly provokes a discussion about the quality of leaders and managers. A relationship between the engagement of employees and the organisational culture they are confronted with is obvious. According to the results, disengaged employees outnumber engaged employees – with all the consequences this brings about. Hence, quality of work and social forces, as remarked upon by Alvesson and Frost et al. seem to be still on-going. So, at this writing, as we are still faced with a global commercial crisis, then the topic organisational culture is still of importance and worthy of further examination.

According to Neubauer (2003), the number of mergers tripled between 1984 and 1998. With these mergers, organisations wanted to be present and act globally, and so be the leading edge of competitors in the global market. Mergers and reengineering programmes often failed expectations (Sackmann 2007); reasons for these failures, besides other factors, often were traced back to a lack of cultural awareness. Therefore, the strategy and the culture of an organisation should fit together as much as possible (Sackmann 2007; Schuppener 2006). If, for example, an organisation characterised by an attitude of bureaucracy aims to follow a strategy of customer orientation, the organisational culture also has to be taken into account. Activities that support the development of an attitude to support customers as quickly and efficiently as possible have to be conducted at the same time as process chains and so forth are being reworked.

Leitl and Sackmann (2010) conducted a survey with a sample of 157 managers from the top and middle levels, as well as managers from human resources. Although the terms top and middle managers were not clearly defined, the results show that 89 per cent of top management regarded the issue of organisational culture as highly and very highly important. For the organisation’s future, 97 per cent rated the issue in the same way. In addition, middle management showed a development in relation to this question. The survey reported that 60 per cent of middle managers assessed culture for the present time as highly and very highly important. However, 88 per cent regarded this issue as highly important for the future. The results show that, at least on the rational level, it is well recognised that organisational culture is important. At the same time, this does not as a consequence lead to cultural development activities in organisations. In fact, my experience in many organisations is that, due to operational demands, thinking culturally often lags behind, as it is handled as a separate topic and is not an integrated part of operational activities.

Organisational culture ties together the company and its employees. Some researchers see three significant functions of culture: coordination, integration and motivation (Dill 1986; Dill and Hügler 1997; Forstmann 1994). In addition, understanding organisational culture leads to a deeper understanding of organisations (Alvesson 2002; Schein 2004). In this case, it reveals a deeper understanding of how and why something happens in an organisation. This not only enables better analysis, but can help in the working out of successful strategies for designing change.

Therefore, if organisational culture is an important factor for organisational success or failure, questions concerning the influence of culture and the reason for engagement are also still of great interest and will be discussed in later sections. Nevertheless, the question remains open: Can an organisational culture be changed? Moreover, if so, how? In addition, who are the actors and agents of change?

The following literature review will assess the research in these areas, highlighting the gap existing with regard to middle management’s influence and roles. By reviewing the literature, it will be reasoned that organisational culture can be changed. However, this change is not easy to achieve, and one has to proceed with care, as this kind of change affects not only the organisation but, in the first instance, the people working within it. Figure 2.1 presents the structure of the literature review.

2.2 Organisational culture: the difficulties of a definition

Over the past 30 years, discussion of ‘organisational culture’ has been accompanied by differing definitions, the question of measurability and convertibility and the question, whether and how organisational culture is an important factor for economic success. Therefore, the following sections review the research in this field and the continuing discussion. Discussed in addition are the definition to be used during this work and the cultural approach taken.

Figure 2.1 Aims and structure of literature review

2.2.1 Organisational culture: the definition

‘Culture’ is a concept that can be viewed in various ways. A look into a newspaper today easily shows this: There are articles about the European ‘Capital of Culture’, feature pages with stories about the ‘clash of cultures’ and so forth. Also, we talk about the culture of our countr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction: Research Background
• 2  Changing Organisational Culture: A Review of the Literature
• 3  Methodology and Overall Research Design
• 4  Consultancy and Research at German Real Estate
• 5  The Research Cycles Collecting and Analysing Data
• 6  Findings
• 7  Overall Conclusion and Recommendations
• Appendices
• References
• Index