MGT200 | Organisational Behaviour | Main Issues In The Debate

Topic: Should organisations cut back middle management?

Answer:

Main issues in the debate

The main issue in the debate is about the effects that would come with cutting the middle-level management. Cutting back the middle-level management comes with positive and negative effects (King, Fowler, and Zeithaml, 2001). However, because the adverse effects surpass the positive effects, it would not be appropriate to cut back the middle management.

Summary of each side of the debate

Cutting back the middle management has advantages such as cutting down the wage budget and also cutting the communication channel thus connecting the upper management to the lower management (Heyden, Sidhu, and Volberda, 2018). At the same time, cutting back the middle management has disadvantages which are reducing the vital organizational assets in the decision making process and alienating an essential component that is used in passing a message from the higher management to the lower management.

Relevant organization company example

An example of an organization that has middle management in place is Apple. The structure has an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that the company promotes the contribution of many levels of management and that means that ideas flow in plenty (Goetsch and Davis, 2014). The disadvantage is that the decision-making process takes a lot of time. Nike is an example of a company that has a flat organizational culture (no middle management). The advantage of the company is that it promotes a fast decision-making process (Glaser, Stam, and Takeuchi, 2016). The disadvantage is that the company might not have the privilege to gather essential information from many managers due to the absence of the middle management.

Bibliography

Glaser, L., Stam, W., and Takeuchi, R., 2016. Managing the risks of proactivity: A multilevel study of initiative and performance in the middle management context. Academy of Management Journal, 59(4), pp.1339-1360.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Heyden, M.L., Sidhu, J.S. and Volberda, H.W., 2018. The conjoint influence of top and middle management characteristics on management innovation. Journal of Management, 44(4), pp.1505-1529.

King, A.W., Fowler, S.W. and Zeithaml, C.P., 2001. Managing organizational competencies for competitive advantage: The middle-management edge. Academy of Management Perspectives, 15(2), pp.95-106.