changes affecting middle managers in the ec || introduction

IntroductionAuthor(s): Rosemary StewartSource: International Studies of Management & Organization, Vol. 22, No. 1, ChangesAffecting Middle Managers in the EC (Spring, 1992), pp. 3-6Published by: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40397197 .

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Int. Studies ofMgt. & Org.t Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 3-6 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1992

Introduction

This issue originated in a six-country EC study of changes affecting middle managers that ran from 1985 to 1989. The countries involved were Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, and West Germany. The study was initiated, financed (in the United King- dom additional finance was obtained), and coordinated by the Euro- pean Foundation for Living and Working Conditions. The aim was to discover what changes were affecting middle management, how middle managers reacted to these changes, and what were the implications for EC policies to improve living and working conditions for middle managers. The term "middle management" was used very broadly to include all levels above direct first-line supervision and below the directors of a business or division.

The first stage of the study consisted of several planning meetings during which it was decided to compare changes affecting middle managers in traditional organizations with those in new industries. A literature search in all six countries showed the paucity of studies of middle management There were generalizations about changes affecting middle management, but there was little research. The next stage of the study was a review of the institutional background for middle management in each country. A major difference in the institutional context of middle management was found between those countries where middle managers are recognized in law, and the reasons why this has happened, and those countries where there is no legal recogni- tion for this category.

The last stages of the research consisted of case studies of changes in traditional organizations and new industries and of middle managers' reactions to them. Two small pilot studies of changes affecting middle managers were undertaken in Denmark and the United Kingdom: one year of short case studies (the very modest funding restricted the scope for case studies) in each country.1 In the final year

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4 ROSEMARY STEWART (UK)

case studies were performed in each country through interviews with middle managers about their reactions to changes. The research con- cluded with a European workshop in September 1989, at which the results were presented to an invited group of employers, trade union- ists, and academics.2» 3 More information about the research project is given in the paper by Staehle and Schirmer.

The attempts to study changes in the numbers of middle managers met difficulties from the lack of appropriate national statistical data. Given the generalizations often made about the decline in the numbers of middle managers, it is noteworthy that the French study found that the numbers increased from 1979 to 1984 and that figures for 1988 showed that this increase continued. This was an increase in the numbers and even more in the proportion of middle managers relative to other employees.3»4

The first paper in this issue, by Frank Bournois, who was not a participant in the six-country study, is an excellent introduction to the other papers because it provides a wider picture of European managers, whereas three of the other papers are about middle managers in individual countries. Bournois 's paper includes a summary of an ILO report on the meaning of "manager" or "cadre" in five European countries. Bournois describes his recent research into the problems of the Europeanization of managers. He discusses the barriers to it, what human resource managers are doing to try to overcome them, and how this differs across companies and countries. He concludes that there is widespread uncertainty about how to provide for the management development of managers able to operate across Europe.

The next paper, by Henri Pinaud, "A French Trade Unionist's View of the Changes Affecting Management Development," provides a brief overview of the changes that have been affecting organizations, of their effects on middle managers, and of trade-union responses to these changes. He describes trade-union proposals to safeguard supervisors and managers likely to be affected by changes and to put an end to all forms of discrimination. Henri Pinaud was the trade-union member of the board that oversaw the research and in that capacity he attended all meetings of the six-country research group.

The remaining three papers are reports based on the research in individual countries. These discuss both the institutional context for middle management and the findings of the short case studies. The British paper, by Dopson, Risk, and Stewart, takes the broadest per-



INTRODUCTION 5

spective of the three in its discussion of the case studies. It describes the complexities of the pressures upon organizations, the ways that organizations have responded, and the changes that these have pro- duced for middle managers. It considers possible reasons why middle managers in the public sector seem to be more resistant to change than those in companies. It argues that a slimmer middle management has a more important role to play than before, but that generalizations about middle management should be made with caution because of the variety and com- plexity of the changes and of middle managers' reactions to them.5

The Della Rocca paper gives an interesting account of the political actions of Italian middle managers who felt that their income and status were being threatened, and of the steps taken to provide legal safeguards for them. He discusses other ways in which middle managers have sought to protect their interests. He also considers the changes in the middle-management labor market and sees a trend toward increasing specialization and professionalization of the middle manager's job.

Staehle and Schirmer describe the results of fifteen short case studies of changes affecting middle management. The organizational responses to external changes that they report are similar to those found in the other five countries and are also widely discussed in American writings. Staehle and Schirmer emphasize the new and greater de- mands that these changes bring for the control functions of firms. Their main focus is on the new human-resource management requirements, which they illustrate from four of the case studies. They highlight the move toward increasing individualization for lower and middle managers, which brings them new risks, including a greater dependence on the labor market. They see a need in the EC to develop the background conditions to reduce such dependence.

The broad changes affecting organizations and the middle managers within them are similar in the six European countries to those taking place in the United States. What is different is the view of the role of the middle manager that comes from the six country studies - a larger more responsible one - compared to predictions often made in the United States of the decline of middle management.

ROSEMARY STEWART

Templeton College Oxford



6 ROSEMARY STEWART (UK)

Notes

1. European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Condi- tions, Changing Functions of Lower and Middle Management Phase 7, Consoli- dated Report, Working Paper No. EF/WP/89/23/EN.

2. Noel Urwin, "The changing functions of management - The new European manager?," European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.

3. Keith Thurley and Riccardo Peccei (with the collaboration of Bernhard Fischer- Appelt), London School of Economics, "Study on the changing functions of lower and middle management," European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.

4. Serge Alecian and Pierre Girard, "French national report on the changing functions of management, phase 2," chap. 1, paper presented at the European Workshop on the Changing Functions of Management - The New European Mid- dle Manager?, Dublin, September 22-22, 1989, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.

5. See also Sue Dopson and Rosemary Stewart, "What is happening to middle management?" British Journal of Management, 1 (1990), 3-16.



changes affecting middle managers in the ec || introduction

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