Many industries have gone through changes in the last decades, everyone involved have been affected but few have encountered the same amount of changes as the middle managers. Being in the centre of the organisation, torn between wills, middle managers have struggled during the last years to redefine their job. There exists research describing their workdays, what they do and how they spend their time, but we have not found any study that has tried to investigate what challenges the middle managers face. The purpose of this study is to identify the challenges faced by internally-promoted middle managers. This thesis uses an inductive approach to fulfil the purpose; the main motivation for the chosen approach is the authors’ reluctance to let any existing theories guide the process. Instead, it is now believed to capture what middle managers actually find challenging and not reject or confirm the work of others which are not directly aimed at the same problem area. The empirical material has been gathered by using qualitative semi-structured interviews with eight middle managers in the auditing industry. We consider the greatest challenges faced by middle managers to be prioritising in situations of limited time. Since the middle managers tend to leave internal issue to be handled later and instead put their primary focus on customers; relational related issues are found very challenging. Among these; finding a proper level for criticism, handling conflicting expectations and lead personnel in general were emphasized. Administrative related issues was also found challenging, but not to the same extent as relational related challenges. Among the administrative issues: fulfilling goals, scheduling and planning, implementing unsupported decisions, and filter information were stressed as most challenging.

<p>Many industries have gone through changes in the last decades, everyone involved have been affected but few have encountered the same amount of changes as the middle managers. Being in the centre of the organisation, torn between wills, middle managers have struggled during the last years to redefine their job. There exists research describing their workdays, what they do and how they spend their time, but we have not found any study that has tried to investigate what challenges the middle managers face.</p><p>The purpose of this study is to identify the challenges faced by internally-promoted middle managers.</p><p>This thesis uses an inductive approach to fulfil the purpose; the main motivation for the chosen approach is the authors’ reluctance to let any existing theories guide the process. Instead, it is now believed to capture what middle managers actually find challenging and not reject or confirm the work of others which are not directly aimed at the same problem area. The empirical material has been gathered by using qualitative semi-structured interviews with eight middle managers in the auditing industry.</p><p>We consider the greatest challenges faced by middle managers to be prioritising in situations of limited time. Since the middle managers tend to leave internal issue to be handled later and instead put their primary focus on customers; relational related issues are found very challenging. Among these; finding a proper level for criticism, handling conflicting expectations and lead personnel in general were emphasized. Administrative related issues was also found challenging, but not to the same extent as relational related challenges. Among the administrative issues: fulfilling goals, scheduling and planning, implementing unsupported decisions, and filter information were stressed as most challenging.</p>

This thesis will focus on understanding how middle managers on five different car dealership companies in three different cities in the south of Sweden perceive the position and situation within the company, and the result of this position. It will also focus on how he or she perceive his or hers relationship with the employees and superiors in the company to be. This paper will also aim to understand by which means the middle manager chooses to deal with the perceived situation regarding the company and relationships within it. The study will be based on the experiences and opinions of the middle manager. This thesis is different from other studies made on middle managers due to the fact that even if stress will be a factor taken into consideration, it will not be the main focus of the paper. This BA thesis will be conducted with a qualitative method with semi structural interviews conducted at the interviewees respective workplaces. The result of these interviews are that the middle managers consider their relationships with the sales people at the company and with their superiors to be a good one, but not without complications. These complications are the result of the lines between professional and private life being blurred. These complications cause some stress and pressure for the middle managers, and the way for them to deal with this is to make their profession their lifestyle, they choose to live their professions. By doing this they limit the effect these complications have on their professional as well as private life

<p>Betydelsen av att ha medarbetare som känner arbetstillfredsställelse utgör en ovärderlig del av ett företags framgång. En betydelsefull uppgift att tillgodose den aspekten har chefen och dennes sätt att kommunicera med sina medarbetare. I intervjuer med personer som blivit internrekryterade till en överordnad position i förhållande till forna kollegor var syftet att undersöka hur de upplevde bemötandet från över- och underordnade i samband med rekryteringsprocessen. Hur deras nya position påverkat relationen till kollegorna och hur de nu ser på sin position och arbetssituation. Resultatet visade att relationerna förändras. Viktiga förutsättningar för att leda under dessa förhållanden är en vetskap om verksamhet och medarbetare och ett tydligt förhållningssätt. Detta talar för betydelsen av erfarenhet och personliga egenskaper vid rekrytering av ledarpositioner.</p>

Betydelsen av att ha medarbetare som känner arbetstillfredsställelse utgör en ovärderlig del av ett företags framgång. En betydelsefull uppgift att tillgodose den aspekten har chefen och dennes sätt att kommunicera med sina medarbetare. I intervjuer med personer som blivit internrekryterade till en överordnad position i förhållande till forna kollegor var syftet att undersöka hur de upplevde bemötandet från över- och underordnade i samband med rekryteringsprocessen. Hur deras nya position påverkat relationen till kollegorna och hur de nu ser på sin position och arbetssituation. Resultatet visade att relationerna förändras. Viktiga förutsättningar för att leda under dessa förhållanden är en vetskap om verksamhet och medarbetare och ett tydligt förhållningssätt. Detta talar för betydelsen av erfarenhet och personliga egenskaper vid rekrytering av ledarpositioner.

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<p>Betydelsen av ett gott chefskap inom äldreomsorgen är av stor vikt för medarbetarna, de boende och verksamheten. Omvårdnadsarbetet påverkas av chefens sätt att arbeta och det krävs därför att chefen är medveten om vad som utgör ett bra chefskap. Intervjuerna i denna studie är utförda med sju enhetschefer inom äldreomsorgen i Sverige. Syftet var att undersöka hur enhetschefer inom svensk äldreomsorg uppfattar sitt chefsarbete inom detta verksamhetsområde. Resultatet visade att arbetssätt, relationer, förhållningssätt och utvecklingsarbete är faktorer som enligt dessa chefer utmärker ett bra chefskap. Förutsättningar för ett bra chefskap var goda arbetsvillkor, motivation, stöd, samarbete, personliga egenskaper och upplevelser av chefskapet.</p>

Betydelsen av ett gott chefskap inom äldreomsorgen är av stor vikt för medarbetarna, de boende och verksamheten. Omvårdnadsarbetet påverkas av chefens sätt att arbeta och det krävs därför att chefen är medveten om vad som utgör ett bra chefskap. Intervjuerna i denna studie är utförda med sju enhetschefer inom äldreomsorgen i Sverige. Syftet var att undersöka hur enhetschefer inom svensk äldreomsorg uppfattar sitt chefsarbete inom detta verksamhetsområde. Resultatet visade att arbetssätt, relationer, förhållningssätt och utvecklingsarbete är faktorer som enligt dessa chefer utmärker ett bra chefskap. Förutsättningar för ett bra chefskap var goda arbetsvillkor, motivation, stöd, samarbete, personliga egenskaper och upplevelser av chefskapet.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:20:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 163074.pdf: 315377 bytes, checksum: 172ccab9752ad19a2ad8b3d2ce4acfc3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-02-23T00:00:00Z / Master´s degree work which identifies some survival strategies and work maintenance used by the middle management of three corporations installed in Brazil, one of high North-American technology, other of telecommunication based on Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian investment and the last one a national corporation with family control. The study reaches to context the growing importance of the middle gerency for contemporary organizations, to characterize this group of intermediary workers, delineate and differentiate some of their possible roles and show some their vulnerabilities. After that, it presents ten identified strategies which are a result of the analysis of fifteen managers´ interviews from those companies. While comparing the main identified strategies of the Brazilian professionals, it seems like there are patterns in their answers to changes in their professional environments which are related to the company structure level, to the position they occupy, to their work time inside the company and their networking, both inside and outside the company. / Trabalho de dissertação de mestrado que identifica algumas das estratégias de sobrevivência e de manutenção do trabalho utilizadas pela média gerência de três empresas instaladas no Brasil, uma de alta tecnologia de origem norte-americana, outra de telecomunicação de capital luso-espanhol-brasileiro e a última uma empresa nacional com controle familiar. O estudo busca contextualizar a crescente importância da média gerência para as organizações contemporâneas, caracterizar este grupo de trabalhadores intermediários, delinear e diferenciar alguns de seus possíveis papéis e apresentar algumas de suas vulnerabilidades. Em seguida apresenta dez estratégias identificadas resultantes da análise das entrevistas de quinze gerentes destas empresas. Ao comparar os principais conceitos apresentados por diversos autores sobre a média gerência com as estratégias identificadas dos profissionais brasileiros, percebe-se que há padrões em suas respostas às mudanças em seus ambientes profissionais e que estão relacionados às características do negócio, ao grau de estruturação da organização, à posição que ocupam, ao seu tempo de trabalho e em sua rede de relacionamentos dentro e fora da organização.

Strategy and its successful implementation is the responsibility of all stakeholders in an organisation; however, thus far, most empirical research in the field of strategy has mainly focused on Boards of Directors or senior management. The dearth of research, as evidenced from the review of the literature concerning the roles of middle managers in strategy implementation, coupled with the disagreement of senior management on their importance, leaves room for discovery. Acknowledging the importance of middle managers’ roles and agreeing what is expected from them in strategy implementation prompts organisations to create the conditions to enable them for strategy implementation. These ideas led to this investigation by exploring what enables the roles and practices of middle managers in strategy implementation. This research adopts the interpretive research approach in an effort to investigate middle managers’ involvement in strategy implementation across three industrial manufacturing organisations in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Through the development of a conceptual framework incorporating aspects of roles, role expectations, practices and context, the thesis highlights the difference between the perception of roles and expectations and roles in practice. The chosen respondents were senior and middle managers. The main findings of the research showed that there exists a gap between the perception of senior managers and middle managers on the roles of middle managers and on aspects enabling their strategic agency; this resulted in an ‘implementation gap’, which can hinder the successful execution of organisation strategy. This thesis discovers that the issues of management are the same regardless of the geographic situation or cultures within which the organisations operate, and that there are lessons to be learned from each other. A conceptual framework emerged from the exploratory qualitative research which confirms and opens up new avenues in understanding the roles of middle managers in practice in the area of strategy implementation. The implications are a need to understand it more empirically and a need to bridge the gap in practice. Key words: Strategy implementation, Middle manager, Roles, Role expectations, Practices.