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Archives of Business Research – Vol. 13, No. 03
Publication Date: March 25, 2025
DOI:10.14738/abr.1303.18394.
Shamima, N. (2025). Role of Middle Managers in Strategic Organizational Changes: A Conceptual Review. Archives of Business
Research, 13(03). 01-10.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Role of Middle Managers in Strategic Organizational Changes: A
Conceptual Review
Nasrin Shamima
World University of Bangladesh (WUB)
ABSTRACT
This review examines the recent theoretical development in the changes in the
organization change in terms of structural change, the role of middle managers and
the execution of digitalization of organizational practices. It discusses the
effectiveness of change and leadership change or transformation in the modern
organization to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. This requires strategic
change and the changes of the viewpoint about the role of middle managers in an
organization to cope out with the uncertain and volatile external environment.
Throughout the strategic change literature, conceptualization of change leadership
is based on the view of top to bottom approach where, the top management has the
pivotal role to design the change initiatives. In some extent, the role of mid-level
managers have been recognized as linker or connector while, the first line
managers have always been seen as the implementers of the process, designed at
the top. Moreover, volatility in external environment due to technological
disruption, changing nature of using data, virtual influence over the form of
organizations and digitally organic organization management outlook have
rendered the sustainability question of competitive advantage in risks. Based on
the deficiencies of previous literature and scope within the trends of today’s
organizations, this research will investigate the prospective role of mid-level
managers in strategic changes of organizational design.
Keywords: Change management, Strategic change, Organizational change, Change
effectiveness, Middle managers.
INTRODUCTION
In last few decades, digital technologies have worked in such manner that these have changed
the shape of traditional business environment and have create a more multifaceted and flexible
online ecological unit [1]. The long-established competitive advantage is decreasing by the use
of digital technologies and overcome the industry obstacles, reducing lifelong affluent business
models [2]. Hence, firms yearn to develop swift and efficient strategic change to flourish a
progressively digital ecosystem. The substantial change literature is processed with content
and process. The first one emphasizes modification in the element of strategy, meanwhile,
second one draws attention to strategic change process [3]. In such continuous advancement
related environment, survival depends on change. Aware of this requirement for transform,
organizations try to capture the environment progress system to adjust thereto and preserve
their importance. Such changes are generally called change of strategies, which affect either a
content (an objective, evaluation of the environment and nature, accessibility of resources and
know-how), or process (structure, method, culture and values) for modifying long-lasting
organizational excellence. The concept of strategic change considers as a distinct, particular
aspect of business strategy such as product differentiation portfolio [4], accompaniments of
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service [5] or financing on research and developments tasks. Strategic change means a massive
alteration in an organization’s general way of resource distribution with value to several
extents [6]. In addition to this, any alteration in the content of a firm’s action plan or strategy
which can be identified by its area coverage, use of resource, advantageous market position can
be named as strategic change [7]. Generally, strategic change defines to a change in the
purposes and long-term goal of a company through improving economic activities. Strategic
change can be defined as an enterprise’s capability for reacting to an approved desire to
modernize its business activities for keeping a balance with its uncontrollable surroundings
[8]. The ongoing change procedure will create interactions among an organization’s members
to engage in crafting an outlook gradually expands to add new members, drive in an expected
hope into ways of functioning diagonally the organization. It is important normally at a position
when an entity needs a major revision to methods of performing to remain viable [9]. Change
in strategy is a development form that responsible for alteration as a course of skill over time
[10]. An anticipation about potential opportunity states that the significance with change of
strategy on the desire for leading actions. However, disagreement about the viewpoints that
the expectations create diverse deliberate situations that requires different replies. In reality,
one of the significant barriers found during strategic change is how visions for an imagined
future, redefined in settings such as workshops about strategy, can link into an organization’s
daily activities [11]. The term workshops can be classified as places, through specific features
like borders, remoteness and association that allow an organization’s employees to build
intellectual ability and conduct collaborative research in ways that accomplish lead to change
[12] . The senior managers are not acted as transformation mediator all the time [9] and in fact,
settle in ways of performing requires a lot of attachment [13]. The commencements of
organizational changes are well built by the middle managers involvement. As an alternative of
downward or upward representation, many scholars have put concentration to the “middle- up-down” approach highlight the’ knowledge creation’ by mid-level managers. Historically,
middle managers have been perceived as information provider and the customers of Middle
managers have traditionally been seen as supplier of information and the consumers of results
made by the upper –level managers, in their enterprise [14]. Middle managers are identical
with numerous terms such as “backwardness”, “stagnation” or “resistance to change” although
they are the ways to uninterrupted improvement [15]. Knowledge creation procedure consists
of employees, especially the mid-level managers, act a vital character constructing a unique
enterprise structure and converting skills between the conventional hierarchical structure and
assignment groups [15]. The concept of middle management was becoming valueless in
previous studies and mentioned as the ‘double-headed monster’ [16]. However, he preferred
the vital role of mid-level managers in generating and managing successful management
arrangement. The top-down approach is normally connected with shared decisions, dedication
to loyalty and uniqueness [17]. Some of them have cutback and mid-level managers have been
loaded with additional duties and the pressure of insecurity about their career. An
organization’s additional work load is generalizing in worsening its existence [18]. They also
state that stiff consistency and extreme focus on synchronization may create it tough for middle
managers to understand new strategic plans.
RESEARCH PROBLEM & PURPOSE
Strategic change interventions can be classified into three kinds, namely these are
transformational or radical change which transforms the structural components, continuous
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URL: http://doi.org/10.14738/abr.1303.18394
change which is adaptive in nature and trans-organizational change due to merger and
acquisition [19]. This research deals with the transformational change. Digital technologies
have impact on almost every area of operating, controlling, and coordinating the operations of
organizations [20]. The digitization of society has a significant effect on customer needs,
product and service characteristics, delivery method, and design of organization [20]. A new
organizational paradigm needs flexibility, survivability and system thinking would act as
pivotal success factors [21]. Significant responses were active within the boundary of existing
hierarchical structures of organizing [20]. The very first significant shift has already taken place
in some obvious sectors in structures- shift to platforms over products in form, as outcomes of
e-commerce growth rendered virtual, liquid and dynamic formation. Some new forms of
organizational designs in past 5-10 years; here the lines of belongingness are not
understandable [21]. These make capable toward further flexibility as well as resilience to
business environment. A second big shift in organizations of today is the concentration on the
digital instead of mechanical methods of running business. For technology becoming more
attached with human lives, the increasing need for quickness and pace in entities responds to
data wants that they accept a modern mindset and put of methods. The second big shift in
organizations of today is the concentration on the digital over mechanical methods of running
business. For technology becoming more integrated into our lives, the increasing need for
agility and speed in businesses responds to information wants that they accept a digital mindset
and set of methods. A third major shift focuses on the use of data. From the discussion above it
is clear that these new types of organizational forms are actually producing data. Though the
use of data, it frequently experienced in organizations, but the assumptions of how these data
is controlled and used is changing dramatically. As suggested earlier, the collection and
processing of this information only is not enough. A modern business landscape, organizations
are continuously increasing focus on getting insights from that data which will inform business
decisions, take particular actions and help in setting future business directions. It is truth that,
the merger of digital transformation and the demand for generating insights from the huge
amount of data being produced come together in the Big Data phenomena [22]. .A fourth and
last move that we can see in organizations now a day is somehow taken as more divisive than
the last one, which is focus on capacity above workers [23].
• Research Question: How do mid-level managers contribute to the organizational
strategic change processes?
METHODOLOGY
The study is conducted on the basis of conceptual review research. Organization change
management have been researched extensively over last 50 years [24] and shows over
2700000 Google Scholar references [25]. At the initial phase of this study, some selected
research databases have been used to refer relevant articles. Primarily, ‘Google Scholar’,
‘Research Gate’ and ‘Academia’ have been used to collect relevant journals and articles through
searching title like; ‘change management’, ‘strategic change’, ‘organizational change’ , ‘middle
managers’ and ‘change effectiveness’. Based on primary conceptualization of topic issues
further journals and articles have been searched through five specific databases. Through the
titles like; ‘planned change’, ‘change process’, ‘change leadership’, ‘bottom to up & top to bottom
approach of change’ ‘change readiness’ ‘organization culture change’, and ‘mid-level managers
in change’ etc. searches have been given to ‘Scopus’, ‘Business Source Complete’, ‘EBSCO
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discovery services’ by researcher’s personal and institutional accesses. For comprehensive
concept development, aids of textbooks have also been taken.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Strategic Change
Strategic organizational changes affect the entire organization and usually change the strategy
and the structure, culture, people, and processes [26]. Conclusions indicate to mechanistic and
organic organizations. Mechanistic organizations have commitment to chain of command,
operational section, high specialization, formal hierarchy, explained job description, vertical
interaction, and behavior cared of by instructions [27]. On the other hand, organic
organizations are contrasting and hardly concerned about chain of command, job descriptions
are not defined enough and lateral communication. Dissimilarities in the structure, quality, or
condition over time [28] in an organization’s alignment with the external environment can be
identified as the necessity of strategic organizational change. Planned changes have two
patterns, namely first-order or transactional change and second-order or large-scale change.
Transactional changes are applied with past behaviors, systems, or procedures shape
mechanism of works [29]. On the contrary, large scale change has an impact on the basic
characteristics of culture of the organization, the formation & the presumptions people possess
employee motivation etc. The aim of big changes is to make better of long-term performance of
the whole organization [29]. The preliminary objective of leadership is to bring the need for
change to a point where it’s clearly visible to the whole organization and encourage everyone
to see and feel the need for change.
Mid-level Managers
Every organizational culture is built on the base of values, beliefs, norms, attitudes, and
philosophies that plays a vital role in the ultimate success or failure [30]. The literature on
organizational culture follows two different directions [31]. Literatures that followed Peters
and Waterman, Ouchi, and Deal and Kennedy, publicized the theme that culture can be managed
and shaped by good managers that allows them to get expected outcomes. Whereas, the other
group of writers had a belief that culture is actually an organizational force and not included in
the subject list of leadership control. The causes of change a right of employees to know where,
he focused on to assign and empower middle managers and supervisors who ultimately
communicate goals and rationales of changes toward the members of an organization specially
employees [32]. The broader dimensions of operations, structures, process and systems are the
primary roots for understanding any organizational change through communication and
networking, leaders of an organization work on making a sense which at the end reduces the
ambiguity, confusion, vagueness; instead of making the original meaning of change toward the
employees [33]. Leaders who want to initiate effective changes in organization should inspire
employees to cooperate and stay aligned because this is the way in which people find new
dimension to think [34]. Leaders should establish a positive culture in which employees have
faith on each other, have ownership of their own tasks, and can communicate freely to create a
bond and teamwork in order to prepare the environment for innovative idea generation [35].
Considering strategic change as a top-down learning process, the idea has put an effort to
understand the ways of top manager’s sense making, mid-level manager’s skill creation and
skill promoting [36]. This viewpoint states that planned modification is commenced by upper
level managers, after that passed on to mid-level managers and finally flowed downward to
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Shamima, N. (2025). Role of Middle Managers in Strategic Organizational Changes: A Conceptual Review. Archives of Business Research, 13(03). 01-
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URL: http://doi.org/10.14738/abr.1303.18394
people [37]. New organizational forms are showing a boosted research interest which is due to
the growing competition and heterogeneous business landscape. The new structures of
managing are frequently linked with modification, reduction of hierarchy, dissemination,
downscaling, and geological allocation [38]. On one hand advancement pose a threat of
reduction in number of middle managers [39]; on contrary, recent researches come up with
opposite arguments which state that “flatter” and more vigorous organizations, in fact,
heightened the function of mid-level managers as the strategic bridge that connects macro and
micro levels in organization [40]. Meantime, organizational design usually reckons that since
the top management designs the organization [41]; the role of mid-level managers is hardly
known during organizational design. Till date, the majority researches have concentrated on
the mechanism of enterprise blueprint’s influence on middle managers confidence, job
pressure, and duties [42] take mid-level managers as receivers of enterprise blueprint
relatively than dynamic position players. Thus, the middle managers were both receivers and
implementers of the organization. They have no other option but create the innovative
blueprint work though a limited participation in the primary restructuring. The result show
that the practical reorganization were established by the implementations in which managers
embraced new design, although middle managers might had a grip on the latest blueprint by
the beginning of the reformation. Middle managers stand at a point where they are both leaders
and followers [11]. Recent tendency of layoff, reconstruction, and a large extent of self
management has resulted in a decreased number of mid-level managers in several enterprises
[13]. Since as an outcome, the role of mid-level managers is threatened; there is also arguments
with the aim of mid-level managers are insignificant in contemporary business enterprise [43].
Although, modern researches insist that the middle managers indeed participate a vital
deliberate function in modern organization [13].
Mid-level Managers in Strategic Change
Both top down and descending types of mid-level management implication on a task while
assessing the function of them in firms’ policy and verified how they acted in execution of the
strategies [11]. Mid-level management’s top-down execution tasks have the areas to affect the
enterprise’s deliberate flow through informing the upper level management about the
assumptions of upcoming concerns with showing something innovative to handle those.
Managers elucidate ambivalent data and change the strategic lineup in a synthesizing role and
recommend unique concepts and reform the deliberate idea of upper level management; these
two are included in upward impact. The role of middle managers as change agents in downward
influence is consists of two roles- facilitating role that encourages development of other
members and nurture knowledge, and executing function in which supervisors participate in a
running arrangement of involvements to facilitate align firms’ actions with total policies [44].
The experts says that during every function mid-level managers has prospect to influence an
entire firm’s strategy mechanism through posing a challenge to the existing mindset [11].
Middle managers’ practical role in bringing change works in two different ways: they keep top
management updated with information of an appropriate environment and execute the
strategies that top management created. Recently, researchers have extended the role
regarding act, and effect of mid-level executives in formulating policy & execution method
(Floyd & Wooldridge, 1997). The fact that organization’s readiness’s to accept changes and the
change’s nature actually somewhat control the top management’s preference of choice [45].
Middle managers must influence the employees to execute top management’s desired
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strategies [11]. The execution style to influence others will be determined by managers’
capability [46]. The roles of middle managers in strategic change are summarized with
following figure:
Figure a: Role of middle managers in strategic change
Matrix of Previous Researches about the Role of Middle Managers in Strategic Change
Source Contributions Implications Variables Year and Title
Hasan et
al.,2020
Contributions to
Management Science,
innovative work
behavior, impact on
problem
identification, new
idea generation, idea
promotion and the
realization of these
ideas.
Implications on idea
comprehension,
investigative
resource dependence
theory,
organizational trust
and eco-innovations.
Strategic roles,
Strategic sense- making,
Discursive skills,
Leadership
activities and
socio-cultural
systems.
Springer
International, Mid- Level Managers in
Terms of Strategic
Role and Functions,
2020.
Rydland
et
al.,2020
Middle managers’
ability in assisting
strategic change is
significant factor to
manage the increased
pace of organizational
change successfully.
Implications on the
features of modern
organizations for the
middle managers’
roles and practices
for strategic change.
Change initiatives Middle Managers’
Role During
Strategic Change:
One Size Does Not
Fit All, Beta –
Scandinavian
Journal of Business
Research, 2020.
Lucio et
al.,2019
Middle managers can
contribute to build
customer value with
continuous and larger
Implication on the
progress of talent
and inspiring
motives of
collaborators, to
Formal capability,
Informal
capability,
‡ Creativity,
empowerment,
Reorienting the Role
of Middle Managers
for Creating Value
within the
Organization: an
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Shamima, N. (2025). Role of Middle Managers in Strategic Organizational Changes: A Conceptual Review. Archives of Business Research, 13(03). 01-
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URL: http://doi.org/10.14738/abr.1303.18394
orientation of
employees.
create new type of
surroundings for the
employees based
ethical value.
‡ Teamwork,
‡ Agent of change.
Economical, Social
and Ethical
Proposal.
Revista Empresa Y
Humanismo. 2019.
Kung,
E,2022
Middle managers, had
influence on shared
leadership in their
relationship with
management and
their engagement
with the organization.
Implications are
involving to the
middle managers,
strategic planning
and leading as well as
organizational
changes with
sensitivity to the Asia
Pacific cultural
context.
Training and
coaching business
leaders, Personal
value.
Exploring the
Leadership-As- Practice of Middle
Managers Engaged
in Organizational
Changes in Asia
Pacific Multinational
Setting.2022
Momin,
et
al.,2018
Competencies for
adding strategy
implementation,
value for middle
managers leadership,
as well as a disruptive
mindset – and while
indifferent to
interpersonal skills.
Implications for
business leaders to
alleviate the risk of
wrong selection and
develop the
probability of
achieving successful
strategy execution
outcomes.
Educational
background,
Company work
environment and
National cultural
aspects.
Identifying the
competencies of
middle managers
leading successful
strategy
implementation.
2018.
Laith et
al.,2011
Contribution to prior
studies through the
conceptual
framework, links to
holistic theory of
knowledge and
resource based-view.
Implication on the
determination of
knowledge
management,
implementation on
innovation by middle
managers is
necessary to
innovation
enhancement.
Technological
innovation,
administrative
innovation,
Radical
innovation and
Incremental
innovation.
The Role of Middle
Managers in
Knowledge
Management
Implementation for
Innovation
Enhancement, 2011.
RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
This paper is a review of relevant literature of the middle managers role in the context of
strategic organizational change, especially from change leadership perspective with the
involvement of mid-level managers. This paper is a review of relevant literature regarding
middle managers role in the context of organizational performances. From one perspective this
research will integrate the design thinking which, in literature substantially shown as abstract,
with structural changes including people, process, strategy, hierarchy etc. mostly material in
nature. This paper will also create an avenue for subsequent researches regarding the role of
mid level managers, transcending from merely perform as a link in a top to bottom approach
and, a feedback managerial role of a bottom to a top approach of organizational learning of
strategic change. Lastly, this paper will also create scope for further query regarding the
comprehensive realization of mid-level managerial talents and hence, leadership competencies
therein to bring sustainability of change efforts.
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CONCLUSION
This research is based on transformational change which is essential to understand strategic
change and adopt by the members of an organization. It focuses on the role of mid-level
supervisors to bring strategic change in an organization. In a mechanistic organization, there
are several factors such as chain of command, an operational unit, division of the labors, formal
hierarchy, detailed job instruction, vertical interaction is maintained strictly. On the other hand,
organic organizations are concerned for less chain of command, no specific job descriptions and
creative communication among the members of an organization. Transactional changes are
related with previous actions, systems, or procedures shape mechanism of works and large
scale change will relate to organizational culture, creation and people’s perception of employee
motivation. For creating a link with such changes middle managers are playing facilitator and
implementing role that align organizational actions with strategies as a whole. Although the
role as well as number of middle managers has decreased due to an excessive tendency of layoff,
reconstruction and dependency of self - management but the tasks of middle managers of an
organization will affect the strategic flow by informing the top management about the
assumptions of upcoming issues by presenting a new system. The participation of middle
managers is crucial to bring any strategic change in an organization especially for
manufacturing organization. Organizational change occurs endlessly which create new role for
middle managers in order to cope out with it. The pressure from external as well internal
modification will allow an organization to execute importance of middle managers skills.
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