The Role of Middle Level Managers in Strategic Change and Decision-Making: A Case Study of Swappie

Middle managers were overlooked and often labelled as change objectors by researchers for decades. From the 1970’s, the view on middle managers changed. They were being viewed as an important link and information providers for the decision-makers on the top of the hierarchy. Nowadays, middle management are beginning to gain recognition as important players in strategy formulation and change implementation. The aim of the research is to study the role of middle managers, in decision making and strategic change through an example of Swappie, a Finnish scale-up company that has been going through numerous strategic changes during the six years of its existence. Primary literature review indicated a vast number of opinions on the role of middle management in change, its initiation and implementation. The prejudice about middle managers being useful only as the source of information and arbitrators of change still exists. However, more and more modern researchers claim that the more middle managers are involved in the design of change, the more successful is the change. In order to understand the importance of middle managers, case study on Swappie’s RMA department was conducted. The study included qualitative and quantitative research in order to gain better understanding and context from the participants. Three participating groups (operations workers, middle managers and senior managers) were given extensive, open questions that would illuminate the views of each group on the role of middle managers in change. It has been concluded that middle managers do mainly take on the role of change implementor, rather than change actor. However, both their subordinates and seniors agree that the success of change process depends majorly on middle managers. The research contributes to the perception of middle managers, their role in the company and in change and decision-making in particular. Even though the notion of middle managers having mostly assisting and implementing role still exist, the corporate world starts to understand that middle managers are pro-active participants of change who play a decisive role in decision making process, as well as in change management