Rethinking ‘Top‐Down’ and ‘Bottom‐Up’ Roles of Top and Middle Managers in Organizational Change: Implications for Employee Support

• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12258

Rethinking ‘Top-Down’ and ‘Bottom-Up’ Roles of Top

and Middle Managers in Organizational Change:

Implications for Employee Support

Mariano L. M. Heyden, Sebastian P. L. Fourne,

Bastiaan A. S. Koene, Renate Werkman and

Shahzad (Shaz) Ansari

Monash Business School; Wilfrid Laurier University; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Kantelwerkers;

University of Cambridge

ABSTRACT In this study we integrate insights from ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ traditions in

organizational change research to understand employees’ varying dispositions to support

change. We distinguish between change initiation and change execution roles and identify

four possible role configurations in which top managers (TMs) and middle managers (MMs)

can feature in change. We contend that both TMs and MMs can play change initiation and/

or change execution roles, TMs and MMs have different strengths and limitations for taking

on different change roles, and their relative strengths and limitations are compounded or

attenuated based on the specific configuration of change roles. We subsequently hypothesize

employee support for change in relation to different TM-MM change role configurations. Our

findings show that change initiated by TMs does not engender above-average level of

employee support. However, change initiated by MMs engenders above-average level of

employee support, and even more so, if TMs handle the change execution.

Keywords: change execution, change initiation, change roles, employee support, middle

managers, top managers

INTRODUCTION

Top managers (TMs) and middle managers (MMs) rely on employee support to realize

planned organizational change (Coch and French, 1948; Huy et al., 2014). Organiza-

tional change entails ‘directing (and redirecting) resources according to a policy or plan

of action, and possibly also reshaping organizational structures and systems so that they

Address for reprints: Mariano L. M. Heyden, Monash Business School, 900 Dandenong Rd, Building N,

Caulfield East, VIC 3145, Australia (pitosh.heyden@monash.edu).

V

C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies

Journal of Management Studies 54:7 November 2017

doi: 10.1111/joms.12258

create and address technological opportunities and competitive threats’ (Teece, 2012, p.

1398). Fostering employee support is crucial for avoiding costly delays, deviations, or

even failures of intended change (Mantere et al., 2012; Niehoff et al., 1990; Yang et al.,

2010). Yet, generating support from the workforce remains an elusive target for manag-

ers involved in organizational change (Van Riel et al., 2009; Wooldridge and Floyd,

1990). This raises lingering questions about how TMs and MMs foster employee sup-

port through the roles they are expected to play in organizational change.

Change initiation and change execution are key roles of TMs and MMs in organiza-

tional change (Hales, 1986; Herrmann and Nadkarni, 2014; Pinto and Prescott, 1990).

Change initiation entails the ‘spark’ for change through activities such as identifying, articu-

lating, and outlining an opportunity for change, formulating the initial business case,

emphasizing its urgency, and securing key budgetary and resource commitments. Change

execution in turn is about realizing change plans through activities such as day-to-day

adjustments, rolling out initiatives, aligning activities with stated objectives, translating

overarching goals into periodic milestones, and giving sense and direction to change

recipients. Despite the inherent interplay between these change roles, the literature is

still divided along ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ assumptions about ‘who does what.’

Change can be conceptualized as ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’ based on the roles

played by managers across the hierarchy

[1]

(Burgelman, 1983; Raes et al., 2011). Top-

down perspectives view TMs as initiators of change (Carpenter et al., 2004), tradition-

ally portraying MMs as reluctant executors (Balogun and Johnson, 2005; Guth and

MacMillan, 1986). In turn, bottom-up perspectives (Wooldridge et al., 2008) emphasize

the pivotal role of MMs in initiating change (Burgelman, 1983; Glaser et al., 2016; Huy,

2001), but assume that TMs are not always receptive to initiatives emanating from

below (Day, 1994; Dutton et al., 1997; Friesl and Kwon, 2016; Rouleau, 2005).

Although both top-down and bottom-up streams have been illustrative, they have

largely developed in parallel and have each reinforced a restricted range of change roles

that TMs and MMs can play—with little cross-fertilization. As a result, ‘alternative’

ways in which TMs and MMs may feature in organizational change remain

undertheorized.

In this study we integrate role assumptions from top-down and bottom-up perspec-

tives in organizational change to explain employees’ dispositions towards change. We

argue that it matters who plays what role (i.e., TMs and/or MMs) and hypothesize how

employees’ dispositions towards supporting change may vary in relation to four possible

TM-MM change role configurations: Change initiated and executed by TMs (Hypothe-

sis 1), change initiated by TMs and executed by MMs (Hypothesis 2), change initiated

by MMs and executed by TMs (Hypothesis 3), and change initiated and executed by

MMs (Hypothesis 4). Our approach challenges stereotypical assumptions about change

roles in top-down and bottom-up perspectives and encourages a more comprehensive

understanding of possible ways TMs and MMs can feature in organizational change.

Taking into account the relative strengths and limitations of TMs and MMs for taking

on different roles in organizational change further elucidates why employees may vary

in their receptiveness to change.

Our approach allows us to contribute to the literature on organizational change by

(1) suggesting that change initiation and execution is not endemic to TMs and MMs

962 M. L. M. Heyden et al.

V

C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies