Back through the back door? On removing supervisors to reduce hierarchy

Abstract

PurposeThis article addresses why movements towards less-hierarchical organizing may be unsustainable within organizations.Design/methodology/approachEschewing hierarchy may prove sustainable if alternative forms of management are acceptable to both employees and managers accountable for those employees’ performance. Developing alternatives means dealing with the fundamentally contradictory functions of coordination and control. Through a qualitative case study of a manufacturing company that removed first-line supervisors, this article analyses how issues of control and coordination were dealt with formally and informally.FindingsRemoval of the formal supervisor was followed by workers’ and middle managers’ efforts to informally reconstruct hierarchical supervision. Their efforts to deal pragmatically with control and coordination were frustrated by formal prescriptions for less hierarchy, leading to contested outcomes. The article identifies upward and downward pressures for the hierarchy’s reconstruction, undermining the sustainability of less-hierarchical organizing.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited by the use of cross-sectional data and employees’ retrospective narratives. Future research on the sustainability of less-hierarchical organizing should preferably be longitudinal to overcome these limitations.Practical implicationsUnless organizational changes towards less hierarchy engage with issues of managerial control and upward accountability, they are likely to induce pressures for hierarchy’s reconstruction.Originality/valueThe article offers an original approach to the classical problem of eschewing hierarchy in organizations. The approach allows us to explore the interrelated challenges facing such restructuring, some of which are currently unacknowledged or underestimated within the literature.

Digitalisation and the performance measurement and management system: reinforcing empowerment

“…Middle managers have a central role in the PMM system (J€ a€ askel€ ainen and Luukkanen, 2017; Jardioui et al, 2019). Nevertheless, they have been squeezed between controlling and empowering subordinates (Ingvaldsen and Benders, 2020). To ensure control and to provide top managers with performance information, middle managers collect, analyse and report performance data from various sources or require subordinates to produce reports to ensure reliable information (J€ a€ askel€ ainen and Luukkanen, 2017).…”

Hierarchie im Spannungsfeld konkurrierender Erwartungen

“…Die faktische Realisierung postbürokratischer Arbeitsweisen in Organisationen entscheidet sich dementsprechend immer auch daran, ob die Funktionen bisheriger oder bisher gängiger Strukturen, also auch formaler Hierarchie, in der neuen organisationalen Konfiguration weiterhin sichergestellt oder substituiert werden können (vgl. Ingvaldsen und Benders 2020;Oedzes et al 2019 (Kühl 2001a, 483).…”

Validation of Supervisor Effectiveness Determinants for Engineering Team-Based Organisations

“…This has given rise to the prominence of so-called autonomous or self-managed teams. However, a recent study by Ingvaldsen and Benders [3] pointed out that the thinking that self-management replaces hierarchical management is flawed, as it ignores the crucial issues of managerial control and upward accountability. They argue that, even though the teams may be able to self-coordinate, the control of these teams requires upward accountability -hence the crucial role of team supervisors.…”