Practices by middle managers implementing management innovation

Abstract

Management innovation is a fundamental type of innovation aimed at driving internal change within an organization’s operations affecting operational level processes and ways of working. Organizations implement management innovation in hopes of gaining a competitive advantage, utilizing resources more effectively, or discovering new approaches to existing processes and operations.

Prior research on management innovation has largely overlooked the perspective of middle managers, with most studies focusing on top management and their innovation adaptation-decision making. Moreover, previous research has concentrated on a single field, organization, or specific type of management innovation. Hence, this study aims to broaden the understanding of middle managers’ contribution to the implementation of management innovations by adopting a wider perspective. To achieve this, interviews were conducted with multiple middle managers from various medium- to large-sized Finnish organizations, providing a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon at a general level.

The findings indicated that in management innovation implementation, middle managers play a visible role. Middle managers’ contributions and practices are particularly prominent during the early stages of the implementation process, due to their responsibility to translate strategic vision and justify the implementation process. The findings demonstrate that these early steps, and specifically how management innovations are communicated throughout an organization, significantly influence the overall effectiveness of the innovation.

In general, this study contributes to the existing research on management innovation and middle managers’ commitment to the implementation process by proposing additions to current theories, such as culture and environment building, as well as practices for overcoming hindering factors. In addition to acting as communicators, middle managers were noted as key implementors and to hold the responsibility of sensemaking, translating and justifying top management’s innovation adaptation-decisions to the operational level. Moreover, middle managers’ close relation with the operational level was recognized as middle managers faced implementing obstacles. The enhanced understanding and knowledge were seen affecting middle managers’ practices in which managers communicate about the management innovation to the operational level.