Bardon et al. (2017), Human Relations

Identity regulation, identity work and phronesis

At Disneyland, middle managers pushed back on a company script that put effectiveness ahead of ethics, recasting themselves as seekers of practical wisdom.

Parts of the Loop it informs

Make sense togetherMixed The middle's own weatherSupports

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Questions this study helps answer

What the research saysWhy do middle managers resist change?

Related studies

Huy et al. (2014)Over three years of a radical change, middle managers went from supporting their top leaders to mutiny as they reassessed whether those leaders were legitimate, and their emotional reactions fed rising resistance.Huy (2011)In a three-year case at a large tech firm, executives treating strategy as a purely task-focused job unintentionally stirred middle managers' group identities around tenure and language; the resulting emotions saw managers, even ones executives promoted, back or quietly brush off an initiative.Lüscher & Lewis (2008)At Lego, middle managers charged with carrying out a major restructuring struggled for meaning; reflecting jointly with researchers brought their dilemmas into view as paradoxes, and the authors set out a process for working through them.Pors (2016)In conversations at a Danish local government's strategy seminar, middle managers glimpsed darker futures behind the familiar strategy and voiced a sense that something different had to be done, though they could not say what.