Ou et al. (2014), Administrative Science Quarterly

Humble Chief Executive Officers’ Connections to Top Management Team Integration and Middle Managers’ Responses

In 63 private Chinese firms, humble CEOs were linked to more unified top teams, and middle managers below them saw a more empowering climate and were more engaged, committed and better performing.

Parts of the Loop it informs

Start it close to the workSupports The middle's own weatherSupports

Read the original paper

Summary written by Unfrozen from the published abstract, then checked twice by independent reviewers against the source. Loop coding is exploratory and AI-assisted, pending human verification. Spot an error? Email info@unfreeze.us and it gets fixed.

Questions this study helps answer

What the research saysHow does change affect middle managers themselves?

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.Azambuja & Islam (2019)Middle managers at a Brazilian accounting firm saw themselves as proactive, reflective agents yet also as lacking autonomy and belonging, and routinely shifted between active mediators and mere coordination devices.Chen et al. (2018)In 113 Chinese manufacturing firms, high-commitment HR systems went with more innovative middle managers, but heavy work-family conflict weakened that link, less so where the climate made it easier to share family concerns.