Change in Tightly Coupled Systems: The Role and Action of Middle Managers

Book chapter, 2020

The literature on organizational change has long acknowledged the need to
balance stability and economic efficiency with the need to be flexible and to
change. Authors, certainly in the dynamic capabilities tradition but also in
other perspectives, have stressed the importance of more open and loosely
coupled systems to promote adaption. However, many organizations do not
operate on such premises but rather rely on creating efficient business units
through tight coupling, building strict social and administrative control, and
jointly relying on common systems. In this study, we conduct 46 interviews
with employees from three different retail organizations to investigate how
units in such tightly coupled systems change within the framework of the set
standards. Through contrasting the characteristics of high and low functioning
units, we identify three mechanisms that seem to enable the units to successfully
and repeatedly realign and establish new configurations. We conclude
that the orchestrator of all three realignment mechanisms is the middle
manager, and we discuss the middle manager’s role and the different activities
that enable a successful realignment.