Leading through Change: How Middle Managers Construct and Enact their Roles in Organisational Change
(2025) MGTN59 20251Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- In a constantly evolving world, continuous development is more critical than ever—particularly when it comes to effectively leveraging one of an organisation’s most valuable assets: its people. Amid ongoing organisational transformation, middle managers play a pivotal yet often underexplored role in enabling change. Positioned between senior leadership and frontline employees, they must continuously interpret, adapt, and perform their roles to meet shifting demands. This thesis investigated how middle managers construct and enact their roles during organisational change. By understanding how these roles are perceived and performed, organisations can better harness middle management to support successful and smooth transitions. Through... (More)
- In a constantly evolving world, continuous development is more critical than ever—particularly when it comes to effectively leveraging one of an organisation’s most valuable assets: its people. Amid ongoing organisational transformation, middle managers play a pivotal yet often underexplored role in enabling change. Positioned between senior leadership and frontline employees, they must continuously interpret, adapt, and perform their roles to meet shifting demands. This thesis investigated how middle managers construct and enact their roles during organisational change. By understanding how these roles are perceived and performed, organisations can better harness middle management to support successful and smooth transitions. Through qualitative case study involving semi-structured interviews with middle managers at Tetra Pak, this study provides in-depth insights into the dynamics of role construction in a real-world change initiative. The findings suggest that role creation is highly situational and context-dependent. Middle managers navigate dual demands from both senior leadership and their teams, shaping their sense of position and responsibility. Most importantly, their roles were not fixed but continually evolved—driven by ongoing interpretation, relational negotiation, and adaptive leadership. These insights underscore the importance of supporting middle managers not only in executing change, but in making sense of it. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9206932
- author
- Larsson, Isabelle LU and Arvidsson, Josefine LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MGTN59 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Organisational Change, Middle Managers, Role Construction, Role Enactment, Change Leadership, Sensemaking
- language
- English
- id
- 9206932
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-30 14:40:55
- date last changed
- 2025-06-30 14:40:55
@misc{9206932,
abstract = {{In a constantly evolving world, continuous development is more critical than ever—particularly when it comes to effectively leveraging one of an organisation’s most valuable assets: its people. Amid ongoing organisational transformation, middle managers play a pivotal yet often underexplored role in enabling change. Positioned between senior leadership and frontline employees, they must continuously interpret, adapt, and perform their roles to meet shifting demands. This thesis investigated how middle managers construct and enact their roles during organisational change. By understanding how these roles are perceived and performed, organisations can better harness middle management to support successful and smooth transitions. Through qualitative case study involving semi-structured interviews with middle managers at Tetra Pak, this study provides in-depth insights into the dynamics of role construction in a real-world change initiative. The findings suggest that role creation is highly situational and context-dependent. Middle managers navigate dual demands from both senior leadership and their teams, shaping their sense of position and responsibility. Most importantly, their roles were not fixed but continually evolved—driven by ongoing interpretation, relational negotiation, and adaptive leadership. These insights underscore the importance of supporting middle managers not only in executing change, but in making sense of it.}},
author = {{Larsson, Isabelle and Arvidsson, Josefine}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Leading through Change: How Middle Managers Construct and Enact their Roles in Organisational Change}},
year = {{2025}},
}