Publications
Publications
- September 2023
- American Journal of Sociology
The Changing Role of Managers
By: Letian Zhang
Abstract
This study argues that the increase in middle management in recent decades was
accompanied by a major shift in managerial roles. Increased task complexity and a
new management philosophy have reduced the need for direct supervision but generated
a much greater demand for internal collaboration, leading in turn to the emergence of
a managerial class whose primary role is collaboration rather than supervision. To test
this, I analyzed a large volume of data, including millions of managerial job postings,
a large collection of managers’ resumes, job reviews written by employees, and several
unique firm-level datasets. These analyses generated three sets of findings. First,
in recent decades, the expectations of the managerial role have quickly changed, in
almost all sectors, from supervision to collaboration. Second, this new managerial role
is especially concentrated in innovation-focused firms. Finally, firms treating managers
as collaborators have a much higher proportion of middle managers than those still
treating them primarily as supervisors. Thus, accounting for changing managerial
roles could explain a significant portion of the managerial growth in recent decades.
Together, these findings suggest that the role of managers has fundamentally shifted
and that this change helps explain the growth of the managerial class.
Keywords
Citation
Zhang, Letian. "The Changing Role of Managers." American Journal of Sociology 129, no. 2 (September 2023): 439–484.