What about the Middle Man? The Impact of Middle Level Managers on Organizational Learning

Researchers have explored the relationship between upper echelon leadership and organizational learning in certain settings, namely growth and consistency (Reese, 2006) Researchers continue to explore the various relationships between upper echelon leaders or top management teams (TMT) and organizational learning because the TMT are the people responsible for the allocation of resources and creating a culture that promotes employee training, employee development, teambuilding, and employee advancement. This research proposes a qualitative study in the health care and transportation fields of mid level managers. The authors seek to understand what was communicated to mid level managers during a time of change, how that impacted their attitudes, and in turn, what if any individual learning they gained during the time of change. We also seek to identify specific learning that the individual was able to share with their teams within the nontop management teams, and whether they observed those learning being put into policy by upper management. We conclude the perception of middle managers on improving organizational learning is vital to the overall concept Introduction and Literature Review Scholars and practitioners continue to argue that organizational learning is the only sustainable competitive advantage that a firm possesses. Researchers have explored the relationship between upper echelon leadership and organizational learning in certain settings, namely growth and consistency (Reese, 2006) Researchers continue to explore the various relationships between upper echelon leaders or top management teams (TMT) and organizational learning because the TMT are the people responsible for the allocation of resources and creating a culture that promotes employee training, employee development, teambuilding, and employee advancement. Further, researchers have examined the process by which strategic decisions are made (Papadakis Barwise, 1998) These researchers assume that strategic leadership is comprised of top management or upper echelon leaders. Scholars suggest that organizational learning is a key component for firms hoping to create a sustainable competitive advantage. However, many fail to understand the role they play in setting the standard for the organization (Hambrick, Humphrey, Gupta, 2013) Prior to Crossan and Hulland. (Bontis, Crossan, Hullund, 2002) TMT and organizational learning were disconnected fields of inquiry. Following their research, an opportunity still exists to understand how strategy actively manages learning to make adjustments moving forward (Crossan Berdrow, 2003) further demonstrating how strategic management theory and organizational learning remain disconnected. Given that strategic management involves deploying strategies that enable a firm to remain competitive (Porter, 1998;  2000) it would be interesting to know how strategic management theory could use the outcomes of organizational learning concepts to actively make adjustments when defining and redefining a firm's position, specifically how these interactions take place below the TMT (Tsoukas, 1996) 1 Troy University, Troy, Alabama 36082, USA. 2 Troy University, Troy, Alabama 36082, USA. 18 Journal of Management Policies and Practices, Vol. 4(1) June 2016 Some studies have focused on the impact of TMT composition and related resource deployment on firm performance (Carpenter, Geletkancz, Sanders, 2004) while others have explored individual learning impact on organizational learning (Garcia Morales, Llorens Montes, Verdu Jover, 2007) and made loose connections to how negative learning that can stifle strategic implementation (Bednall, Sanders, Runhaar, 2014; Elenkov, Judge, Wright, 2005; Narayanan, Zane, Kemmerer, 2011) What appears to be a gap, and has been called out by other researchers, is exploring the link between the individual aspects related to organizational learning, and how those interplay as both antecedent and result of strategic management (Hutzschenreuter, 2006) All this research builds on the well established concept that organizational learning occurs at three distinct organizational levels, the individual level, the workgroup level, and the overall organization level, that there are seven dimensions to organizational learning, and that organizational learning can be measured (V J Marsick& Watkins, 1996; V. J. Marsick, 2013; Watkins &Marsick, 1993a, 1993b) In all that contextualization, how middle management interacts with strategic change is absent. Other research establishes the link between how leadership creates a climate that can foster individual and organizational learning (Berson, Nemanich, Waldman, Galvin, Keller, 2006) and how that learning can evolve over a period of time in both positive and negative ways (Berends Lammers, 2010) The link to how firms can use external knowledge to renew strategies, and that internal organizational learning is important to long range planning has also been established (Jones Macpherson, 2006) but related research shows that during times where innovation demands requires flexibility between exploration and exploitation, the application of organizational learning to strategic management is inconsistent (Rosing, Frese, Bausch, 2011) Studies to understand the nature of changing demands on organizational learning and strategic management are largely focused on external pressures like changes in business climate or merger and acquisition (Narayanan et al. 2011; OReilly, 2013; Shi, Sun, Prescott, 2012) Research that has worked to understand how individual and team level learning translates into organizational learning have identified what conditions make that translation possible (Hulsheger, Anderson, Salgado, 2009) but where efforts have been made to understand how that is in turn translated into actionable strategy it has been focused on team level perceptions that prevent implementation (Huy, 2011) Much of this research points to the same opportunity. Changes in leadership behavior can cause changes in learning climate, but do internal changes in strategy trigger changes in leadership behavior, and how does individual level and organizational learning flow among non TMT team members to impact future strategy (Jansen, Vera, Crossan, 2009)