LEVELS OF MANAGEMENT

Submitted by
AAYUSH
Division: A Roll No: 15010224001 Class: BBA LLB
Of Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA
Symbiosis International University, PUNE
In
OCTOBER, 2015
Under the guidance of
Prof. Sweta Saurabh,
SLS-NOIDA

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CERTIFICATE
The project entitled "Levels of Management" submitted to the Symbiosis Law
School, NOIDA for Business Studies I as part of Internal assessment is based on my
original work carried out under the guidance of Prof. Sweta Saurabh, Assistant
Professor, SLS-NOIDA from August 2015 to October 2015. The research work has
not been submitted elsewhere for award of any degree.
The material borrowed from other sources and incorporated in the thesis has
been duly acknowledged.
I understand that I myself could be held responsible and accountable for
plagiarism, if any, detected later on.

Signature of the candidate:

Date:

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Acknowledgements
I take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude and deep regards Prof Prof.
Sweta Saurabh for her exemplary guidance, monitoring and constant
encouragement throughout the course of this thesis.
The blessing, help and guidance given by her time to time shall carry me a long way
in the journey of life on which I am about to embark.

I also take this opportunity to express a deep sense of gratitude to Dr C.J.Rawandale

for his cordial support, valuable information and guidance, which helped me in
completing this task through various stages.

I am obliged to staff members of Symbiosis Law School, Noida for the valuable
information provided by them in their respective fields. I am grateful for their
cooperation during the period of my assignment.

Lastly, I thank almighty, my parent, sisters and friends for their constant
encouragement without which this assignment would not be possible.

Thanks to all!

INDEX

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S.No

Topic

Page No.

Introduction

Literature review

Objectives of the study

Research methodology

Analysis and discussion

Limitation of this study

11

Future scope of this

study

11

Conclusion

11

Reference

12

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INTRODUCTION
The term Levels of Management refers to a line of demarcation between various
managerial positions in an organization which is the selected project topic. The
number of levels in management increases when the size of the business and work
force increases and vice versa. The level of management determines a chain of
command, the amount of authority & status enjoyed by any managerial position. The
levels of management can be classified in three broad categories:
1. Top level / Administrative level- It consists of board of directors, chief
executive or managing director. The top management is the ultimate source of
authority and it manages goals and policies for an enterprise. It devotes more
time on planning and coordinating functions.
2. Middle level / Executor - The branch managers and departmental managers
constitute middle level. They are responsible to the top management for the
functioning of their department. They devote more time to organizational and
directional functions. In small organization, there is only one layer of middle
level of management but in big enterprises, there may be senior and junior
middle level management.
3. Low level / Supervisory / Operative / First-line managers - Lower level is
also known as supervisory / operative level of management. It consists of
supervisors, foreman, section officers, superintendent etc. According to R.C.
Davis, Supervisory management refers to those executives whose work has to
be largely with personal oversight and direction of operative employees. In
other words, they are concerned with direction and controlling function of
management.
This topic comes under the category of "management" and appeals to me due to its
broad spectrum and wide reach. It would be extremely interesting to decipher the
coherence existing among the multifarious chains of commands through this project,
and to illustrate the innovative and changing scenario witnessed that is in contrast to
the traditional business structure. This will be a secondary research paper and would
exemplify the innovative and avant-garde methodologies practiced around the varied
business structures. Issues such as lack of "leaders" ,in the truest sense of the word,
at different levels of management is experienced quite often. Also, simple issues like
failure to implement any organizational goal due to the fault of manager are also quite
prevalent.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

Anneloes (2011) presents a model that conceptualizes the link between

adjacent organizational echelons of top and middle management and also draws
our attention to the unique functions of the adjacent organisational tiers of top
and middle management. It has also been stated that an that for a successful
strategy formation there should be constant variations regarding
implementation of strategy. Another significant inference is that top level
management places the information from middle managers. TMT's and middle
managers role as well as behaviour affect the cognitive flexibility and integrative
bargaining during the interconnection period. The implementation provides a
housing for trust within the interface of TMT's and middle managers.

Wolfgang Staehle & Frank Schirmer ( 1992 )opined that economic,

technological, and socio-political factors have induced firms to formulate new
strategic aims and to secure the implementation through functional policies with
respect to low level and middle level managers. Low and middle level managers
are regarded as valuable human potential by firms, a potential that is
indispensable in order for a firm to be able to cope successfully with future
problems. It also has been stated that there is no generally valid demarcation
between "lower-level," "middle-level" and "top-level" management. It was also
found out that most of the firms were striving for a flatter, less drastic hierarchy,
with a view toward adapting organization to the changed situation. The view is
heard in some cases that the elimination of one
hierarchic level could combat incrustation in bureaucratic structures.

Robert and Jia (2015) brought forward the importance of enhancing team prosocial motivation and in line with their results and stated that showing concern
for others may bring about smoother interactions and more effective
cooperation within the team. In order to build effective team outcomes,
management should guide pro-socially motivated team members to coordinate
their tasks, facilitate smooth task allocation, reduce dysfunctional conflicts, and
build strong interpersonal ties. Management interventions, such as increasing
the job impact of the team on potential beneficiaries, increasing the
opportunities for interactions with potential beneficiaries of their work, leading
by example, and introducing members with high pro-social motivation to the
team.

Nicola Burgess and Graeme Currie(2013) have studied the aspect of hybrid
middle level managers and examined their ability to combine their expertise of
professional and organizational knowledge gained within the organization as
well as the knowledge gained from exogenous sources. Then the knowledge of
brokering role of hybrid MLMs represents their central contribution to both the
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development, and the implementation, of strategic change, but the enactment

of the role doesn't come without challenge and we need to consider
contingencies around this brokering role of MLM.

PHILIPPE JACQUART & JOHN ANTONAKIS(2015) have measured the impact of

charisma of top level leaders on the basis of rhetoric tactics and concluded that
although the effects of charisma were quite strong, they should be lower-bound
and the estimates made a relatively strong case for external validity, it could
only be assumed that inferential and attributional processes drove these results.
Also, Experimental evidence, using high-fidelity video material, provided further
evidence that charisma matters much more in conditions of attributional
ambiguity than in conditions in which performance signals of the leaders
organization are clearly positive or negative. Their findings also shed light on
charisma per se in situations that may or may not be characterized as
a crisis.

MASSIMO G. COLOMBO & LUCA GRILLI (2013) argued in favour of middle

managers with respect to their functional expertise in wide domains and also
analyzed the transition from a two-layered organization composed only of
owner-managers and line workers to a three-layered one including a middlemanagement level to imply that in accordance with the information processing
stream, that the opportunity cost of owner-managers time has a positive
crucial effect on the creation of a middle-management level in entrepreneurial
ventures. It was also indicated that when the appropriability regime is tight,
firms are protected from innovation-related competitive pressures.

Caughron & Mumford (2011) asserted that a leader's superior can have a
complex effect on the flux of his leadership. It was believed that participant
sense making was higher when their superior emphasized low levels of
individual (or personal) consequences but the general suggestion accepted was
that a leader can have a positive as well as negative effect i.e. promotion or
hindrance to confidence depending on the situation.

Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman (2014) analyzed a competency model for
leadership development by contemplating the idea that at different points in
their development, potential leaders need to focus on excelling at different
skills. It is extremely surprising to find that the skills people reported needing
depended not only on their level in the organization but also on the job they
held and their particular circumstances.Eventually,it was concluded that there is
some logic to focusing on distinct competencies at different stages of
development. But, more fundamentally, it shows us that there are a set of skills
that are critical to you throughout your career.

Batohi (2014) replicated the variability of team composition and its

implications the findings highlight the prevalence and importance of within-team
dynamics with particular reference to sub-group interaction. It is shown that
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spontaneous, informal sub-group formation is a common and constructive

feature of management team functioning. This calls for a reconceptualisation of
management teams to acknowledge that they are not indivisible units of
analysis.

Andersson & Asplundh(2014) evaluated the efficacy of an ACT-based

Smartphone treatment among middle managers at medium- and large-sized
companies (>50 employees) in Sweden. . In conclusion, the study indicates that
a Smartphone administered stress intervention based on ACT can reduce
perceived stress and increase general health among Swedish middle managers
in the private sector.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

This project looks at:
the already existing forms of interaction between the different levels of

management and dwells into the impact of leadership.

Moreover, it is also aimed at finding out about the competency of new and

innovative techniques of business structures

Whether they are effective enough to supplant the traditional conventional
forms/levels of management and the overflowing chains of commands.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This project involves research and analysis of existing research work and data, hence
replicating a "secondary research methodology". The data abstraction sources
include previous research papers on related topics as well as articles and journals.
The project is aimed at following and examining the large scale trends experienced in
our society. Further this project looks at the topic in an objective manner using tables
and statistics to quantify the information and could be considered as having a
"quantitative character".

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Clustering of Management Control Systems :
MCS are systems for influencing human endeavour within the firm (Flamholtz, Das,
and Tsui, 1985;Langfield-Smith, 1997). Commonplace examples include planning
systems, budgeting systems, human resource systems, career planning systems,
project monitoring systems, and cost accounting systems. Simons (1995) argues that
formal performance measurement systems may be used in either a diagnostic or
interactive manner. The difference lies in the amount of personal attention they
receive from top managers. Interactive control systems are systems which top
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managers use to involve themselves regularly and personally in the decision

activities of subordinates (Simons, 1995: 95).

Roles Guide Top Management Team and Middle Managers

Behaviour:
Role behaviour can be described as the recurring actions of an individual,
appropriately interrelated with the repetitive activities of others so as to yield a
predictable outcome (Katz & Kahn, 1978: 189). Role behaviours of the TMT and MMs
are not static but evolve over time, because the actors evaluate their own
role behaviour and that of the other party against their role expectations (Katz &
Kahn, 1978;Turner, 1990) When the interaction is not adequately managed, or when
insufficient episodes of interaction exist, TMT and MM role behaviour can be expected
to become misaligned, which leads, for example, to MMs becoming less involved in
their strategic role and paying more attention to their roles in their own organizational

units.
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Strategic role of hybrid Middle Level Managers:

Debate about the strategic role of MLMs in healthcare organizations derives from
private sector concern about their value, with an increasingly competitive global
environment driving delayering of their numbers from the late 1970s
onwards (Burrell, 1996; Drucker, 1988; Kanter,1989; Peters 1987, 1992; Peters and
Waterman,1982; Wheatley, 1992). In short, hybrid MLMs influence strategy in a
downward manner, convergent with senior management plans, but also exert
strategic influence upwards and divergent from senior management plans.

DEMARCATION PROBLEMS :

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Since there is no generally valid demarcation between "lower-level,"

"middle-level" and "top-level" management, the conceptual limitations are shown.

The premise for outline between the upper-and middle level administration is the
legitimate meaning of an administrative representative. Since administration
capacities are at times obviously practiced in the staff area, all staff members with
obligation regarding work force administration are delegated middle level
administration as per the above definition. Lower-level administration is confined to
workers with one and only various levelled level under them.

LIMITATION OF THIS STUDY:

Although through this project i have tried to bring forward a true picture regarding
the objectives which i wanted to seek but still i would like to state certain factors
which would mitigate its brevity and propounding effect. They are :

Impact limitation - This project is generalized in the sense that it does not take
account of any particular regional area and thus its validity may not be
established in certain areas.
Limited to electronic medium-The crux of this research is build upon journals
and articles available through the online library. I was unable to discover
specific books in the college library which would have enabled me to include
more robust and substantial analysis of the research.

FUTURE SCOPE OF THIS STUDY:

The findings of the present conceptual considerations presented could contribute to a
common understanding, both initially, among an organization's members and
encourage the devising of ways to develop personnel policy practice.

" Why do some entrepreneurial ventures rapidly switch from flat organizations
composed of owner managers and line workers to deeper organizations that
also include a middle-management level?"
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Issues pertaining to foretasted question to test the predictions of different streams

of the theoretical economic literature on organizational design could be explored
further and questions such as

"how MCS might affect the development of new ideas and initiatives within the
firm?"

need to be answered with the help of further research endeavours.

Conclusion:
This project tries to obviate the existing relationship chains between the so called
different "levels of management" and is aimed at presenting the changing code of
conduct between the established and orthodox managerial positions in an
organization. Specifically, in order to build effective team outcomes, management
should guide prosaically motivated team members to coordinate their tasks, facilitate
smooth task allocation, reduce dysfunctional conflicts, and build strong interpersonal
ties. The findings of the current research suggest several promising research
directions for further enriching our knowledge of the role of pro-social motivation
in teams. Researchers have emphasized the need for exploring the black box of the
relationship between middle level and top level management.

REFERENCES
1. Andersson & Asplund- Article -In Internet Interventions - "The application of
information technology in mental and behavioural" July 2014 1(3):95-10
Publisher - Elsevier B.V. ISSN- 2214-7829
2. ANNELOES - " THE INTERFACE OF THE TOP MANAGEMENT TEAM AND MIDDLE
MANAGERS:A PROCESS MODEL" Academy of Management Review 2011, Vol.
36, No. 1, 102126.
3. Batohi, S- " An enhanced conceptualisation of management teams : adaptive,
self-adjusting teams that interact at multiple levels of analysis " South African
Journal of Business Management, Dec 2013, Vol 44, Issue 4, p. 77-89 ISSN20785585
4. Caughron & Mumford - Article - In The Leadership Quarterly June 2012
23(3):342-353 " Embedded leadership: How do a leader's superiors impact
middle-management performance?" ISSN -1048-9843
5. Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman - "The Skills Leaders Need at Every Level" Harward business review.
6. MASSIMO G. COLOMBO & LUCA GRILLI -" The Creation of a Middle-Management
Level by Entrepreneurial Ventures: Testing Economic Theories of Organizational
Design" - Journal of economics and management cycle
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7. Nicola Burgess and Graeme Currie - "The Knowledge Brokering Role of

the Hybrid Middle Level Manager the Case of Healthcare" British Journal of
Management, Vol. 24, S132S142 (2013)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12028
8. PHILIPPE JACQUART & JOHN ANTONAKIS - "WHEN DOES CHARISMA MATTER
FOR TOP-LEVEL LEADERS? EFFECT OF ATTRIBUTIONAL AMBIGUITY" Academy of
Management Journal 2015, Vol. 58, No. 4, 10511074
http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2012.083
9. Robert and Jia- "MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE TEAMWORK: LINKING
TEAM PROSOCIAL MOTIVATION TO TEAM PROCESSES AND EFFECTIVENESS"
Academy of Management Journal 2015, Vol. 58, No. 4, 11021127.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2012.1142
10.
Wolfgang Staehle & Frank Schirmer- Book-"Lower-Level and Middle-Level
Managers as the Recipients and Actors of Human-Resource Management"
International Studies of Management & Organization Vol. 22, No. 1, Changes
Affecting Middle Managers in the EC (Spring, 1992), pp. 67-89

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