Downsizing and the hyper-effective manager: The shifting importance of managerial roles during organizational transformation

Abstract

This article describes how managerial roles change in importance during periods of significant organizational transition. An interdisciplinary approach reveals that (1) the competing values framework is a useful framework for examining this question; (2) the transformational roles increase as expected during downsizing; (3) three of four transactional roles also increase during downsizing. This last counterintuitive finding is illuminated by the interdisciplinary model developed. Overall, managers show significant evidence of hyper‐effectivity—a state of high performance that is likely to be unsustainable in the long term. Implications for human resource practitioners and researchers are discussed. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A Peek Through the Lens of the Competing Values Framework: What Managers Communicate and How

“…A riskaverse, conservative strategy often replaces risk-seeking behavior when managers are more concerned with avoiding loss (Tversky & Kahneman, 1991;Wiseman & Bromiley, 1996). It is worth noting that although the wave of mergers and acquisitions in the 1990s led to a shift in emphasis of leadership roles toward transformational and transactional roles (Belasen, Benke, DiPadova, & Fortunato, 1996;Belasen, 2000), the conditions that existed during the recent financial crash in 2007-08, were qualitatively different. Although downsizing forced companies to eliminate redundancies and increase productivity through layoffs, surviving managers needed to reorient their mind-sets and adopt new ways of thinking and doing.…”

“…Hypereffectivity is associated with unsustainable efforts to perform activities and roles relentlessly and continuously. Everything is important and nothing can be taken for granted (Belasen, Benke, DiPadova, & Fortunato, 1996). The significant increase in seven (the monitor role turned out to be bimodal) of the eight CVF roles, including the critical producer and director roles, suggested that the sample of managers studied may have become not only more effective but also what the researchers labeled as hyper-effective.…”

“…DiPadova and Faerman (1993) argued that under normal conditions managers use intelligence to better understand how their expected behaviors differ across levels. We expand on this argument by building on earlier work by Belasen et al, (1996) which examined the behavioral responses of managers to tough market conditions. Under conditions of organizational stress, downsizing, and economic turbulence, managers were found to shift their energy from personal, non-value-maximizing behaviors to performance-enhancing activities thus becoming hyper-effective.…”

“…In harsh organizational situations, however, the focus of these responsibilities may shift following an increase in emphasis on transactional roles as found in the study by Belasen et al (1996). In fact, we argue that executives and managers will have an imbalance in playing the roles and in using messages and orientations that are more appropriate to deal with (Hart & Quinn, 1993).…”

Cultura y liderazgo en la industria de la construcción chilena

“…Es decir, sabiendo el tipo de cultura dominante en alguna organización, se puede determinar el perfil de líder necesario, ya sea sus cualidades, atributos y comportamientos que debe tener para lograr efectividad en sus seguidores. Estos atributos o comportamientos de los líderes para cada una de las culturas muestran que las culturas del hemisferio superior del modelo, clan y adhocracia, tienen atributos propios de un líder transformacional, mientras que el hemisferio inferior, cultura mercado y jerárquica, tienen características de un líder transaccional (Belasen et al, 1996).…”