Middle management

Middle management is the intermediate management level of a hierarchical organization that is subordinate to the executive management and responsible for "team leading" line managers and/or "specialist" line managers. Middle management is indirectly (through line management) responsible for junior staff performance and productivity.^[1]

Unlike line management, middle management is considered to be a senior (or semi-executive) position as middle managers are authorised to speak and act on behalf of the organisation to line managers, junior staff and customers. Included in this level of management are division, plant and department managers.^[2]

American business historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr. argued in The Visible Hand (1977) that in the nineteenth century, Adam Smith's invisible hand was supplanted by the "visible hand" of middle management, which became "the most powerful institution in the American economy". He credited middle managers with a central importance like the inventors, empire builders, and financiers.^[3]

A 2023 study in the American Journal of Sociology found that middle management has increased over time and that the role of middle management increasingly revolves around the task of collaboration rather than supervision.^[4]