MIDDLE MANAGEMENT DOWNSIZING - AN EMPIRICAL-INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Nearly all Fortune 1000 firms claim to have downsized since the early eighties, and it is argued that information technology (IT) is respons ible for this massive downsizing. However, earlier research has indica ted that IT increases middle management. Even though the impact of IT on the middle management workforce has been studied for the last thirt y years, research has failed to clearly explain this phenomenon. Quite the opposite, research has fueled controversy and has provided incons istent findings. This article addresses the state of inconsistent find ings across multiple studies by examining the impact of information te chnology on the number of middle managers using two additional variabl es: the degree of centralization of organizational decision authority and the degree of centralization of computing decision authority. One hundred and fifty-five city governments were surveyed. Information tec hnology was found to be both positively and negatively associated with the size of the middle management workforce. The impact of informatio n technology was fundamentally determined by who controlled computing decisions and what interests were being served, and by the roles of mi ddle managers. Information technology was associated with a decrease i n the size of the middle management workforce in organizations with ce ntralized decision authority and with an increase in the number of mid dle managers in organizations where decision authority was decentraliz ed.