To Be and Not to Be: The Middle Management Paradox and Resistance Escalation Process During Transitions to Self-Managing Organizations

Émilie  Bourlier Bargues; Bertrand Valiorgue; Gazi Islam

doi:10.37725/mgmt.2025.9935

Émilie Bourlier Bargues Clermont School of Business, Clermont Recherche Management (CleRMa), Clermont-Ferrand, France https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1977-0972
Bertrand Valiorgue Emlyon Business School, Lyon, France https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5135-4114
Gazi Islam Grenoble École de Management, Grenoble, France https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6503-6018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37725/mgmt.2025.9935

Keywords: Post-bureaucracy, Self-managing organizations, Organizational transition, Middle managers, Resistance

Abstract

Self-managing organizations (SMO) constitute a radical attempt to avoid hierarchical control and manager–subordinate authority relationships by suppressing them outright. For existing organizations, transiting to SMO poses significant challenges, especially for middle managers who became ‘architects of their own demise’. Combining 38 interviews, direct observation over 4 years, and secondary data we show in this paper that SMO transitions expose middle managers to a paradoxical situation that led them to engage in an escalation process of resistance that culminated in the subversion of the SMO experiment. These results contribute to SMO studies by documenting transition difficulties and the middle management paradox. Our study enriches knowledge on middle managers resistance in post-bureaucratic organizational forms by documenting the boundary conditions that allow the transition from individual to collective hidden and then collective, overt, and transformative forms of managerial resistance.

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Author Biographies

Émilie Bourlier Bargues, Clermont School of Business, Clermont Recherche Management (CleRMa), Clermont-Ferrand, France

Émilie Bourlier Bargues is a professor of management and organization theory at Clermont School of Business. She is a researcher at CleRMa and a member of the Institut français de gouvernement des entreprises (French Corporate Governance Institute). Her research focuses on organizational transitions, particularly in the context of climate change, and alternative forms of governance. She has published in various international academic journals such as Human Relations and M@n@gement, as well as in French journals such as Revue française de gestion and Revue internationale PME.

Bertrand Valiorgue, Emlyon Business School, Lyon, France

Bertrand Valiorgue is a professor of strategy and corporate governance at Emlyon Business School. He is the executive director of the Institut français de gouvernement des entreprises (French Corporate Governance Institute). His research focuses on corporate governance, corporate responsibility, and the capability of firms to tackle grand challenges. His work has been published in journals such as Human Relations, Journal of Business Ethics, Business and Society, and M@n@gement.

Gazi Islam, Grenoble École de Management, Grenoble, France

Gazi Islam is professor of people, organizations and society at Grenoble École de Management. He currently serves as co-editor-in-chief of Journal of Business Ethics. His current research interests include the organizational antecedents and consequences of identity, and the relations between identity, group dynamics and the production of group and organizational cultures. His work has been published in journals such as Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Organizational Research Methods, Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Organization, Human Relations, Organizational Research Methods, The American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Business Ethics, and American Psychologist.

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