common work contexts for nursery and greenhouse managers

As this study has shown FLSMs across the shop floor strongly identify more with “front-line employees” than senior management, protecting their own interests within the employment relationship via oppositional actions and disengagement. Students of managerial work overlooked the political realities of management and the contested nature of (front-line service) management work. The data also reveal a variety in actions of misbehaviour between FLSMs depending on the level of customer interaction and their mobility on the shop floor. It shows that FLSMs not only resist corporate demands, like their subordinates, but also devised practices which are similar to workers. The paper classifies these tactics using the four dimensions of misbehaviour (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1999), namely, appropriation of time work, product and identity. FLSMs, however, did not stay apathetic and have utilized tactics to oppose the increasing workload and the expansion of their role. The evidence reveals the intensification of FLSMs’ work and their feelings of pressure. This aimed for a better and deeper understanding of the research problem through understanding of the different perspectives. In total, 46 interviews took place with participants across different departments and different management levels. The paper calls on qualitative data from two case study organizations in the Cyprus food-retail sector. In order to explore front-line managers’ agency issues, the paper adopts the framework of the dimensions of misbehaviour, as developed by Ackroyd and Thompson (1999), to capture and to better describe and understand the recalcitrant agential practices by front-line managers. Challenging the assumed unitarist and “consensus” standing point in organizations it recognizes that front-line managers, similarly to their subordinates, resist corporate demands and unveils stories of “battles” and disengagement towards their role, providing a rich empirical agenda regarding managerial misbehaviour. The purpose of this paper is to revisit discussions on managerial work, seeking to re-examine the front-line service manager’s position within the service triangle, and bring forward questions of agency that remain under-developed by scholars.

Common work contexts for nursery and greenhouse managers