Line managers' middle-levelness and driving proactive behaviors in organizational interventions

Purpose: This paper explores line managers' proactive work behaviors in organizational interventions and ascertains how their management of their middle-levelness by aligning with the intervention, or not, influences their proactive work behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors’ findings are based on thematic analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews of university heads of departments responsible for managing organizational interventions.

Findings: The authors found that line managers engaged in a range of proactive work behaviors to implement the organizational intervention (i.e. “driving proactive behaviors”). Furthermore, line managers tended to engage in driving proactive behaviors when they aligned with the organizational intervention, but not to when unconvinced of the intervention's validity.

Practical implications: These findings highlight the importance of senior management and HR investing sufficient time and quality in the preparation phase to ensure all actors have a shared understanding of the organizational interventions' validity.

Originality/value: This is the first study to explore line managers' proactive work behaviors to implement an organizational intervention, and how the line managers' management of their middle-levelness influence these proactive work behaviors.