Review by Choice Review
The authors, UK academicians, provide an extensively researched, detailed account of the intensification of work for middle managers in the US, the UK, and Japan. They conducted interviews and collected information from more than 250 executives, managers, and supervisors from a variety of industries. They also relied extensively on findings in published studies. Their analysis of primary data and the findings from other studies are synthesized in this work. They argue that organizations have reorganized and restructured in the past decades and continue to do so today. This restructuring moves companies toward flatter, less hierarchical, and more complex systems, resulting in middle-level managers who are overworked, more stressed and anxious, and generally less secure in their employment, and who sacrifice much to put company interests before their own. Throughout the volume, the authors provide examples and other evidence to support their main thesis. Although not optimistic that this situation will change, they do suggest good business reasons for supporting changes to improve the work circumstances of middle managers. See related, Paul Osterman's The Truth about Middle Managers (CH, Oct'09, 47-0958). Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections. J. J. Bailey University of Idaho
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
