Empowerment of the middle management: Insider action research at the family business of an audio production house

• Main Author: Salibio, Melody D.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/4711
• Institution: De La Salle University

In this study, I aim to do an action research on the empowerment of the middle management at the family business of an audio production house. Specifically, I determined the present authority and command responsibility of middle managers in terms of their competence, confidence, and influence with the aid of an interview based on the companys standardized procedure for employees. I collected data from 12 employees and four non-employees under study. I used the interviews result to determine the extent of middle management empowerment in the organization using the authority versus power (Robbins, et al., 2013, p. 160) and types of employer control in small firms (Goss, 1991:73) frameworks. My findings reveal that the informal office set-up based on the key implementers personal values have affected both the aptitude and communication skills of everyone in the company. My results likewise established the need and nature of interventions needed to empower the middle managers through four future interventions, first, human resource must formalize the training program for everyone in the organization including the top management, second, there must be a values and spirituality formation except from the regular recreation to further enhance the etiquette of everyone, third, employees manual must be revised soon, therefore, the VP-Finance who is responsible to modify it must be reminded constantly, and four, there must be an organizational transformation involving the owners to make them realize on how to run and understand their business using the three-systems in family business (Taguiri and Davis, 1996). Using action research and case study approaches anchored on the insider action research framework of Coghlan and Brannick (2014), trainings and seminars, and recreation interventions were implemented with the support of the business owners and initiative of employees to address the issue. These interventions include trainings and seminars on secretarial works, customer service, collection and receivables, sales and taxation, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) rulings for the marketing and accounting personnel, and music production for production assistants and sound engineers. I monitored the impact of interventions in terms of work performance and relationship among participants and the researcher. I observed that the change occurred in aspects related to their aptitude and personal communication with each other. It was also found out that the business owners must allow their middle managers to have authority they need and support their decision-making to perform effectively; they must also encourage the rank-and-file to respect the position of the middle managers by discouraging the direct reporting to them that would probably lessen the negative behaviour inside the organization.