ILPC 2027

 There has been a long standing debate in labour process analysis on managerial work, stemming, in part, from Braverman’s argument that management itself is a labour process. Organizational research has a long lasting interest of what managers do, how and why they do it (Dalton, 1959; Hales, 1999, 2005). The classic writings on managerial work have discussed the ‘supervisory problem’ positioning supervisors and foremen within conflicted dynamics, being ‘trapped’ between labour and management (Child and Partridge, 1982). Interestingly research has re-examined these issues, and adopted the framework within contemporary capitalism and the service economy (Lloyd and Payne, 2014). Although authors argue that front-line service sector managers appear as a ghostlike in a range of managerial and critical accounts (Bolton and Houlihan, 2010), sociology of work has engaged in discussions on managerial work within services and the dynamics within the service triangular relationship. Research seems to be consistent in describing the pressures and challenges for front-line managers. The concepts of powerlessness, the lack of real autonomy, the centralized control mechanisms from the head office, and the competing demands from different actors, including senior management, employees and customers are well discussed in the literature (Bolton and Houlihan, 2010; Hales and Nightingale, 1986; Lloyd and Payne, 2014)

However, there is indeed need for further research to light the realities of managerial work on the front-line (Lloyd and Payne, 2014).  For research to be able to reflect and understand the front-line day-to-day management work, empirical studies have to explore the response of front-line managers to the daily pressures. According to Child and Partridge (1982, p.13–14), ‘it would be not fruitful to generalize about supervisors, away from the situations in which they work and research should be sensitive to the situation of work and to each supervisor’s position’. Certainly ‘the context in which we speak of [line] management becomes very important’ (Townsend, 2014; p.156). This paper argues that our understanding of the pragmatic realities of managerial work on the front-line are indeed far from clear. Limited insights are available of how front-line managers in food retailing react to the tightly controlled and intensified regime in which they work, which are driven by the sectoral dynamics, the pressures for lower cost and the intensified competition in the market (Hadjisolomou, 2015)

Drawing on qualitative research evidence from two case-study grocery retail organizations and reporting on 46 semi-structured interviews with HR managers, line managers and shop-floor employees, this paper attempts to understand the ‘battling’ and coping actions and misbehavior by front-line managers as a response to their limited authority and control from above and to the conflicting demands within the triangular customer service relationship. The evidence reveal the intensification of front-line managers’ work which includes responsibilities related to customer service, people management and generally supervising the operation of their department. This multi-tasking role is closely monitored by senior managers within an environment of direct control and classic supervision from above. Nevertheless, data suggest that front-line managers did not stay apathetic and developed practices to cope and somehow resist these pressures. Research shows incidences of appropriation of time and effort (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1999) by managers, as well as attempts to transfer tasks (such as HRM) back to the top management, either because of feelings of incompetence and/or feelings of fear to be criticized for poor performance. The paper concludes that front-line managers exhibit a form of misbehavior as a result of the tensions and contradictions within the front-line managerial service work, an argument that scholars have recognized before ((Bolton and Houlihan, 2010) but the analysis is surprisingly limited.