Managing global teams in a knowledge-intensive organization: Middle management’s perspective

Abstract

Managing global teams in today's world has become the norm for many organizations, placing middle managers in an even more important position, especially in a knowledge-intensive context. Although middle management is frequently discussed phenomena nowadays, there is a need for insights to understand middle management sensemaking of everyday activities in managing global teams in a knowledge-intensive context. In this study, qualitative research has been adopted on a single case study of software as a service (SaaS) organization inspired by grounded theory that lead to answering the research question: How do middle managers make sense of managing the global teams and consequently described the sensemaking process of middle managers through everyday activities at the case company within the framework of sensemaking theory. An in-depth qualitative case study which involved interviews and organizational documents reveals the findings that middle managers make sense of the context of an organization and it influences the perception of their role as a coach and mentor in the hierarchical organization. This results in their adopted activities during the day such as guiding and supporting, encouraging subordinate’s input, motivating and empowering employees, inclusion and communication, and encouraging knowledge sharing and learning among their teams which are beyond their managerial role and creates ways to manage global teams which in turn reduce challenges.