The Challenge of Front-Line Management: Flattened Organizations in the New Economy.

The Challenge of Front-Line Management: Flattened Organizations in the New Economy Ronald R. Sims, John G. Veres III, Katherine A. Jackson and Caroly L. Facteau Quorum Books, Westport, Connecticut, 2001 272 pages. $65.00 (Amazon) Hard cover

Sims, Veres, Jackson and Facteau provide a very well written text geared specifically to the targeted audience of front-line managers. It is a basic text that examines the challenges facing front-line managers, or FLMs, in contemporary organizations, but the book is far from being a simplistic overview or how-to-do-it manual. The authors do a highly credible job in helping FLMs understand the complexity of their management world and try to provide strategies to help them work effectively within their rapidly changing environment.

The authors see FLMs as supervisors who work with and through operating employees to establish and accomplish work-unit goals. While this perception of FLMs is fairly traditional, what sets the new breed of FLMs apart from their predecessors is organizational complexity. The rise of global organizations has increased domestic and international competition dramatically while introducing cultural and value systems that challenge traditional American management practices. The quality revolution makes the rethinking and redesign of business organizations a continuous process. New organizational forms make outsourcing, mergers and virtual organizations an everyday occurrence. Workforce diversity and changing attitudes toward work represent new challenges to retaining workers and achieving greater productivity.

The enormity of the challenge facing FLMs presents a corresponding challenge to the authors. To what extent do they provide new innovations or insights that will help FLMs succeed in this new world of management? For instance, the chapter on ethical decisions can be judged through combinations of the utilitarian, moral rights or justice approaches. Nothing said in this discussion is incorrect by any means; it just isn't particularly insightful given the challenges confronting FLMs. Similarly, they urge FLMs to be aware of their organization's ethical character, but they say nothing about how an FLM should react if the organization is unethical. Given the impersonality of global organizations, mergers, and outsourcing, organizations can often be ethically brutal. How could a well meaning FLM protect subordinates from unethical management practices? What should be an FLM's response when ordered to implement an ethically questionable order?

A similar concern can be raised about the chapter on communications. A good part of the chapter is devoted to discussing the communications process, the role of perception, and developing writing and speaking skills. This discussion is solid and well worth reading by front-line managers. What the chapter lacks is one ...