Article

Journal of Industrial Relations

2017, Vol. 59(2) 139–152
Line managers in ! Australian Labour and
Employment Relations Association

industrial relations: (ALERA) 2017

SAGE Publications Ltd,

Where are we now and Los Angeles, London, New Delhi,

Singapore and Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/0022185616671163
where to next? journals.sagepub.com/home/jir

Keith Townsend
Griffith University, Australia

Sue Hutchinson
University of the West of England, UK

Abstract
Interactions between line managers and subordinate employees are fundamental to the
employment relationship and, therefore, to industrial relations as a field of both study
and practice. Human resource management literature has focused on the responsibil-
ities line managers have as implementers of employment policy and practice, for exam-
ple in dealing with grievance and disciplinary matters, communication and involvement,
the application of discrimination policies, and the management of pay. Thus, it is surpris-
ing that this body of managers has been neglected in recent industrial relations research.
This article fits the theme of the special issue by providing an overview of ‘where we
are’ and sets out a research agenda of ‘Where to next?’, for the study of line managers
in industrial relations research.

Keywords
Frontline managers, human resource management, industrial relations, line managers,
management

Introduction
In the last few decades a growing body of academic literature from a range of
disciplines has focused on the increasingly important role line managers play in
shaping and managing the employment relationship, through their leadership style
and as implementers of employment policies and practices. This includes the
domains of sociology, psychology, management, organisational behaviour and

Corresponding author:
Keith Townsend, Griffith University, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Queensland, Australia.
Email: k.townsend@griffith.edu.au
140 Journal of Industrial Relations 59(2)

human resource management (HRM), but notably there is comparably limited

research focusing on line managers in industrial relations (IR) research. Theories
on social exchange, for example, found in psychology and sociology, such as
leader–member exchange and perceived supervisor support, emphasise the import-
ance of interactions between a line manager and employee which affects employees’
perceptions of organisational support, employee attitudes and work behaviours
(Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002). In particular, this relationship shapes the
levels of trust that are fundamental to co-operative relations (Boxall and Purcell,
2016). More recently the HRM literature has focused on ‘devolution’ to the line
and drawn attention to the growing and pivotal role line managers play as imple-
menters of employment policy and practice, for example in dealing with grievance
and disciplinary matters, communication and involvement, the application of dis-
crimination policies, and the management of pay. Thus, it is surprising that this
body of managers has been neglected in the recent IR research.
This article fits the theme of the special issue by providing an overview of ‘where
we are’ which starts by examining the question ‘Why line management?’, and con-
siders why it is an important area to study. Here we will discuss two methodo-
logical matters – first the origin of line manager studies and then the data collection
approaches often used – followed by a discussion on ‘managers and their work’,
which asks ‘Which managers?’ and examines the question of what has been occur-
ring in managers’ work in recent decades. The next section considers the policy
implementation role of managers, before we shift our attention to the status of
research on women in management positions. In our final section of the article, we
set out a research agenda of ‘Where to next?’, focusing on suggested themes for
future research.

Why ‘line management’?

Throughout the world, IR activity is increasingly constrained and restrained and
indeed sometimes even improved by regulation (see e.g. Howe, 2017). The ways in
which line managers at different levels interact and engage with regulation is an
important area of study, not only for the experiences of these managers, but also
for their subordinate employees and employing organisations. Over the last two
decades, more than half of the publications in the broad HR/IR fields on line
managers have come from the UK, the Republic of Ireland and Australia (unpub-
lished data collected by authors). Yet there is clear interest throughout the world,
with small numbers of publications (in English language journals) coming from
countries as diverse as India, New Zealand, Netherlands, Spain, China, Norway,
Portugal, the USA, Greece, Canada, Belgium, Taiwan, Nepal, Italy, Malaysia,
Hong Kong, Jordan, Sweden, Russia, South Korea and Chile. Clearly, there are
great opportunities to internationalise this research agenda. When we consider
methodological choices, evidence from this review suggests that researchers tend
to embrace a range of approaches, from the analysis of large-scale surveys and
national-level data (e.g. workplace industrial relations surveys in Australia and the
Townsend and Hutchinson 141

UK) to workplace studies that are both qualitative and quantitative in nature.
What is important to note though is that large-scale national surveys are often
designed to understand various aspects of employment relations and use line man-
agers as a data source. This does not necessarily equate with a strong understand-
ing of line managers’ work and their workplace experiences.
Before progressing, we must consider ‘who’ these line managers are. Floyd and
Wooldridge’s (1994: 53) well-cited definition of those who work between the ‘stra-
tegic apex and the operating core’ of the organisation aggregates a wide range of
managers operating at different levels, from frontline managers to middle and
potentially senior managers. This approach, however, ignores differences across
the management levels in terms of responsibilities, influence/power, constraints,
and changes to the role (Hales, 2005; Thornhill and Saunders, 1998; Townsend,
2013; Valverde et al., 2006). Significantly, and of relevance to this article, different
levels of managers have the potential to have different impacts on the employee
experience and the regulation of the employment relationship. In particular, front-
line managers (which includes supervisors, first line managers and team leaders)
have the potential to have the biggest impact on employees because they are in
direct and regular contact with employees and manage the larger teams (Becker
et al., 1996). The implication is that any IR research on line managers must dif-
ferentiate levels for a more nuanced explanation of the events under investigation.
IR theorists from decades past, for example Dunlop (1958), Brewster et al.
(1981), Kinnie (1986) and Purcell and Alhstrand (1994) have made managers a
key part of their analytical framework. Kinnie (1987: 463) made note some three
decades ago that there was a ‘paucity of research’ leading to an ‘ignorance of the
role of management’. Throughout the late 1990s and into this century, there has
been an increase in knowledge through the use of, as two examples, the UK-based
Workplace Industrial/Employment Relations Survey (WIRS/WERS) and the
Australian equivalent (AWIRS). Millward et al. (1998), for example, suggested
at this time that there were almost 200 publications from the WIRS prior to
1998. However, there is an important distinction to be made between research
that uses managers as a data source for what occurs in their workplaces and
that which makes line managers the focus of the research as a means to better
understand their work, experiences, the management of these employees, and the
impact these managerial employees have on the experiences of non-managerial
staff. Line managers, the work of these managers, and the management of these
managers appear to fit in a zone of neglect (Wilkinson et al., 2015).
Furthermore, line managers are not an insignificant proportion of the work-
force. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data suggest that the proportion of the
workforce employed as a ‘manager’ has hovered consistently around 8% for the
last quarter of a century (ABS, 2014). Almost 1.5 million managers in Australia are
dwarfed by the numbers in the UK of more than 3.2 million managers employed
yet at a similar proportion of 10.3% (Office for National Statistics, 2016). One
difficulty that we have here is the aggregation of data – not all managers are ‘line
managers’ and these statistics tend to encapsulate everyone, from a team leader
142 Journal of Industrial Relations 59(2)

with some, but limited, managerial responsibilities, to senior managers. Keeping

this lack of nuanced data in mind, line managers remain a significant proportion of
the Australian and UK workforce.
Over the last few decades research has focused on ‘devolution’ of HR activities
(e.g. Conway and Monks, 2010; Larsen and Brewster, 2003; Renwick, 2003) pro-
viding evidence of the ‘return of HR to the line’ (McGovern et al., 1997). In most
countries today line managers are responsible for an array of operational people-
related functions including recruitment and selection, training and development,
flexible working, performance management, conflict management, employee voice
and reward management (e.g. Hutchinson and Purcell, 2007, 2010; Larsen and
Brewster, 2003; Perry and Kulik, 2008; Renwick, 2003). Since the early years of
this century, empirical research has emerged showing line managers as key to the
HR–performance linkage by the way they deliver employment policies and prac-
tices and through their leadership behaviours (Purcell and Hutchinson, 2007;
Townsend et al., 2012). Line managers can shape employees’ perceptions of
employment practices and, in turn, employee attitudes and performance-related
behaviours and ultimately organisational outcomes. Because line managers play
a central role in the delivery of senior management’s directions, they are in a
position of influence over the majority of employees to strengthen or weaken strat-
egy and policy (Purcell and Hutchinson, 2007).

Understanding line managers’ work

In terms of detailed studies of what managers ‘do’ there are two streams of
research. First, there is the research around managerial work behaviour drawing
on the Mahoney et al. (1965) and Mintzberg (1980) traditions. These traditions see
people management duties as technical competencies that (primarily senior) man-
agers include as one element of their role. Mintzberg argued that the nature of
managerial work was highly fragmented and often interrupted. Furthermore, this
tradition pays limited explicit attention to the microcosm of line manager respon-
sibilities that is the HR/IR function of the workplace and falls into what Alvesson
and Sveningsson (2003) might refer to as the ‘extra-ordinization of the mundane’.
The second stream views line managers’ duties in HR/IR functions such as deter-
mined by their level of responsibility in such activities as recruitment, pay systems,
training and development and so on. Within this latter category some important
work in recent times comes from Hales (2005) which focused on frontline man-
agers. Hales’ findings suggest that the frontline manager was responsible for almost
50 different tasks/responsibilities including, but not limited to, planning/scheduling
work, setting priorities, checking work against procedures, giving advice, allocating
work, acting as a communication channel both upwards and downwards and
assisting with operational work. According to Hales, the supervisory core of the
frontline manager role has become increasingly important with the adoption of
more stringent controls both internal to the organisation and in relation to people
management activities and the influence of external regulatory forces. Existing
Townsend and Hutchinson 143

research would suggest that as we look at higher levels of managers, supervision of

individual employees and technical competence becomes less important than policy
and strategy design and implementation (e.g. Brandl et al., 2009; Watson et al.,
2007).
In the IR context, line managers face multiple challenges as they are themselves
‘employees’ but must also manage employees – colloquial terms like ‘piggy in the
middle’ (Hutchinson and Purcell, 2003) are often used in relation to these managers
– positions of considerable ambiguity and uncertainty (Hales, 2005). Frontline
managers in particular are subject to these tensions, expected to be the voice of
management on the one hand, and yet on the other, the champion of the team’s
interests (Boxall and Purcell, 2016), and consequently torn in their loyalties (Adler
et al., 2007). Since the 1980s, delayering has led to flatter hierarchies, squeezing out
many middle management positions (Balogun and Johnson, 2004; Hassard et al.,
2011; Worrall et al., 2004). This delayering has been motivated by a perception that
it will ‘speed up’ decision-making while commonly the result is work intensifica-
tion, heavier workloads, greater spans of control (including people management
responsibilities), closer performance monitoring and, all the while becoming some-
what of a career trap with decreased opportunities for promotions (Burke and
Cooper, 2000; Worrall et al., 2004).
Frontline managers oversee the activities of their team or department. This
requires a diverse range of skills including technical knowledge, motivational
skills, coordination and the capacity to negotiate within their circle of influence
(Bozionelos and Baruch, 2015). Managerial roles are complex and not static – some
managers are expected to empower their employees, others are expected to main-
tain high levels of control over their employees (Tengblad and Vie, 2015). Again,
context plays an important role. It is not unreasonable to hypothesise that what
may be expected of one line manager throughout economically buoyant times
might differ in times of financial contraction and constraint.

Managing policy implementation

As previously discussed, the literature points to growing line manager involvement
in the implementation of workplace-level IR policy and practice which can come in
many guises, some of which we discuss throughout this section. Practitioners and
scholars have long been interested in employee involvement and participation;
however, the arguably softer term – employee voice – is increasingly common in
our field. Two related phenomena have occurred throughout the last 40 years:
union membership has declined, and HRM has played an increasingly important
role internal to organisations. The shift from highly unionised firms has led to a
more unitarist approach to the management of employee voice (Kaufman, 2007)
and more individualised and informal voice arrangements (Townsend et al., 2013).
This means that voice becomes a managerial tool of performance management or
enhancement, rather than an opportunity for employees to ‘change rather than to
escape from an objectionable state of affairs’ (Hirschman, 1970: 30).
144 Journal of Industrial Relations 59(2)

Wilkinson et al.’s (2004: 313) study makes it clear that voice at a workplace level
is dependent upon the HRM systems in operation and therefore reliant upon the
motivations of line managers at any given time. While there is a relationship
between employee voice and power, Dundon et al. (2004: 1153) note that voice
could be seen as a ‘countervailing source of power on management’. The issues
arise for both employees and managers when the increasing desire for informal
voice over formal voice (see Townsend et al., 2013) might equate with ‘lip service’
rather than real change for the actors involved. Informal voice to a frontline man-
ager might be immediate in delivery, but there is limited research to date on its
effectiveness in utilising line management in resolving employee problems and con-
cerns. Employee voice must be managed so that it not only has an ‘instrumentally
effective’ role to play, but also holds intrinsic worth (Budd, 2004: 3).
Senior managers often blame line managers for not implementing voice mech-
anisms effectively (Fenton-O’Creevy, 1998), but from the line manager’s perspec-
tive, cynicism may lead to a lack of commitment which undermines the success of
voice schemes (Fenton-O’Creevy, 2001). It is the frontline managers (and perhaps
their immediate next-level managers) who have the least to gain and/or the most to
lose from employee voice and involvement practices (Kaufman and Taras, 2000).
Equally, though, it is evident that when managers do ‘buy in’ they can have a
positive influence over employee perceptions through including unions in change,
particularly in highly unionised industries (Bryson, 2004).
In contrast, a development in the voice literature comes from Donaghey et al.
(2011), who suggest that managers should be seen as an interest group in the
employment relationship and that their control of the availability and use of
employee voice can lead to employee silence, or unwillingness to speak up. For
line managers, the silence of employees is not necessarily a bad thing and can act in
their favour, as a lack of employee voice and employee desire for change leads to
the maintenance of the status quo for managers. Hence, it may not be simply
cynicism leading to a lack of commitment, but indeed a strategy of inaction that
will assist line managers in avoiding change that effective voice systems may force
upon them (Donaghey et al., 2011).
Line managers have also played a central role in workplace conflict for more
than a century. Montgomery (1987: 92) argues that virtually all industrial dis-
putes in late 19th-century America dealt with wages and/or abusive frontline
managers, and this notion continues in conflict management research today.
Research in Irish firms (Teague and Roche, 2012) confirms that line managers
often lack organisational support in training and performance monitoring and
lack the confidence to act independently in decision-making. There may be legal
consequences of badly handled disciplinary hearings, and workplace grievances
may escalate and require intervention from senior managers and HR specialists.
Research (see e.g. Teague and Roche, 2012) also suggests that work pressures
such as role ambiguity and work intensification indicate that a more nuanced
understanding is needed to explain the impact of these constraints and line man-
agers’ role in causing conflict.
Townsend and Hutchinson 145

Teague and Roche (2012) continue by suggesting a dual role in conflict man-
agement: first, preventing workplace conflict by mentoring and coaching to identify
employees who might be encountering workplace problems (perhaps with work
processes, or interpersonal problems) and intervening early to prevent conflict; and
second, resolving workplace conflict. Usually the focus will be at an individual
level, but it can also be collective with, for example, line managers having to
deal with the consequences of overtime bans, strikes or walkouts. Purcell goes
further, suggesting a wider role in workplace conflict ‘whether causing it, experien-
cing it, dealing with it or coping with its consequences’ (Purcell, 2014), for example
as noted in research that suggests line managers are often reported to be the per-
petrators of bullying behaviours (D’Cruz and Rayner, 2012; Einarsen and
Skogstad, 1996; Lewis, 2006). Furthermore, line managers are not only a manager
of other employees but also a subordinate, and can be in conflict in their relation-
ship with senior managers (Purcell, 2014). We would encourage more research to
understand the extent to which line managers are able to effectively manage their
already ambiguous role of employee and manager.
The growth in performance-related pay alongside the decline in collective pay
bargaining has increased management responsibility for the implementation of pay
systems and other forms of reward. Empirical studies in this area, however, are
limited, and largely confined to line managers’ influence in individual perfor-
mance-related pay, where they play a critical yet challenging role (e.g. Currie and
Procter, 2001; Harris, 2001). Hutchinson and Purcell (2007) show a much wider
involvement encompassing many aspects of reward beyond financial. This includes
recognition, flexible working, training and development opportunities, and other
intrinsic motivators such as more challenging work or more responsibility. The
study also shows a preference for more informal or unofficial forms of reward in
some organisations, particularly where pay levels were determined by collective
bargaining. For example, in one unionised distribution company, an informal
system of ‘job and knock’ applied – which allowed individuals to leave early
when a job was complete (Purcell and Hutchinson, 2007). This job and knock is a
somewhat unusual practice in modern times but common in older IR environments.
This preference of line managers for informality in dealing with issues is evident
in other IR activities (Edwards, 2000; Jones and Saundry, 2012), partly due to an
aversion to the time, cost and complexity surrounding formal procedures, but also
to a preference for relying on gut feeling and a lack of confidence in dealing with
formal procedures (Jones and Saundry, 2012; Saundry et al., 2015). A managerial-
positive reading would suggest that informal approaches allow issues to be dealt
with in a more flexible and contingent manner, allowing managers to be more
responsive to individual circumstances and the work context. However, there is
evidence to suggest a more complex situation with managers facing a ‘paradox’ of
trying to balance formal and informal aspects to policies and procedures (Harris
et al., 2002). On the one hand they face pressures to adhere to formalised (or
regulated) procedure, yet on the other there are expectations to behave proactively
and ‘nip issues in the bud’ quickly before they escalate.
146 Journal of Industrial Relations 59(2)

Line managers face additional challenges in reward management (e.g. Harris,

2001; Currie and Procter, 2001). Harris (2001) found a lack of ownership of the
processes of performance-related pay by middle managers, significant constraints
in its application and concerns about its effectiveness as a motivator. In addition, a
complex and diverse set of skills is required to effectively implement individual
performance-related pay with tasks, including the setting and communicating of
performance standards and behaviours, clarifying the aims of the scheme, making
decisions about assessment, defending these decisions and having ‘difficult conver-
sations’ with staff. We can see from this section that line managers play an import-
ant role in many areas that would be considered IR. Our next section focuses on
matters relating to women as line managers.

Women as managers
As previously discussed, research on line managers has been criticised for treating
them as a homogeneous group and differences also need to be considered between
male and female managers. In terms of percentages, the UK has more female than
male managers across all age divisions up to the 45–49-year-old age group, which is
then maintained through to the 70+ age division (Pardey and May, 2013). In
Australia, just over one-quarter (27.4%) of management positions are held by
women, and across all management levels women make up just over one-third of
positions (36.5%). When executive and senior managers are removed from the
analysis the number rises to 40%, while women comprise 48.8% of all employees.
In European countries, 33% of employees (European Working Conditions
Surveys, 2015) have a woman as their immediate line manager, although different
data collection protocols mean that we must be cautious in making accurate inter-
national comparisons.
This underrepresentation of women in many areas of management in many
countries is a complex issue resulting from demand- and supply-side factors, as
well as cultural, institutional and structural factors including organisational cul-
tures that favour masculinity and outdated organisational structures and rules,
preventing progression (Kramer, 2015; Murray, 2011). Women in management
also face more ‘hindrances and interruptions’ to their careers and thus the path-
ways along which their managerial careers develop differ from those of men
(Burke, 2007; Mainiero and Sullivan, 2005). This may account for the proportional
decline in women managers aged 45+ in the UK. Clearly, this is a complex picture
and an important area for further investigation. Questions to investigate include
the extent to which the sectors in which women managers are predominate are
neglected by these studies, and indeed, why there is a tipping point to more male
managers in the 45+ age bracket.
Another potential area for further study is on gender differences in managerial
responsibilities. In a study of Danish organisations, Brandl et al. (2009) found that
the importance assigned by female managers to people management was signifi-
cantly higher than the importance assigned to this by their male counterparts, with
Townsend and Hutchinson 147

the greatest differences in areas of staff well-being and staff development and com-
munication. A surprising finding was that male managers are least interested in
handling conflict compared to other issues. The question of whether men and
women ‘manage’ differently remains under dispute, though Konrad et al. (1997)
found minor gender differences in the approaches that Australian and US man-
agers held in their preferences to the type of managerial work they preferred to do.
Some examples of the differences found in this study include that men were more
likely to prefer decision-making, and monitoring and controlling activities, while
women were more likely to prefer desk-based work and informing activities.
Equally as important, Konrad et al. (1997) found that the differences between
the genders narrowed as managerial careers developed upward throughout the
organisational hierarchy. This article now shifts attention to the future directions
of research on the role and experience of line managers in IR.

Future directions
There is diverse research in a range of areas about line managers and their work,
yet contemporary researchers from the IR field do not tend to focus on these
managers or their work. This provides a significant area to develop a research
agenda to improve our knowledge of line managers in the modern era. While we
are somewhat guilty of it in this review piece, it is important that further research
focusing on managers does not treat them as a single, homogeneous group
(Townsend, 2014). There are many levels of line managers and indeed, many
types of line managers. For example, the managers of small firms have different
experiences from the many line managers in large firms, and franchise firm man-
agers again would face issues specific to their context. It is context that is critical in
understanding the issues that relate to line managers and their experiences and how
this influences employee experiences. As researchers we must not use context as an
excuse for not offering answers to complex problems, but equally, we must not
allow the aggregation of managers to overshadow the nuances and differences
between their experiences. Recently, Kilroy and Dundon (2015) presented a con-
ceptualisation of different frontline manager roles; similar work is required to
better differentiate the issues line managers face as both ‘the managers’ and ‘the
managed’.
More research is needed to understand the role of line managers in a range of IR
activities such as the determination and allocation of reward, redundancy, discrim-
ination and equality policies. As we mentioned earlier, line managers can often be
faced with ambiguous and/or competing responsibilities when they manage and are
managed. This is particularly the case for frontline managers and leads to some
very clear and important areas of future research. We must understand better how
managers are managed, for example what the terms and conditions of the various
levels of line managers’ employment are, how their performance is managed and
supervised by senior managers and how this impacts on line managers’ own man-
agement style. Additionally, there remain questions regarding how line managers
148 Journal of Industrial Relations 59(2)

negotiate the demands of senior managers, particularly in a context of uncertainty

of ownership, for example franchise firms (see Kellner et al., 2016) and networked
firms (see Rubery et al., 2010).
When employees step from the shop floor into their first frontline manager
position, it could be the start of an upward career path that involves many different
managerial roles. Once in this position they are faced with role conflict and ambi-
guity, where operational issues and pressures may take priority over the manage-
ment of people (Gilbert et al., 2011). While there has been some research on career
progression through internal versus external labour markets (see e.g. Grimshaw
et al., 2001), this is an area that warrants further investigation given the rapidly
changing nature of the economy (including blurred boundaries of organisational
structures in networked firms) and employing sectors in liberal market economies
like Australia, the UK and the USA.
Equally, researchers rarely examine gender when investigating line managers.
While there are some statistics available showing where female line managers are
more or less numerous than male managers, there is limited research investigating
what this means for them, their subordinates and the organisations for which they
work. In addition, it seems reasonable that males and females would be attracted to
different parts of the complex line managers’ role; further research should investigate
how this plays out in the workplace. If the Brandl et al. (2009) study is generalisable,
then perhaps there are differences in the sexes in terms of their preference for formal
versus informal processes; and does this differ across organisational contexts (e.g.
small vs large firms)? If informal decision-making relies more on management dis-
cretion and hence is not subject to formal monitoring or evaluation, this raises con-
cerns about fairness and consistency, and the fear of litigation.
In conclusion, we would argue that IR research has a great opportunity to
develop theoretical and practical insights and that managers and their work is a
legitimate area of study worthy of its own research agenda in the field of IR. The
work of managers deserves to be a research focus in IR.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication
of this article.

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Biographical notes
Keith Townsend is an Associate Professor in the Griffith Business School. He has
published six books and more than 60 journal articles in the areas of industrial
relations and human resource management, specifically in areas of EIP/voice, line
managers and employee misbehaviour. Keith balances the academic-practitioner
divide through engaging in teaching, high levels of research outputs and engage-
ment with the practitioner community.

Sue Hutchinson is Associate Professor in HRM at the University of the West of

England. Previously Sue has worked at Bath University and as industrial relations
policy advisor for the The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
(CIPD). Sue’s main research interests focus on the link between people manage-
ment and performance and the role of line managers in HRM.