Outsourcing Problems? Middle Management May Be to Blame

CIO - Middle management just isn't what it used to be.

The old definition of a middle manager--those senior staff in charge of overseeing the details of day-to-day management and reporting to top management--is too narrow, says Leslie Willcocks, Professor of Technology Work and Globalization at the London School of Economics (LSE) and head of its Outsourcing Unit. In today's complex and global business environment, middle management is the "glue that holds organizations together," Willcocks says.

At outsourcing companies, middle managers are even more important, responsible as they are for working externally with customers and suppliers and internally with senior management. At offshore outsourcing firms, they require an ever greater mix of skills, including the ability to build virtual teams across organizational boundaries, countries and cultures. Indeed, effective middle managers at IT service providers must be simultaneously coordinators, knowledge repositories, social capitalists, and change agents, say Willcocks and Catherine Griffiths, co-founder and business development manager of the LSE's Outsourcing Unit.

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