Â鶹´«Ã½AV

A new paper by two Â鶹´«Ã½AV professors says a popular management technique may cause more harm than good. 

Published in the American Journal of Management, Tyler Burch, professor of management, and Alex Bolinger, Idaho Central Credit Union endowed professor of management, analyzed the practice of management by walking–or wandering–around (MBWA). The technique originated with Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s. At the company, managers would conduct random walk-throughs of the work area, speaking with employees about their goals and how they, as managers, could help employees achieve them. 

“HP's version succeeded because it was organic,” said Burch. “Bill Hewlett and David Packard were not required by an outside policy to walk around. They were authentically curious, enthusiastically interested in what was going on, and looking for how they could help those in their organization.”

Given the success of the practice, management by walking around has been formalized and even mandated in some businesses and industry sectors over the years. It’s this shift from an impromptu conversation to a shall-do that Burch and Bolinger say can cause issues by stifling employee voice; it’s what they define as “employees’ discretionary communication of work-related ideas, suggestions, or concerns.”

“When MBWA is made formal or 'ritualized,’ the employee being contacted can see this process as 'corporate theater’ with little meaning behind it,” Bolinger said. “Worse, managers can reinforce this lack of meaning or purpose because they see the goal as being able to report that they have complied with the policy rather than doing so out of a sincere curiosity to understand. A famous management practice has great merit when done the way HP or Sam Walton would do it, but loses its utility quickly when managers and employees are required to engage rather than doing so of their own free will.”

Their paper is more theory-driven than data-driven–a common practice in the management research space–and Burch and Bolinger analyzed more than 100 sources on management by walking around, employee voice, formalized workplace practices, and more to develop their theory. The paper also points towards more data-focused ways that researchers in the field could take their lines of inquiry. 

“Our hope with the paper is that management researchers and practitioners will be more nuanced in their assumptions regarding MBWA and how to execute it,” Bolinger said. “We also hope that it will spur more research on how formalized organizational ‘rituals’ may not always be as beneficial as once believed.”

“The main takeaway for organizations is to beware of trying to use policy and formalization as a substitute for good management,” Burch said. “Good managerial practice cannot be automated or dictated. Rather, organizations should create an environment that attracts and supports good managers and management practices, such as MBWA, without over-programming those practices.”