The Direct and Interactive Effects of Middle and Upper Managerial Quality on Organizational Performance

This article presents an empirical study of the effect of middle manager quality on organizational performance. Using 6 years of data from more than 1,000 Texas school districts, the author finds that quality middle managers positively impact performance. In exploring the relationship between quality middle and upper managers, she finds that their interaction leads to improved organizational performance. This article makes two contributions to the public management literature. First, it introduces a measure of middle manager quality that allows researchers to explore the ways middle managers affect organizational performance. Second, the findings reveal that public management research has underestimated the impact of management.