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The changing nature of managerial skills, mindsets and roles: Advancing theory
and relevancy for contemporary managers
Robert Laud, Jorge Arevalo and Matthew Johnson
Journal of Management & Organization / FirstView Article / December 2015, pp 1 - 22

DOI: 10.1017/jmo.2015.48, Published online: 07 December 2015
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Journal of Management & Organization, page 1 of 22
© 2015 Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management
doi:10.1017/jmo.2015.48
The changing nature of managerial skills, mindsets and roles: Advancing theory and
relevancy for contemporary managers
ROBERT LAUD*, JORGE AREVALO* AND MATTHEW JOHNSON**
Abstract
Management research has been challenged by the altering realities of organization life, job roles,
and individual motivations that have long guided traditional theoretical thinking. The classical
frameworks regarding managerial performance requirements have been largely based upon
organizationally driven underpinnings. We propose a cognitive shift suggesting that individually
driven roles and desires are impacting the relevancy of conventional job requirements. Our study
analyzes the utilization of managerial skills, mindsets, and roles as perceived by 259 executives
representing nine industries and ~200 organizations. The results reveal that the interpretation and
application of managerial roles are primarily influenced by the individual’s intentions rather than
adherence to the current organizationally based theoretical taxonomy as taught by many business
schools. These findings illuminate the gap between the vast amount of effort researchers and
educators have expended on taxonomic precision and its questionable relationship to organizational
and individual learning and effectiveness. The theoretical and practical implications of these
findings are discussed along with recommendations to extend the current research.
Keywords: management education, management effectiveness, managerial competencies
Received 14 November 2014. Accepted 27 October 2015
INTRODUCTION
R esearchers have provided abundant evidence that content knowledge alone is not sufficient for
hierarchical success, that is, job advancement or upward promotion, but rather some unique
combination of various capabilities and personality factors (Boudreau, Boswell, & Judge, 2001;
Tharenou, 2001; Ng, Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2005; Yukl, 2012). However, other researchers have
lamented the deficiency of empirical and applied research that clearly defines the relationship between
managerial roles and context (Tett, Guterman, Bleier, & Murphy, 2000; Dierdorff, Rubin, &
Morgeson, 2009). This reinforces the argument for relevancy as opposed to esoteric scholarship and
research in the debate within the business school community, which has raged for some 60 years
(Porter & McKibben, 1988; Bennis & O’Toole, 2005; Navarro, 2008; Rubin & Dierdorff, 2009;
Benjamin & O’Reilly, 2011; Paton, Chia, & Burt, 2014). Although the interplay between roles,
capabilities, and context has been highly beneficial from a broad theoretical perspective, these studies
have largely ignored the application of findings for management learning in meeting the needs of
* Department of Marketing and Management Sciences, Cotsakos College of Business, William Paterson University,
Wayne, NJ, USA
** Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY
Corresponding author: laudr@wpunj.edu
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 1

today’s practising managers or MBA’s who are soon-to-be world real practitioners. A central question
remains in how to view the relevance of known work role requirements that are taught in business
schools so as to expand our practical and theoretical understanding of how they may impact individual
performance requirements and are requisite to managerial success (Fells, 2000; Dierdorff, Rubin, &
Morgeson, 2009; Perriton & Hodgson, 2012; Yukl, 2012). In this study, we analyze the
conceptualization and utilization of managerial roles as perceived by contemporary managers repre-
senting some 200 US companies and spanning a variety of industries. Our empirical approach
investigates whether existing role taxonomies taught in business schools hold relevancy and practicality
for contemporary managers. We also investigate the foundational parameters of managerial roles as
related factors that may influence managerial engagement and ultimately organizational performance.
Some scholars have convincingly argued and provided corroborating evidence that many of these
role requirements, with minor variations, were identified over a century ago and are essentially the same
(Schor, Seltzer, & Smither, 1995; DuBrin, 2012). This does not mean, however, that the relevancy of
these factors has also remained static during this timeframe, and by relevancy, we refer to the actual
practice of management. Although the overarching taxonomies may appear stable, the additional
voluminous refinements and omnibus contextual considerations suggest that the level of relevance for
managerial roles and requirements would also fluctuate over time (Dierdorff, Rubin, & Morgeson,
2009). Despite this acknowledgment, it is disappointing that there is little research that evaluates these
theoretical, yet seminal models taught in most business schools despite the extensive requests for more
clinical or practical models (Fells, 2000; Yukl, 2012). It is here where our study makes a departure. We
take the challenge and contribute to the existing taxonomies by examining the traditional and generally
accepted managerial domains that include: roles, skills, and mindsets (Mintzberg, 1973; Dubrin, 2012)
and test their perceived relevance in today’s practising managers. Specifically, this study seeks to:
(1) explore the extent to which contemporary managers behave or align with these generally accepted
classical taxonomies; (2) offer empirical insight into levels of engagement based on newly found
groupings of managerial role relevancy; and (3) gain a deeper understanding and practical insight into
managerial performance requirements. To this end, our study explores managerial roles in the context
of role taxonomy education and promulgation of these well-known and long-enduring managerial
taxonomies.
There is, undoubtedly, a need for revising theoretical managerial research as organizations have
become more competitive and confusing entities (Fells, 2000; Dierdorff, Rubin, & Morgeson, 2009).
However, immediate practicality appears not to be the central focus of most business schools, nor is it
an orientation widely distributed in otherwise well-intentioned faculty (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005;
Benjamin & O’Reilly, 2011; Hughes, Bence, Grisoni, O’Regan, & Wornham, 2011). This is an
interesting contradiction in that business schools appear not to concentrate on what students and other
important stakeholders consider most beneficial. This has been voiced by the Graduate Management
Admissions Council and numerous scholars who portray graduates as unprepared, if not disoriented
(Mintzberg & Gosling, 2002). McTiernan and Flynn (2011) underscore the over-emphasis on rela-
tively ‘easy-to-quantify’ analytic decision making at the expense of ideation, ethics, change, critical
thinking, and values. There appears an oversimplification of leadership and soft-skills training when in
reality these more intangible and multifaceted capabilities sit at the core in running modern organi-
zations, especially at a global level (Benjamin & O’Reilly, 2011). It is not the cognitive understanding
of these skills that are in question, but rather their practical application which is not easily taught.
Theoretical research with its general exemption from time-based limitations and its scant focus on
practice application has also received harsh criticism. Bennis and O’Toole (2005) note that incremental
‘scholarly’ research is of little interest to practitioners and has become a ‘vast wasteland’ of insignif-
icance unrelated to the pace, pressure, complexity, and challenges of the business world. Thus, much
research has bypassed the essence of a practicing profession under the guise of important latent and
2 JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION

The changing nature of managerial skills, mindsets and roles
theoretical interests (Hambrick, 1994; Pfeffer & Fong, 2002; Tushman & O’Rielly, 2007; Hughes
et al., 2011). A stronger orientation towards research relevancy without sacrificing rigor would at least
contribute to usefulness and make theory much more appealing to a practising profession. Finally,
researchers, as well as educators, need to ensure that students not only understand theory, but that they
develop pragmatic managerial behaviors which are core to their success in the market (Pearce &
Huang, 2012). There is evidence that time, technology, and social progress may alter the relevancy of
business domains and specific competencies nested within the broader generic taxonomic categories.
Given the changing business and social climate, continuously evolving corporate needs, interests in
expansion towards emerging markets, foreign direct investments and globalization, and requests by
accrediting bodies for continuous curriculum revision at business schools in the United States, it is
essential to first review these well-known theoretical managerial domains. It is important to determine
to what extent the role requirements upon which these frameworks were derived are still considered
important and relevant. To this end, we provide a brief overview of the literature on roles, skills, and
mindsets, followed by a discussion on some of the issues in nomenclature. Hypotheses linking
managerial roles, skills and mindsets are set forth, followed by our methodology. We summarize our
results and share a discussion on the relationship of these domains, including independence between
roles, skills and mindsets, empirical evidence reflecting new role groupings of managerial roles, and
novel empirical evidence suggesting disparity in levels of engagement among executives. We then
conclude by reviewing the implications of our findings and make recommendations for future research
and enhancement of managerial domains in management education.
MANAGERIAL PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS: OVERVIEW AND CHALLENGES

The past century has yielded numerous theories, empirical data, and practical insight into managerial
performance requirements, that is, the skills, roles, and characteristics that are required of managers and
how this knowledge is disseminated. Classifying the content of just managerial roles reveals a rich
literature that renders the formation of an exhaustive compilation of findings unrealistic. Roles, as
defined by Mintzberg (1973) are those categories of actions or behaviors associated with job perfor-
mance. Consequently, we have selected a small number of managerial typologies for comparison
purposes as shown in Table 1 based upon a review of widely used managerial textbooks as shown in
Appendix A and models that were identified in the literature as particularly significant (Tett et al.,
2000). Some of these formulations were a response to requests for theory-driven predictors of job
performance, which then led to a myriad of detailed performance taxonomies. For example, Yukl’s
(2012) thorough leadership behavior and taxonomy study builds upon a substantial number of these
investigations and resulted in a nomenclature of meta-categories and behavioral components. Alter-
natively, Tett et al. (2000) provided 53 ‘hyper-specific’ competencies contributing to a granular
refinement of roles, although the overall categories remain intact. Other researchers have offered
additional perspectives, criteria, and empirical data that somewhat challenge the movement towards
hyper-specificity within the current taxonomies by broadening the frameworks. Golman (1998) has
explored five areas of emotional intelligence that are correlated to hierarchical advancement; Judge,
Cable, Boudreau, and Bretz (1995) has identified hierarchical movement and linkages to demographic
data; Pfeffer and Veiga (1999) identified seven key managerial practices; Quinn (2000) found eight
personal attributes, and Yukl (2012) provided an additional focus on change and innovation, to name
only a few alternative measures. Thus, there is wealth of theoretical taxonomic research, yet despite this
acknowledgment, there are few empirical studies that have explored role taxonomy in relation to
applied practice or utility. For example, Tett et al. (2000) postulate that given the growing complexity
of work, the importance or relevancy of certain role requirements would likely be elevated although the
taxonomic categories would remain stable. This has created a potential gap between rich theoretical

4
TABLE 1. MANAGERIAL PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS AND FRAMEWORKS
Gulick and Whetten and Cameron

Urwich (1937) Mintzberg (1973) (1983) Dubrin (2012) Yukl (2012)
POSDCORB Managerial roles Effective managers 17 managerial roles Leadership behaviors
Planning Informational Monitor Self-awareness Planning Strategic planner Task oriented Clarifying
Organizing Managing personal stress Operational planner Planning

Disseminator
Staffing Creative problem solving Organizing and Organizer Monitoring
staffing operations
Liaison
Spokesperson
Directing Establishing supportive Staffing coordinator Problem solving
communications
Coordinating Decisional Entrepreneur Improving employee Resource allocator Relations- Supporting
performance-motivating oriented
others
Developing
Task delegator Recognizing
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION
Reporting Disturbance Effective delegation and Leading Figurehead Empowering

handler joint
decision making
Spokesperson Change- Advocating change
oriented
Negotiator
Budgeting Resource Gaining power and influence Motivator and coach Envisioning change
allocator
Team builder Encouraging
innovation
Negotiator Managing conflict Team player
Interpersonal Figurehead Improving group decision Technical problem Envisioning change
making solver
Leader Entrepreneur Facilitating
Liaison Controlling Monitor Collective
Disturbance handler Learning
TABLE 2. FAYOL’S THEORY OF MANAGEMENT (1916)a
14 principles of management 6 functions of management
1. Division of work Forecasting

2. Authority and responsibility Planning
3. Discipline
4. Unity of command
5. Unity of direction Organizing
6. Subordination of individual interests to the general interest
7. Remuneration
8. Centralization Coordinating
9. Scalar chain (position level)
10. Order (safety and cleanliness) Commanding
11. Equity
12. Stability of tenure of personnel
13. Initiative Controlling
14. Esprit de corps
Note.
a
Adapted from Fells (2000).
taxonomies and continuously changing areas and levels of role relevancy. It is precisely this practical
application for which management education has come under fire.
There seems little substantive variation from what Henri Fayol referred to as the six functions of
management (forecasting, planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling) in his in-
depth 1916 publication, General and Industrial Administration, from the latter work of Gulick (1937)
known as POSDCORB. And again, there is little distinction from this, Mintzberg (1973), Borman
and Brush (1993), Tett et al. (2000) and other researchers in terms of resulting taxonomies. Other
researchers (Luthans, Rosenkrantz, & Hennessey, 1985; Carroll & Gillen, 1987; Kotter, 1990) added
to the taxonomy, but Fayol’s functional list (see Table 2) remains intact in the literature (Fells, 2000).
Dierdorff, Rubin, & Morgeson (2009) offered a comprehensive study of the managerial work and
performance literature that spanned a 50-year period and included a sampling of 8,633 individuals.
The authors provided further empirical confirmation that the 18 managerial roles already identified
may be categorized in three areas: conceptual, interpersonal, and technical/administrative. Previously,
Tett et al. (2000) identified 53 additional ‘hyper-specific’ competencies and numerous other studies
over time also contributed to our understanding of what managers do. However, these well-designed
studies were focused on theoretical classifications of managerial work roles from a research perspective,
but did not seek to capture the broader and more dynamic component relationships of roles, skills, and
mindsets from the perspective of practising managers. This lack of research has been problematic in
that the previously identified role requirements, as well as required behaviors, are not fixed. Individuals
each with unique personality traits do not react with textbook precision in response to situations
regardless of attempts to classify work contexts. As stated in our introduction, the central question
remains in how to view the relevance of widely taught managerial roles so as to expand our under-
standing of how role requirements may influence individual or organization effectiveness (Yukl, 1989).
Fells (2000) asks the same question noting that while Mintzberg added to contemporary management
thought, he contributed little to our insights on effectiveness either organizationally or individually.
Responding to a request for a managerial taxonomy that was based upon behavioral observations
(Campbell, Dunnette, Lawler, & Weick, 1970), Henry Mintzberg set out to analyze what managers do.
However, he did not focus on how well managers performed or if they were doing the right things.
His well-known study of observing five executives each for 1 week has become a mainstay of business

TABLE 3. MANAGERIAL SKILLS MODELS
Katz (1955), Kinicki and Williams (2013) Schor, Seltzer, and Smither, (1995) Dubrin (2012)
Technical Verbal communication and listening Technical skill

Conceptual Managing time and stress Interpersonal skill
Human [interpersonal] Managing individual decisions Conceptual skill
Recognizing, defining, and solving problems Diagnostic skill
Motivating and influencing others Political skill
Delegating
Setting goals and articulating a vision
Self-awareness
Team building
Managing conflict
education and prompted extensive related studies. In brief, he collected some 1,250 observational data
points, collapsed these into categories and subjectively determined what managers do, how they spend
their time, and what pressures they face on the job. As noted, some researchers have argued that
Mintzberg’s taxonomy is merely an incremental variation on already known managerial roles and
provides little insight on how things might be done to improve organizational effectiveness. Further, the
research appears to have been relevant at a point in time, but much has transpired since then.
Nonetheless, from this formative study he drew numerous conclusions regarding job content, inter-
personal skills, communication preferences, hours worked, and work fragmentation. It is not at all
surprising that Mintzberg’s small sample base of four CEO’s and one top executive behaved similarly to
one another in his study, but what they do should not be equated with how well they do it, nor if they
are doing the right things. Our study examines this gap by exploring the interaction of roles and
hypothesizing that each are not of equal relevance to practitioners as Mintzberg and many others have
often presented them.
MANAGERIAL BEHAVIORS: ROLES, SKILLS, AND MINDSETS

Although Mintzberg’s managerial roles are often generalized across levels, there are clear distinctions in
the job content, strategies, personalities, attributes, philosophies, and execution capability required by
each of the generally accepted managerial levels: top managers, middle managers, first-line managers,
and team leaders (Schor, Seltzer, & Smither, 1995; DuBrin, 2012; Bateman & Snell, 2013). For
example, top manager roles, according to Mintzberg, are most likely to include activities that
contribute to functioning as spokesperson, figurehead, liaison, and strategic planner. Related leadership
roles and enabling skills, however, span across all managerial levels. Table 3 presents a high level
summary of some key managerial skills categories or frameworks commonly found in business
education courses and related textbooks.
A distinction is made here by Schor et al. (1995) that the 10 characteristics found in their skills
analysis are specifically related to behaviors as opposed to personality traits or managerial styles. The
overlap between the skills identified by Katz (1955) and DuBrin (2012) would suggest the same.
Unfortunately, the lack of a larger and more vertically stratified sample group in Mintzberg’s
observations precluded any accurate inference as to the extent that the various roles, skills, or levels of
expertise were utilized differently by managerial level. We will leave this for future research, but
considering the premise that skills are based upon a distinct behavioral typology, it would be important

to determine first if the five skills categories as noted by DuBrin (2012) are, indeed, a distinct domain
from the 17 role classifications.
Along with roles and skills, a third means by which to understand managerial activities is that of
mindsets. According to Gosling and Mintzberg (2003), managers have five mindsets or perspectives
each linked to a key management task and applied in an integrated manner (a) managing self: the
reflective mindset, (b) managing organization: the analytic mindset, (c) managing context: the worldly
mindset, (d) managing relationships: the collaborative mindset, and (e) managing change: the action
mindset.
Although these mindsets appear to be worthwhile and contribute to an appreciation of managerial
tasks, there are several points of concern. First, there is an assumption that managers must attend to the
five essential tasks, yet there is no discussion of the genesis of these particular activities, and no
empirical evidence presented. In fact, these five major tasks are not linked back to the three major role
categories (informational, decisional, and interpersonal) originally presented by Mintzberg in 1973.
Second, the derivation of the five mindsets raises a concern as they stemmed from a need for a
learning structure in the development of an in-depth global executive education program that crossed
from the United States to Canada, England, Bangalore, and Japan. The interest to improve the impact
and relevancy of business school executive education is quite commendable, but the widely promulgated
model that highlighted the five key tasks and linked the mindsets was based primarily upon intuitive
judgment, albeit sound, and commercial need rather than empirical substantiation.
Mindsets are beliefs about the nature of human behavior and open the debate regarding the extent to
which humans have the capacity to adjust, transform, and develop based upon their mindsets or their
ability to shift mindsets (Gardner, 2006; Dweck, 2012). Gosling and Mintzberg acknowledged their
empirical limitation noting ‘we make no claim that our framework is either scientific or comprehensive’
(2003: 56). Notwithstanding, the five mindsets present a constructive and qualitative approach of not
only what conceivably needs to be accomplished, but how managers need to think about it. The
difference between hyper-specific job requirements or skills categories and mindsets, as a way of thinking,
is a critical distinction. For example, as individuals ascend a managerial career ladder, they are more likely
to shift from lower-level job competencies to higher-level managerial domains, or mindsets. ‘Ways of
thinking’ is especially critical to management in today’s environment and is among the most challenging
from a pedagogical perspective. It would, therefore, be worthwhile to determine whether the five skills
categories, 17 role classifications and five mindsets are, indeed, unique capability domains.
Hypothesis 1: The relationships, namely the constructs and components, between managerial roles
(17), managerial skills (five), and mindsets (five) in contemporary managers are independent.
Changing Nature of Managerial Roles and Relevancy

The nature of managerial roles has changed significantly over the past 50 years migrating from
command and control models to contemporary roles that emphasize worker support, coaching,
motivating, and facilitating. Team leadership has also evolved by deemphasizing the more authoritative
director role to one of team player, partner, and joint owner. Similarly, Mintzberg’s taxonomy
draws several interesting time-sensitive conclusions about the nature of managerial work which clearly
reflect the work environment in the early 1970’s. For example, he observed that managers responded to
an average of five telephone calls per day. By contrast, today’s executive has access to email, texting,
voicemail, cell-phone messaging, chat rooms, discussion boards, on-line conferences, and social
media outlets, as well as a number of virtual offices. Today’s managers may receive 200–300 messages/
day or more which dramatically changes the nature of their role, how they function, set priorities, deal
with work intensity, politics, and human relations. These few examples underscore the significant shifts

that have developed due to technological progress, expansion of knowledge work, social changes, and
delayering that occurred as organizations became more horizontal, and workers became more
autonomous (DuBrin, 2012). Thus, we need to examine whether previously accepted taxonomy for role
content, with each role appearing to be of equal weight, holds relevancy and reflects the range of today’s
managerial job content. The extension of Mintsbergs’s 10 roles to Dubrin’s (2012) 17 roles and
Dierdorff, Rubin, and Morgeson’s (2009) 18 roles are valuable theoretical cataloging contributions,
but as such, do not examine effectiveness. We propose a further look at how these roles are both
quantitatively and qualitatively perceived by managers in terms of relevancy and utility.
This study focuses on Dubrin’s (2012) model with 17 role categories as it is widely cited and
disseminated through management textbooks. The roles are categorized within four functional areas:
planning, organizing and staffing, leading, and controlling (previously presented in Table 1). These
higher-level categories of general relationships present a coherent system and reflect language of
theory. Boulding’s (1956) seminal work on general systems theory clearly cautions against organizing
general relationships or a system ‘which does not have any necessary connection with the “real” world
around us’ (Boulding’s, 1956: 197). Although there is considerable value to Dubrin’s (2012) theoretical
contribution, this study seeks to examine whether the four traditional functional categories will
similarly align when evaluated via practitioner perceptions of utility. We therefore present the following
hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: The clustering of the 17 roles of contemporary managers will differ from the
traditional functional groupings (planning, organizing and staffing, leading, and controlling).
As outlined above, there is little information that empirically links the traditional role requirements
to either organizational or individual effectiveness (Yukl, 1989; Fells, 2000). Given the changing
nature of the work environment over the last 50 years we would expect that the taxonomic system,
although useful, might not be as relevant today. Contemporary researchers have noted that there is a
growing influence of personal motivations based upon subjective and objective criteria and contextual
factors that are impacting the relationship of individuals to organizations (Clark & Patrickson, 2008;
Sullivan & Baruch, 2009; Laud & Johnson, 2013). This scenario has produced a new breed of
pragmatic career players who value self-determination, flexibility, and independence. We postulate that
a potential trend towards individually driven motives at the workplace would negatively impact the
perceived relevancy, utility and level of engagement of managers, at least as reflected by the current role
taxonomy. Employee engagement is critical as numerous studies have linked it to improved organi-
zational outcomes including profitability, productivity, retention, safety, and customer satisfaction
(Luthans & Peterson, 2001). The term employee engagement refers to an individual’s overall involve-
ment and satisfaction with work (Kahn, 1990). In particular, it is a multidimensional construct that
focuses on the psychological experiences of work and the context in which it takes place. The two
major dimensions of engagement include an emotional and/or cognitive connection to work. Engaged
executives are those who know what is expected of them, agree to and enjoy their role, have the
resources necessary to do their work, feel the impact and fulfillment in their efforts, perceive they are
part of something important and also have opportunity to improve (Kahn, 1990). On the other hand,
disengaged employees withdraw emotionally and cognitively, which results in incomplete role
performance. We will use the above construct (Kahn, 1990) that appears to have a good conceptual fit
for a better understanding and operationalizing of role requirements. This study will test empirically for
the first time the degree to which contemporary managers may be viewed as engaged based upon their
perspective of the utility of the 17 roles:
Hypothesis 3: Role requirement usage, namely level of engagement, will vary in contemporary
managers.

METHODS
Research design and procedures
This study containes three major sequential steps. First, an extensive literature search on job roles and
skills was conducted that dated back to the early 1800’s in addition to reviewing leading US
management textbooks used by either undergraduate or MBA students. It was found that
Henry Mintzberg’s (1973) seminal study of managerial roles continues to be cited in the literature and,
with minor variations to his taxonomy, remains a mainstay of management education. We also found
DuBrin’s (2012) extension of Mintzberg’s (1973) 10 roles to 17 roles to be widely studied in business
schools and, thus, we chose to examine DuBrin’s (2012) similar and more contemporary model.
Second, we were more interested in studying how the respondents related to the classical managerial
role definitions than in exploring additional role classifications to add to already well-established
constructs and taxonomies (Mintzberg, 1973; Zaleznik, 1977; Yukl, 1981; Luthans, Rosenkrantz, &
Hennessey, 1985; Carroll & Gillen, 1987). We suspected that managers might have variable attitudes
towards roles and requirements that Mintzberg was not able to capture through his method of small
sample work observation and intuitive data collapsing of some 1,258 items. Since the research required
both exploration and empirical analysis, we chose consensual qualitative research (CQR), which is a
proven approach used in the social sciences for examining human experience (Polkinghorne, 2005).
This permitted an ability to access qualitative information from interview-based samples which allowed
a greater range of information than predetermined variable testing would uncover (Hill, Thompson,
&Williams, 1997; Denzin & Lincoln, 2002). This application of CQR is especially useful in a social
context where human exchange is not fixed and interactions are not stable, but are sinuous in time and
space (Omair, 2010). CQR would be considered an appropriate approach to convey complex
experience (Churchill, 1999; Gersick, Bartunek, & Dutton, 2000; Sue, Torino, Capodilupo, Rivera,
& Lin, 2009). This procedure allowed us to gather incumbent insights beyond previous research. In
addition to the CQR, the findings were also coded allowing for empirical analyses, validation of
findings, and exploration of items not immediately apparent. We were careful to segment the
hierarchical levels and demographics so that any comparisons to other studies would be appropriately
similar.
The procedure included a semi-structured field interview protocol (see Appendix B) that investigated
three main areas: 17 managerial roles (see Table 3); five managerial skills (technical, conceptual,
interpersonal, diagnostic, and political); and five mindsets (managing self, managing organizations,
managing context, managing change, and managing relationships). First, we collected demographic
information on age, sex, educational background, position level, organization tenure as well as the size
and type of organization. The interviews lasted ~1 h and were conducted by undergraduate honors
students from a management course who were taking part in a field interview project at William
Paterson University. The students were provided training on the interview protocol, instrument, and
definitions, and were directed by one of the authors. The respondents were asked to describe the extent
to which they utilized each component of the three domains as defined in DuBrin’s (2012) taxonomy.
The student interviewers were responsible for writing the interviewee’s response to each question
presented in the ‘Field Interview Questionnaire’ and clarifying any issues. Each of 281 completed
questionnaires was then reviewed by MBA management students for quality, consistency, and usability
of responses. Any deficient forms were eliminated from the analyses.
Second, the MBA students received explicit training and guidelines to help quantify the results
by coding the responses to a 7-point Likert-type scale. Subsequently, 259 forms were retained for
further analysis. All data was then reviewed a third time by two of the authors, each of whom holds a
PhD in organization management. Any discrepancies were resolved through discussion and consensus
to achieve 100% interrater reliability (Hill, Knox, Thompson, Williams, Hess, & Ladany, 2005;

TABLE 4. SAMPLE BASE AND DEMOGRAPHICS (N = 259)
Category Number Percentage
Total interviewees 259 100

Total organizationsa ~200 100
Interviews by sector
Agriculture, forestry and fishing, mining and construction 8 3.1
Manufacturing 67 25.9
Rubber and miscellaneous plastic products 0 0.0
Transportation, communications, electric, gas, and sanitary services 13 5.0
Wholesale trade and retail trade 40 15.4
Finance, insurance, and real estate 20 7.7
Services 37 14.3
Health services 70 27.0
Public administration 4 1.5
Position level
Top management 29 11.2
(CEO, president, managing director, C-level officers, EVP)
Mid-level management 52 20.1
(SVP, VP, director, branch/functional/area/operations manager)
First-line management 143 55.2
(AVP, supervisor, team leader, associate director, office manager)
Non-managerial 35 13.5
(individual contributor, professional, specialist, nonprofessional)
Tenure with organization
<15 years 99 38.2
>15 years 160 61.8
Gender
Male 162 62.5
Female 97 37.5
Education
Business/economics (BBA, BS, BA) 107 41.3
All other 152 58.7
Note.
a
A number of respondents did not include their company name. Based upon the number of people interviewed,
titles, and the total number of companies surveyed, we conservatively estimate the number of companies represented
at 200.
Sue et al., 2009). The third part of the study focused on descriptive and inferential assessments in order
to test the hypotheses relative to the categories, groupings, or differentiators within the data sets. In
particular, we were interested in exploring the criticism that the role taxonomy fell short of practical
impact due to the emphasis on role definition as opposed to role effectiveness (Yukl, 1989; Fells,
2000). Our approach allowed for empirical examination of the extent to which practitioners were
aligned with the theoretical taxonomy.
Sample organizations and demographic information

This study consisted of 259 useable questionnaires completed by individuals from ~200 diverse
organizations. We utilized a convenience sample based upon specific job titles, level, position
responsibility, and type of organization. To satisfy the inclusionary criteria individuals were required to:
(1) have a title reflective of top, middle, or first-line management; (2) had to have earned positions as a

result of a competitive career environment as opposed to family legacy businesses, bought companies,
or having majority stock ownership; and (3) have earned a BA, BS, BBA or other relevant higher
degree. Industry classifications were based upon the 2012 US North American Industry Classification
System codes. (Demographic characteristics are presented in Table 4.) From a total of 281 interviews, a
final list of 259 met all the above criteria.
ANALYSIS
Hierarchical cluster analysis of managerial roles, skills, and mindsets
Hierarchical cluster analysis (McQuitty, 1966; Everitt, 1974) is a method for grouping objects, in this
case survey items, into homogeneous groups or clusters. We use hierarchical cluster analysis to
determine whether roles, skills, and mindsets fall into clearly separable sets of managerial attributes.
There are numerous methods of hierarchical cluster analysis; we chose to use agglomerative clustering
with complete linkage, and utilized the correlations between pairs of items as the measure of similarity
of two items. The hierarchical cluster analyses were performed using the hclust function in the MASS
Manage Relationships
Manage Change
Mindsets
Manage Self
Manage Organizations
Manage Context
Technical Skills
Interpersonal Skills
Skills
Diagnostic Skills
Conceptual Skills
Political Skills
Disturbance Handler
Technical Problem Solver
Monitor
Team Builder
Team Player
Staffer
Organizer
Liason
Roles
Operational Planner
Delegator
Figurehead
Strategic Planner
Negotiator
Motivator
Allocator
Spokesperson
Entrepreneur
FIGURE 1. DENDROGRAM OF ROLES, SKILLS, AND MINDSETS. DENDROGRAMS ARE BRANCHING DIAGRAMS FREQUENTLY USED TO
SHOW THE RELATIONSHIPS OF SIMILARITY BETWEEN ITEMS. IN THIS CASE WE EXAMINED HIERARCHICAL CLUSTERS (BASED ON AN
AGGLOMERATIVE HIERARCHICAL CLUSTER ANALYSIS OF THE ITEM-PAIR CORRELATIONS USING COMPLETE LINKAGE). THE
ARRANGEMENT OF THE ‘CLADS’ SHOWN AS RED, BLUE, OR BLACK DEMONSTRATE WHICH ITEMS ARE MOST SIMILAR TO EACH OTHER.
THE LENGTH OF THE SOLID LINE INDICATES HOW SIMILAR OR DISSIMILAR THEY ARE FROM EACH OTHER – THE GREATER THE LENGTH
OF THE LINE, THE GREATER THE DIFFERENCE. IN THIS FIGURE, THE SIMILARITY/DISSIMILARITY BETWEEN ITEMS WITHIN THE SAME
CLUSTER IS REPRESENTED BY SOLID LINES; DASHED LINES INDICATE MORE DISTINCT CLUSTERS

Strategic Planner
Negotiator
Leadership Motivator
Allocator
Spokesperson
Entrepreneur
Operational Planner
Workflow
Delegator
Figurehead
Staffer
Manpower
Organizer
Liason
Disturbance Handler

Team
Monitor
Team Builder
Team Player
FIGURE 2. DENDROGRAM OF THE 17 MANAGERIAL ROLES. A SECOND DENDROGRAM WAS CONSTRUCTED BASED UPON THE
SIMILARITY/DISSIMILARITY OF THE 17 ROLES. THIS ANALYSIS PRODUCED FOUR DISTINCT ROLE GROUPS WHICH WE LABELED:
LEADERSHIP ROLES, WORKFLOW ROLES, MANPOWER ROLES, AND TEAM ROLES REPRESENTED BY RED, BLUE, BLACK, AND GREEN
BRANCHES, RESPECTIVELY
library in R (Venables & Ripley, 2002). To examine potential clusters of related skills, roles, and
mindsets, we constructed one dendrogram as shown in Figure 1. This method of analysis permits a
visual representation of the hierarchical cluster analysis.
Latent class analysis of managerial roles

As we will discuss in more detail, our initial hierarchical cluster analysis suggested that roles, skills, and
mindsets do not cluster together. As such, we performed a latent class analysis of only the roles in an
attempt to identify different types or classes of managers in our sample. Latent class analysis (Dayton,
1998; Collins & Lanza, 2010) is a statistical method that attempts to identify unobservable homo-
geneous subgroups or classes of individuals within a larger population based on their responses to
questionnaire items. In the present study we utilize the poLCAlibrary (Linzer & Lewis, 2011) within
the R statistical package (R Core Team, 2012) to fit a latent class analysis of the 17 managerial roles.
The latent class analysis allows us to identify mutually exclusive groups of managers that produce
similar patterns of responses to the questions about the 17 managerial roles. As shown in Figure 2, the
results of the latent class analysis produce the proportion of the population that falls into each of
the managerial classes and the distribution of responses to the 17 managerial roles within each of
managerial classes.

RESULTS
The relationship between the 17 managerial roles, five management skills, and five mindsets was
examined using the hierarchical cluster analysis described above and previously presented in the
dendrogram in Figure 1.
DuBrin (2012) stated that in order for a manager at any level to be effective they would need to
combine five essential skills: technical, interpersonal, conceptual, diagnostic, and political. Gosling and
Mintzberg (2006) as well as previous researchers hypothesized that managers also need to combine
actions with a reflective mindset (managing self, managing organizations, managing context, managing
relationships, and managing change) in order to accomplish the wide range of complex managerial
objectives. However, as stated previously by Gosling and Mintzberg, ‘we make no claim that our
framework is either scientific or comprehensive’ (2003: 56). In order to test the framework and its
concept validity, and better understand the relationship between the roles, managerial skills and
mindsets it was necessary to determine if the constructs and components were separate domains or
overlapping paradigms. The dendrogram in Figure 1 demonstrates that our managers’ responses to the
items relating to skills, mindsets, and roles do not cluster together and that the items appear to be
measuring separate attributes of the managers, thus supporting our Hypothesis 1 that these domains
are independent.
To further verify that responses to the various item domains (roles, skills, and mindsets) were in fact
different we performed a within-subjects analysis of variance with fixed factors for the item domains
and random factors for subject and the subject-by-domain interaction. The effect of domain
(F(2, 514) = 104.7, p-value < .001) and the subject-by-domain effect (F(514, 6190) = 2.80,
p-value < .001) were statistically significant suggesting that after accounting for subject-level differences
and domain-level differences, the way that managers responded to the three domains was in fact
different. Further verifying this result, we conducted pairwise comparisons to determine whether the
domain-by-subject effects varied between each pair (e.g., role vs. skill). All three comparisons were
statistically significant at a level of .05, see Table 5 for results.
In addition to determining that roles, mindsets, and skills are independent domains, the dendrogram
in Figure 1 suggests that managerial roles can be split, or clustered into four role groupings. To
emphasize this fact, Figure 2 dendrogram displays only the 17 managerial roles. Interestingly, this
clustering did not align to the three functional areas (informational, decisional, and interpersonal) as
theorised by Mintzberg (1973) whose view, with some limited exceptions (Fells, 2000; Pryor &
Taneja, 2010), remained generally supported, but unchallenged since 1973. Further, the dendrogram
did not align with DuBrin’s (2012) four functional areas (planning, organizing and staffing, leading,
and controlling). These results offer support for Hypothesis 2 and bring into question whether the
original groupings were empirically accurate in either of the models and why they have not been
reconciled or debated in the literature.
TABLE 5. F-TEST RESULTS OF THE PAIRWISE COMPARISONS OF THE DOMAIN-BY-SUBJECT EFFECTS BETWEEN ROLES, SKILLS,
AND MINDSETS
Roles Skills
Skills F(257, 6190) = 2.551

p-value <.001
Mindsets F(257, 6190) = 3.158 F(257, 6190) = 2.578
p-value <.001 p-value < .001

While our cluster analysis did not provide empirical evidence of DuBrin’s (2012) four functional
areas, it did identify four significantly different groupings of roles that we categorized as Leadership,
Workflow, Manpower, and Team roles. These descriptive labels reflect the comparable nature of
activities that managers performed within each cluster and relate more closely to the 21st century
managerial activity. Somewhat unanticipated, the analysis revealed distinct clustering of Team roles
containing specific human relations activities such as disturbance handler, team player, and team
builder. Within the Leadership cluster managers conducted strategic planning, acted as a spokesperson
and led innovation and entrepreneurial events. The Workflow cluster captured activities such as
operations, work delegation, and interunit coordinator (Mintzberg loosely used the term ‘Figurehead’
for work unit coordinator). Within the Manpower cluster managers concentrated upon organizing and
staffing activities. Thus, this new clustering of roles based upon quantitative analysis reveals an
alternative grouping that is, to date, more descriptive and consistent with actual managerial activities.
We also hypothesized that DuBrin’s (2012) list of 17 managerial roles, although high in face validity
and contributory to the taxonomy, may not reflect empirically the practicality or utility of the roles
(Hypothesis 3). It was conjectured that individuals may act more independently of the current tax-
onomy than previously thought. In order to test this hypothesis we performed a latent class analysis in
an attempt to find unique groups or classes of managers that vary in terms of the roles that they have in
their management position. Our latent class analysis produced five quantitatively distinct groups that
Strategic Planner
Negotiator
Leadership
Motivator
Allocator
Spokesperson
Entrepreneur
Operational Planner
Workflow
Delegator
Figurehead
Manpower
Staffer
Organizer
Liason
Disturbance Handler
Team
Monitor
Team Player
Team Builder
Actively Disengaged Somewhat Engaged Highly
Disengaged Engaged Engaged
22.1% 15.3% 3.3% 39.9% 19.4
Darker shades of blue correspond to higher mean responses;

lighter shades correspond to lower mean responses.
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
FIGURE 3. HEAT MAP INDICATING THE LEVEL OF ENGAGEMENT FOR EACH OF THE REQUIRED ROLES IDENTIFIED THROUGH THE
LATENT CLASS ANALYSIS.

TABLE 6. PAIRWISE COMPARISONS COMPARING THE RESPONSE DISTRIBUTIONS OF DIFFERENT EXECUTIVE GROUPS TO THE
17 ROLES
Manager grouping Highly engaged Engaged Somewhat engaged Disengaged

2
Engaged χ (35) = 114.6
p-value < .001
Somewhat engaged χ2(35) = 133.3 χ2(35) = 121.8
p-value < .001 p-value < .001
Disengaged χ2(35) = 150.7 χ2(35) = 138.8 χ2(35) = 137.9
p-value < .001 p-value < .001 p-value < .001
Actively disengaged χ2(35) = 200.2 χ2(35) = 115.5 χ2(35) = 86.4 χ2(35) = 143.2
p-value < .001 p-value < .001 p-value < .001 p-value < .001
Note.
The χ2 statistics are likelihood ratio statistics based on log-linear model of the response distributions.
spanned a continuum based upon the degree to which the practising executives considered the various
role definitions to be relevant to their work. This result provides evidence and support for our
Hypothesis 3 regarding the managers’ perceived relevancy of job requirements within each role. To
better understand the practicality and utility of managerial roles and extent of role engagement in
contemporary managers, we produced a heatmap, which color codes the mean response of each
manager type to each of the managerial role items, refer to Figure 3. A heat map uses two-dimensional
data where colors represent mathematical values. It is frequently used to analyze complex data in a
visual format. Given the nature of our data and analysis the construction of a heat map would be
considered an appropriate statistical technique. For our heat map darker shades of blue indicate that a
manager group tends to produce high scores on the item associated with a specific role, and lighter
shades of blue indicate low-level responses to a role item.
To determine if, in fact, the five groups were statistically distinct, we performed pairwise compar-
isons to test whether the distribution of responses to the role questions was the same across pairs of the
five identified groups. This log-linear analysis produced the χ2 test results reported in Table 6 and
supports Hypothesis 3. All five groups were compared and found to be statistically distinct
(p-values < .005) allowing us to conclude from this evidence that the sets were clearly discrete.
These groupings are a key finding as they provide strong empirical evidence to support emergent
speculation that organizational players may participate in different role combination alternatives than
previously thought, either by choice or in response to organizational constraints. This should not be
construed that they are performing the ‘right’ or effective actions in support of larger organizational
goals, but they have achieved personal hierarchical advancement as one measure of success. Surprisingly,
the results indicated that only one group of executives (19.4%) appeared to function, that is, rated
the role requirements at a high level of relevancy in all 17 roles. Accordingly, we labeled this cluster
highly engaged executives. Again, the term ‘engaged’ is broadly used by researchers to indicate the
emotional and cognitive attachments to work, which have implications for individual and organizational
performance. Of the succeeding groups, 39.9% functioned at a high level, but only in five roles, therefore,
we label engaged. The third cluster, 3.3%, had mid-level scores for four roles, thus, they were marked
as somewhat engaged. The fourth group, 15.3%, had only low- to mid-level scores across roles, thus,
we designated them as disengaged. Finally, 22.1% of the executives reported low scores of relevancy to all
17 roles. This group was labeled as actively disengaged executives to reflect their neither engaging in, nor
finding useful many of the components of the longstanding taxonomy (see Figure 3). Although the
measurements in this study are limited to theoretical job role criteria, the findings lend sufficient support

to the trending data of the Gallup employee engagement studies (State of the American Workplace:
Employee Engagement Insights for U.S. Business Leaders), which show a disconcerting 51% of man-
agement employees as disengaged or actively disengaged (Gallup, 2013).
DISCUSSION
This study is distinctive within the numerous explorations of managerial work in several respects. Of
particular interest is the empirical approach that revealed interesting role clustering and construct
domain separation. The original studies largely lacked an empirical approach and the latter studies did
not significantly advance an understanding of the utility or relevancy of the taxonomy apart from its
continuing expansion in identifying voluminous management activities. The development of a man-
agerial role taxonomy contributed to our understanding of theoretical and desired roles, but falls short
in contributing to organizational effectiveness (Fells, 2000). This became apparent through the CQR
approach used in this study.
The findings with respect to the five managerial skills (interpersonal, technical, diagnostic,
conceptual, and political) were found to be a separate domain from both the managerial roles and five
mindsets. This study has provided empirical evidence that these skills are a distinct factor in the overall
proficiency of the respondents (see Table 7). A rank ordering and grouping by significance revealed a
three-level hierarchy with interpersonal skills as most important, technical and diagnostic as a distinct
second grouping, and conceptual and political as a third.
This is largely consistent with other studies underscoring the importance of interpersonal skills as a
primary predeterminant of career success as measured by job level, especially at more senior
organizational levels (Pavett & Lau, 1983; Golman, 1998). Technical skills which were the second
ranked competency was found to pair with diagnostic skills, both of which are essential foundational
components of career routes, but are considered more impactful at lower managerial levels (Kinicki &
Williams, 2013). The remaining grouping, conceptual and political skills, contributes to the
uniqueness of this managerial skills model and underscores the importance of leveraging intellectual
capability in order to acquire resources, relationships, and power in order to enhance the probability of
reaching objectives.
The cluster dendrogram provided support for Gosling and Mintzberg’s (2003) five mindsets as a
distinct domain. This presents an interesting triangulation between roles, skills, and mindsets as one
method to understand the intricacies of managerial behavior. The five mindsets: managing self,
managing organizations, managing context, managing relationships, and managing change are key
tasks or ways of thinking that are used simultaneously to help managers operate in a holistic sense.
TABLE 7. MANAGERIAL SKILLS CATEGORIES BY RANK ORDER AND SIGNIFICANCE
p-values comparing skills
Three-level hierarchy 1. 2. 3. 4.
1. Interpersonal Significant from categories below
2. Technical No significant Significant from categories above and <.001
difference below
3. Diagnostic .003 .709
4. Conceptual No significant Significant from categories above <.001 <.001 <.001
difference
5. Political <.001 <.001 <.001 .498

Although these mindsets are to be used concurrently, the analysis revealed a two-level hierarchy with
change, self and relationships as inseparable and statistically distinct from organization and content.
This grouping may reflect our shifting and uncertain organizational life and perhaps the growing
attention that is being placed upon change and self-preservation (Erdogan, Bauer, Truxillo, &
Mansfield, 2012; Carlson, Hunter, Ferguson, & Whitten, 2014). Further analysis revealed that upper
managerial levels were more inclined to synthesize (Fischer p = .046), perhaps reflecting the more
seasoned and broader perspective of senior players.
In regard to generalized functional areas in which managers could be grouped (Hypothesis 2), our
study revealed the presence of four distinct groups of roles, namely Leadership roles, Workflow roles,
Manpower roles, and Team roles. The identification of a discrete Team cluster as a major role category
was unexpected, but supports the view that contemporary managers are shifting from traditional
command and control models to more inclusive group-oriented management styles. Thus, the
development of team skills have become decidedly relevant to practicing managers. Overall, the
clustering did not align with either Mintzberg’s (1973), or DuBrin’s (2012) well-accepted functional
areas. This novel finding brings into question whether the original groupings were empirically accurate
in either of the models and why they have not been reconciled or debated in the literature.
The challenge of role identification is further complicated by the proliferation of leadership studies
over the past 70 years and the large number of theories and approaches used in examining behaviors
and constructs. These investigations have included focused studies on a narrow range of specific
constructs, expansive investigations on a broad range of leadership characteristics, and examinations of
traits, behaviors, situational variables, and other factors. A consequence of this array of studies is that
managerial behavior and role identification has not been conclusive and the proliferation of various
behavioral constructs and research approaches makes comparisons difficult.
The identification of low levels of role relevancy as determined by the majority of practitioners was a
key finding. The analyses strongly suggest that practicing managers are not engaging in, nor finding
relevant, the traditional roles as identified in either DuBrin’s (2012) or Mintzberg’s (1973) taxonomy.
This would suggest that the taxonomy may be limited by its focus in defining and categorizing specific
managerial work behaviors at the exclusion of other activities in which executives may be equally or
more intensely engaged. For example, certain alternative activities were not included in the numerous
managerial roles although they are likely to be essential for hierarchical success, for instance career
advancement strategies (Harris & Ogbonna, 2006).
Overall, the findings of this study provide little support to Mintzberg’s hypothesis that the
organization is the primary determinant of the importance or relevance of a particular role. If the
organization, as opposed to the individual, is the dominant driver, it would be expected that the scores
and relevancy levels would have been significantly higher. Only one identified group (19% of the
respondents) scored high in all four categories. One interpretation of the pervasive amount of low
relevancy scores is that contemporary managers are not as strongly influenced by organizational forces
as perhaps managers were at the time of Mintzberg’s (1973) study. These findings also lend empirical
support to the intensifying breakdown of the employer–employee compact as individuals are
confronted with diminished job security and organizational stability (Bordia, Restubog, Bordia, &
Tang, 2010; Hoffman, Casnocha, & Yeh, 2013). Thus, the identification with historic organizational
roles may no longer be consistent with emerging phenomenon that in order to advance or achieve one’s
personal goals, one may need to place his/her interests above the collective well-being of the organi-
zation (Laud & Johnson, 2013; Giacalone & Promislo, 2013). Somewhat ironically in support of this
notion, Mintzberg (2009) realized years later that managers generally preferred informal and less
structured environments to carry out many activities. Under these circumstances where relationships,
politics, and luck become more important, the usage or relevancy of the traditional systematized role
taxonomy would be diminished as found in our results.

We view the results of this study as a preliminary exploration of the activities and perspectives of
changing managerial interests. We suspect that the new employer–employee compact may be having a
profound effect upon the relevancy of the traditional 17 roles and mindsets. We are especially interested
in identifying those skills or self-advancement competencies considered more relevant by contemporary
managers that might modify the traditional organizationally based typology of the 17 roles.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

This study has several limitations, but offers a number of interesting areas for future research. To begin, the
traditional nomenclature used by researchers to identify senior players and levels within organizations has
been confusing and often subjective. We utilized the broad term ‘managers,’ but our sample base, that is,
CEOs, presidents, SVPs, VPs, and directors, was selected to be consistent with the hierarchical level of
other studies such as Mintzberg’s (1973). Attention should be made to reconcile titles, responsibilities, and
organization size to ensure valid comparisons in future studies. A second limitation is a semi-structured
interview that introduces the human element in the process of data gathering. Although the interviewers
received training, hard copy of questions, and definitions that were used in the interviews, there exist
potential issues of bias and interrater reliability. We provided two layers of oversight and expert review to
ensure minimal bias, but welcome other methods of data collection. Third, generalizations from the current
study are limited, but the results suggest that further segmentation and analyses in future research would be
useful in determining if role requirements, skills, and mindsets are more specific to various population
interests. Fourth, our sample group was exclusively from the United States. Replicating this study in other
countries and comparing results would contribute to the geographical context of managerial skills.
This study confirmed our Hypothesis 1 that the constructs of roles, skills, and mindsets are distinct
domains. However, the generally low scores by respondents on role relevancy does raise a concern and
add to the tension of the theory versus practice debate. These subject areas continue to be key
components of both undergraduate and graduate business curriculums and provide a useful perspective
on managerial activity. However, it is argued that the classroom context is largely theoretical and the
application or practical relevancy tends to be minimal. This is not to say the taxonomy is not
important, but the issue for students and young managers is practice application and sufficient time for
reflection, discussion, and learning.
The theoretical underpinnings of the three domains generate interest for academic researchers, but
the translation to improving student or practitioner advancement is questionable. Further, the
taxonomy is skewed toward specific work-related tasks, but fails to address the significant effort that
managers expend on soft skills such as social currency and reputational capital. It is recommended that
this shortcoming, which is also reflected in many business programs that emphasize technical expertise,
receives greater attention in both applied and theoretical research. This would provide for a more
robust and sophisticated taxonomy that better reflects meaningful practitioner relevancy and
managerial thought processes. Specifically, it would be worthwhile investigating whether managers
have found alternative ways or hyper-specific skills that have enabled them to advance to their current
levels that are not fully recognized in the classical taxonomy. It would also be interesting to investigate
whether managers are disengaging from being organizationally committed, perhaps as a reflection of
the demise of the employer–employee contract (Hoffman, Casnocha, & Yeh, 2013).
IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The following recommendations are offered to strengthen the relevancy of the taxonomies and enable
individuals, academic research communities, business students, and schools to acquire and develop more
meaningful theoretical and practical knowledge. First, Mintzberg and associated researchers advocated

that the organization is the primary driver of the implementation of particular roles. Although we concur
on the derivation of the roles, our study found that the relevancy of these roles had only marginal impact
upon the vast majority of managers studied. Therefore, we suggest researchers and professors place
greater emphasis on the individual as the primary driver for contemporary and practical role relevancy.
This orientation would support the development of new managerial frameworks and next generation
skill sets required for the practice of management and career self-sufficiency.
Second, this recommendation becomes especially apparent in our findings regarding the five
managerial skills categories. Interpersonal skills was ranked number one (level 1) in the emerging
hierarchy by both mid- and upper-level managers as the most critical competency in their activities.
This further contributes to the growing concern in business and academic research that interpersonal
skills learning and education needs to become a more central component within college curriculums.
What was surprising in the three-level hierarchy (as shown in Table 7) was that technical and diag-
nostic skills (level 2) were both ranked higher than conceptual and political skills (level 3), again by
both mid- and upper-level executives. One possible explanation, and implication, is that technology
know-how is rapidly becoming a strategic success tool for individuals, much like it has become for
organizations. This is worthy of further investigation.
Third, we found that the identified roles are not of equal importance to individuals (Hypothesis 3),
and that specific skill groupings were used by different cohorts of managers, as supported by the data
(Hypothesis 2). Our recommendation calls for a regrouping of roles based upon actual implementation
alignment as previously shown in the heatmap in Figure 3 as opposed to the more theoretical
typologies offered by Mintzberg (1973) and DuBrin (2012). This would better serve students – soon to
become aspiring managers, whose interests are in practical application.
Fourth, we suggest that business school curricula more closely reflect the requisite criteria for
managerial roles as determined by practising players. This would enable other researchers to
examine the importance of previously accepted role content and would help address the issue of
how roles may impact effectiveness, which is an inherent weakness in the construction of the
original typologies.
CONCLUSION
The results brought forward by this study provide empirical evidence that certain widely accepted
managerial typologies created some 40 years ago may warrant modification from an exclusively
organizationally driven job focus to a more holistic model that better reflects contemporary managerial
interests. This presents an important opportunity for educators, practitioners, and researchers to
reevaluate the delicate relationship between organization and individual needs and to provide more
relevant management learning strategies. Business school pedagogy and theoretical research are at a
cross-road and both would better serve students and organizations with a deeper understanding of role
relevancy and its application.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2015.48
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"Managerial skills, mindsets, and roles: advancing taxonomy to

Article in Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings · October 2014

Jorge A. Arevalo Robert L. Laud

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ROBERT LAUD*, JORGE AREVALO* AND MATTHEW JOHNSON**

Keywords: management education, management effectiveness, managerial competencies

Received 14 November 2014. Accepted 27 October 2015

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 1

2 JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION

MANAGERIAL PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS: OVERVIEW AND CHALLENGES

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 3

TABLE 1. MANAGERIAL PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS AND FRAMEWORKS

Gulick and Whetten and Cameron

POSDCORB Managerial roles Effective managers 17 managerial roles Leadership behaviors

Robert Laud, Jorge Arevalo and Matthew Johnson

Reporting Disturbance Effective delegation and Leading Figurehead Empowering

TABLE 2. FAYOL’S THEORY OF MANAGEMENT (1916)a

14 principles of management 6 functions of management

1. Division of work Forecasting

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 5

TABLE 3. MANAGERIAL SKILLS MODELS

Technical Verbal communication and listening Technical skill

MANAGERIAL BEHAVIORS: ROLES, SKILLS, AND MINDSETS

6 JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION

Changing Nature of Managerial Roles and Relevancy

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 7

8 JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 9

TABLE 4. SAMPLE BASE AND DEMOGRAPHICS (N = 259)

Category Number Percentage

Total interviewees 259 100

Sample organizations and demographic information

10 JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 11

Technical Problem Solver

Latent class analysis of managerial roles

12 JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION

Skills F(257, 6190) = 2.551

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 13

22.1% 15.3% 3.3% 39.9% 19.4

Darker shades of blue correspond to higher mean responses;

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

14 JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION

Manager grouping Highly engaged Engaged Somewhat engaged Disengaged

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 15

TABLE 7. MANAGERIAL SKILLS CATEGORIES BY RANK ORDER AND SIGNIFICANCE

ROBERT LAUD, JORGE AREVALO AND MATTHEW JOHNSON**