Abstract
This study explores the link between forms of organisation and managerial work and seeks to answer questions which have hitherto been neglected in studies of managerial work: To what extent is what managers are expected to do and their intended functions influenced by organisational context in terms of institutional arrangements for the management of managers' work? To what extent are managers' work activities influenced by organisational context? The study adopts a comparative case study of unit managers in four organisations - two each from the hotel and retail sectors in Zimbabwe - using depth interviews, structured observation and activity sampling. The study shows that the configuration of institutional arrangements for the management of work, divided into planning/decision-making, allocation of work, motivation, coordination and control influences the management division of labour, in particular, the extent to which management and business responsibilities are divided between high and lower-level managers. Decentralised organisations devolve greater operational and business responsibilities to unit managers compared with a focus upon internal systems and processes in centralised organisations. The role expectations surrounding unit managers' jobs and work activities are shown to exhibit some generic characteristics relating to staff and information administration; a neglect of future developmental work aspects and a tendency to spend time on non-managerial work. The key effect of organisational form on unit managers' roles is to emphasise output or performance in decentralised organisation in contrast to processes and procedures in centralised organisations. The industry sector differences show an emphasis on service quality and self administration in hotels compared with customer and merchandise administration in retail operations. Overall, therefore, form of organisation is shown to impact primarily upon the formal management division of labour but in its effect on managers' role expectations and work activities is modified and refracted by commonalities in unit managerial work, industry sector and individual factors.