The Automated CEO: Can Technology Replace Middle Managers?

This research explores the utility of iCEO, a virtual management system, and its potential to eliminate middle managers in organizations. It discusses the differences between flat organizations and traditional bureaucratic hierarchies, the impact of information technology on middle managers, and the management, organization, and technology issues involved in transitioning to a flatter organization. The study also examines the possibility of replacing managers with technology and the challenges associated with it.

Running head: THE AUTOMATED CEO
The Automated CEO
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
The differences between flat organizations and traditional bureaucratic hierarchies............2
The possibility that information technology can eliminate the middle manager positions....3
The management, organization, and technology issues should to be decided to move from a
traditional bureaucracy to a flatter organization....................................................................4
Possibility that a manager can be replaced by technology and the procedure to do it...........5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
There have been reports about a new product for Workable Future Initiative about a
new product called iCEO, which is a virtual management system and helps in automating the
complex works in an organisation segregating it into several smaller individual tasks. The
trial run for iCEO was made for superintending a report consisting of 124 pages for a certain
Fortune 50 company (Long 2018). This idea has been struck to various CEO round different
organisation irrespective of their industry and everyone wants to know if this can be included
in the business system. Therefore, this following research is conducted to find out the utility
of iCEO and how this automated system can eliminate the middle managers in the
organization and then add benefits to an organisation.
The differences between flat organizations and traditional bureaucratic
hierarchies
Flat organization: A flat organisation, also termed in the form of horizontal
organisation, consists of the structure of an organisation either having few or absolutely zero
levels of the people handling the middle management between executives and staffs. Mostly,
this is suitable for business organisation with small scale structure and less number of staff
(Piercy 2018). This helps the communication flowing through in every direction having only
one or two levels for the responsibility and authorities. The communication within a flat
organisational structure is direct and it reaches to the top management without any
middleman in between. The format of the communication is rather very casual.
Bureaucratic Hierarchical organization: Where on the other hand, traditional
bureaucratic hierarchical organisation is defined by the hierarchy to system within the
structure of the organisation including both private and public sectors. This depends on the

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authority of the management based on rational and legal authority (Derrick and Elson 2018).
This is mostly suitable for organisation with large size business structure and many
overheads. The communication flows directly from the top level to the bottom level having
multiple levels of responsibility and authority. The mode of communication is either in a
direct or indirect manner, mostly communicated between the immediate super and the
immediate junior.
The possibility that information technology can eliminate the middle manager
positions
The primary role of a middle manager was to implement the strategy of a company in
the most feasible and efficient manner possible. They have to create an effective working
environment within an organisation and also at the same time at which state the process to
make sure that every business process is adhering to the requirements of the organisation and
people having related to reporting directly to their highest level of management (Alansari
2016).
However it has been found that the technology used in the production department
affected organisations in such a way that the blue collar workers are mostly seem to be
impacted with the implementation of Information Technology. It is also being found that the
Information Technology has a similar effect on the workers termed as “White Collars” and
even on the middle managers. The estimated report has stated that Information Technology
has almost jettisoned one third of the middle managers in United States which almost
amounts to about 2 million middle managers. It is also been found that are estimated report
has been stating that over 60% of the middle management what force is to be reduced by the
next decade in United States (Pontefract 2016). Even in the United Kingdom, there has been

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a latest layoff attributed to the middle managers at various places including 11,000 middle
managers at NatWest, 5,000 in British telecom and numerous others (Talla et al. 2018).
The scientists and researchers are not of the opinion that the layoffs after pressing the
employment of middle management but Information Technology has increased the possibility
of their employment in a substantial manner. The alteration of the contemporary
organisations from being a multi-layered hierarchical bureaucratic organisation to flatter ones
have impacted business organisations in the most positive way possible (Kiron et al. 2016). It
is regarded as the strategy provided to the business organisations by Information Technology
implementation that has made the business organisations to become a much more competitive
and cost efficient, saving resources and becoming much more communicative.
The management, organization, and technology issues should to be decided to
move from a traditional bureaucracy to a flatter organization
Organisations have been falling into to the earth of transforming their hierarchical
business structures to a much flatter one for improving the flexibility of the employees and
empowering them with a description for decision making. Delayering an organisation or
flattening the structure of the organisation refers to the elimination of various layers from an
organisation to broaden the span of control for a particular manager. Theoretically, flattened
organisation is much more proactive and flexible but the manager still had the power of
making a decision about the success of the organisation (Derrick and Elson 2018). However,
it is also noticed that the goals that theoretically the flat organizations are trying to achieve
are not successfully contemplated. The only problem that has been identified with the
transformation is the lack of the chance that an employee used to get to report directly to the
boss and this has the potential of creating the power struggles and confusion in the
management.

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Possibility that a manager can be replaced by technology and the procedure to do
it
Technology has been changing the workplace at such a level that there have also been
successful research stories about creating an automated replacement for the managers. May
how automated or improved the technology is that have the ability to replace managers; it is
not possible that an automated system of technology would possess the ability for the human
capability that a human manager has (O'Neill, Beauvais and Scholl 2016). It may be much
more efficient in creating effective planning and taking the most strategic decisions, real life
scenario and algorithms are much different than each other, therefore without the human
intellect, it is extremely difficult to understand an ever changing scenario and given the
responsibility of the managers to understand the emotional mind-set of an employee and
work accordingly.
Conclusion
Therefore, in conclusion, it can be said that the report created as above for finding out
the differences between human manager and an automated system replacing management
need to be studied well enough to understand if the automated system can be utilised within
an organisation to replace the middle management personnel. As the report finds out, the
transformation of business from an administrative one to the organisation having a flatter
structure, middle management is already reduced at use margin. Therefore it is not difficult to
understand that the transformation of business is already minimising the effect of the middle
managers in an organisation. The report also finds out if there is a chance that the automated
manager systems, as for example the iCEO, have ability to replace the human managers in an
organisation. It has been found that although these are much more technically advanced and

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efficient, there is no chance that an automated system can understand human emotions and
handle real life situation accordingly.

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References
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dissertation, University of Birmingham).
Derrick, D.C. and Elson, J.S., 2018, July. Automated leadership: Influence from embodied
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El Talla, S.A., Al Shobaki, M.J., Abu-Naser, S.S. and Amuna, Y.M.A., 2018. Organizational
Structure and its Relation to the Prevailing Pattern of Communication in Palestinian
Universities.
Kiron, D., Kane, G.C., Palmer, D., Phillips, A.N. and Buckley, N., 2016. Aligning the
organization for its digital future. MIT Sloan Management Review, 58(1).
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O'Neill, J.W., Beauvais, L.L. and Scholl, R.W., 2016. The use of organizational culture and
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Pontefract, D., 2016. Flat army: Creating a connected and engaged organization. Elevate
Publishing.