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This paper explores line managers' proactive work behaviors in organizational interventions and ascertains how their management of their middle-levelness by aligning with the intervention, or not, influences their proactive work behaviors.

The authors’ findings are based on thematic analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews of university heads of departments responsible for managing organizational interventions.

The authors found that line managers engaged in a range of proactive work behaviors to implement the organizational intervention (i.e. “driving proactive behaviors”). Furthermore, line managers tended to engage in driving proactive behaviors when they aligned with the organizational intervention, but not to when unconvinced of the intervention's validity.

These findings highlight the importance of senior management and HR investing sufficient time and quality in the preparation phase to ensure all actors have a shared understanding of the organizational interventions' validity.

This is the first study to explore line managers' proactive work behaviors to implement an organizational intervention, and how the line managers' management of their middle-levelness influence these proactive work behaviors.

This study aimed to explore senior managers’ mental models regarding perceptions of mental health and how these perceptions might inform intervention strategies.

The study is part of a broader European project aiming to design, develop, implement and validate assessment, intervention and evaluation toolkits to promote mental health in the workplace across Europe. Thirty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted among senior managers as part of a needs analysis in small-to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and public workplaces in four European countries (Italy, Spain, Czech Republic and Germany) in 2020 and 2021.

The results showed that the interviewed senior managers had two different mental models regarding their perception of mental health, which differed with respect to the conceptualization and thereby their perception of strategies for organizational interventions for improving mental health and well-being. The individual-centric mental model is focused on problem solving and treatment of mental illness at only the individual level. The holistic multilevel mental model is focused on mental illness as well as mental health and well-being at multiple levels of the organization through prevention and promotion strategies. The senior managers' mental models seem to inform their perceptions of suitable strategies for organizational interventions for improving mental health and well-being.

The study supports previous calls for more research on how senior managers’ perception of mental health inform their strategies when planning for organizational interventions.