Management by Accident (MGA): An Integrative Framework of Unintentional Managerial Emergence

Background: Organizations across sectors routinely place individuals into managerial roles without assessed, criteria-based selection and without structured preparation for the role; a phenomenon this article terms Management by Accident (MGA). MGA is characterized by two constitutive facets, appointment deficiency and preparation deficiency, that together describe an appointment made without assessed selection and occupied without prior managerial development. Despite its prevalence in higher education, healthcare, technology, and public sector institutions, MGA remains theoretically fragmented and poorly distinguished from related constructs such as the Peter Principle, reactive leadership, or crisis management. Methods: This paper employs an integrative theoretical review, synthesizing seven research streams, accidental manager literature, the Peter Principle, role theory, human capital theory, organizational inertia, managerial competency frameworks, and succession planning research, to construct a unified conceptual framework. Results: The resulting framework identifies five organizational antecedents (weak succession systems, technical-merit promotion criteria, absent leadership development infrastructure, rapid organizational growth, and regulatory compliance pressures) that produce five characteristic MGA manifestations (role ambiguity, reactive decision-making, risk avoidance, micromanagement, and lack of strategic ownership), generating consequences at individual, team, and organizational levels. Four moderating factors are identified, and a set of testable propositions is advanced. Conclusions: MGA is proposed as a candidate organizational construct with tentatively delineated conceptual boundaries that remain to be empirically validated. The framework offers provisional diagnostic criteria for identifying MGA and suggests multilevel interventions, while providing a foundation for future empirical investigation across organizational contexts.