Relationship between union strength and supervisor‐subordinate power relations
| Autor: | Gerald R. Ferris, Jack Fiorito, Arthur D. Martinez |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2012 |
| Předmět: |
Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Labour economics Supervisor Social Psychology media_common.quotation_subject Management Science and Operations Research Shared leadership Test (assessment) Unit (housing) Power (social and political) Bargaining power Economics Empowerment Applied Psychology Labor union media_common |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Managerial Psychology. 27:132-142 |
| ISSN: | 0268-3946 |
| Popis: | PurposeA labor union's strength is a crucial factor when considering outcomes such as its constituents' empowerment. One of the most important goals of any labor union is to achieve increased balance‐of‐power between the labor and management groups; hence, union strength is an accomplishment of this fundamental aim. It follows that stronger unions, measured by their perceived effectiveness in dealing with management, will contain more empowered constituents. Previous union‐related research typically considered employee empowerment at the group‐level of analysis (e.g. improved work rules, pay, and benefits for entire groups of employees). The purpose of this paper is to propose and test hypotheses on the relationship between perceived union strength, a micro‐ or workplace‐level analog of union bargaining power, and perceptions of shared leader‐member expectations using supervisor‐subordinate dyads as a unit of analysis.Design/methodology/approachWorking adults across the USA were sampled (n=347), through the use of a survey software company that makes survey panels commercially available. Respondents were racially/ethnically diverse, with a mean age of about 41 years (range of 18 to over 62 years), and slightly more females than males (about 65 percent female). Also, about 13.5 percent were members of a labor union.FindingsEmployees who belonged to more powerful unions (i.e. compared to employees who belonged to less powerful unions) demonstrated increased shared‐leadership expectations with their supervisors. In support of Hypothesis 1, non‐union employees also possessed increased shared leadership expectations in comparison to union workers where the union was perceived as weak. As proposed in Hypothesis 2, unions perceived as strong produced more empowered constituents relative to unions perceived as weak. Finally, non‐union employees did not appear to differ in shared‐leadership expectations from employees perceiving strong unions, contrary to Hypothesis 3.Originality/valueA contribution of the present study is to show that unions also have significant connections with supervisor‐subordinate relations (i.e. shared leadership), and that simply having a unionized workplace does not guarantee increased employee empowerment; unions must also be strong. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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