A Meta‐Analysis of the Union–Job Satisfaction Relationship
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12193 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12193
54:4 December 2016 0007–1080 pp. 709–741
A Meta-Analysis of the Union–Job
Satisfaction Relationship
Patrice Laroche
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic and quantitative review
of the existing empirical evidence on the eects of unionization on overall job
satisfaction. Weconducted a meta-regression analysis (MRA) with results from
a pool of 235 estimates from 59 studies published between 1978 and 2015.
The accumulated evidence indicates that unionization is negatively related to
job satisfaction but is far from being conclusive. When primary studies control
for endogeneity of union membership, the results of the MRA indicate that
the dierence in job satisfaction between unionized and non-unionized workers
disappears. These results suggest that reversecausation (i.e. dissatisfied workers
are more likely to join a union) and time-varying endogenous eects play a key
role in explaining the relationship between unionization and job satisfaction.
1. Introduction
As the nature of workhas been changing over the last four decades,researchers
in the fields of human resources management and employment relations
have examined closely the set of feelings that workers have toward their job
and its relationship to a variety of important individual and organizational
characteristics. In particular, many studies explore the eects of unionization
on job satisfaction. In his seminal work, Freeman (1978) showed that
unionized workers tend to report lower job satisfaction compared to non-
unionized workers, while at the same time showing less intention to leave.
He suggested that this apparent paradox might reflect the role of unions
as a ‘voice’, encouraging workers to express their discontent rather than
to leave. Today, the voice explanation of the dissatisfaction paradox is still
disputed vigorously among scholars. In order to confirm that a dierence in
job satisfaction persists, after controlling for other factors such as working
conditions, a sizeable number of empirical studies have explored the eects of
Patrice Laroche is atESCP Europe, Paris, France.
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2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd/London School of Economics. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
710 British Journal of Industrial Relations
unionization on overall job satisfaction.However, these studies have reported
numerous conflicting results regarding whether or not union membership
aects job satisfaction. Hence, despite this rich empirical literature, there are
still a number of issues that have yet to be scrutinized seriously in a more
systematic way.
The aim of this paper is to apply meta-analysis to explore the eects of
union membership on overall job satisfaction. Meta-analysis is particularly
useful for identifying and quantifying patterns, for drawing inferences froma
diversity of results and for generalizing from results derived from numerous
singular studies (Hunter and Schmidt 2004; Stanley and Doucouliagos
2012). This research assesses the relationship between unionization and job
satisfaction by providing a comprehensive review of the extant econometric
estimates using meta-regression analysis (MRA). We employ MRA to
quantify the eect of unionization on job satisfaction,and to identify the main
factors underlying the diversity in the results reported in existing empirical
studies.
Meta-analysis of the relationship between union membership and job
satisfaction is important for at least two main reasons. First, despite
a voluminous literature, the paradox of unionized worker dissatisfaction
continues to provoke controversy. It is thus instructive to explore the extent
to which the dierences in the empirical literature are due to the way
studies have been constructed rather than to dierences in the underlying
relationship between unionism and job satisfaction. Second, although unions
have declined in importance, they continue to be a significant force in many
industries and often are key players at the heart of organizational change,
which may in turn aect workers’ satisfaction at work and consequently
organizational performance (Tett and Meyer 1993; Warr 1999).
This paper continues as follows. Section 2 presents a brief discussion of
the competing theoretical arguments and empirical issues in this literature.
Section 3 describes the data used in the meta-analysis and Section 4 presents
the methodology of the MRA approach. Section 5 discusses the MRA results.
Finally, Section 6 concludes the paper and considers some of the policy
implications.
2. Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence
Theoretical Considerations
There is now a sizeable literature exploring the relationship between
unionization and job satisfaction (see Hammer and Avgar 2005 for a review).
As early as the 1970s, Freeman (1978) notes that unionized workers were less
satisfied than non-union workers— but that the former were also less inclined
to leavetheir jobs. Drawing on Hirschman’s(1970) exit/voice theory, Freeman
(1978) argues that unionized work environments protect employees, who are
thus more willing to express their discontent with workingconditions. In such
a context, union members have a voice mechanism to express dissatisfaction
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2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
A Meta-Analysis of the Union–Job Satisfaction Relationship 711
with current terms and conditions, and this mechanism may lead them to
identify an increasing number of job characteristics that should be improved.
A number of other authors have provided alternative explanations for the
negative association between unionization and job satisfaction. For example,
neither Pfeer and Davis-Blake (1990) nor Gordon and Denisi (1995) are
convinced by the arguments advanced by Freeman (1978) that union voice
aects job satisfaction. Pfeer and Davis-Blake (1990) show that union jobs
are less attractive than comparable non-union jobs in certain aspects, such
as the nature of tasks or working conditions (see also Bender and Sloane
1998; Gordon and Denisi 1995). That is, unpleasant jobs are more likely
to lead to unionization (in the mining industry, chemical industry, and so
on). In addition, jobs may also become less attractive after unionization if
management reacts to higher labour costs by decreasing allocations to the
physical work environment or putting pressure on employees (Hammer and
Avgar 2005). Another research stream insists on the fact that the individual
worker who joins a union has dierent personal characteristics from the
worker who prefers not to be unionized (Bryson et al. 2010). For example,
union members are likely to be less easily satisfied, because they have higher
expectations of the employer’s behaviour and obligations. That is, dissatisfied
workers have more incentive to join a union; therefore, it is job dissatisfaction
that influences union membership. In any case, it would be necessary to
distinguish between characteristics of union jobs and characteristics of union
workers. All these arguments refer to the ‘sorting hypothesis’, or reverse
causation, which postulates that the characteristics of individuals who join
a union or the features of the workplace are likely to influence the discontent
of union members and the fact that individuals tend to unionize (Bryson et al.
2010).
The discussion so far is consistent with the hypothesis that unionized
workers are expected to be less satisfied with their jobs than non-unionized
workers. However, there are also arguments contradicting this view. For
example, Pfeer and Davis-Blake (1990) consider that unions might make
workers more satisfied with their jobs. First, union membership has a direct
eect on job outcomes. In particular, unions reduce wage inequality and lead
to the development of transparent managerial procedures in the workplace.
Consequently, unionization can improve job satisfaction through its eect
on workers’ perceptions of impartial treatment. Second, workers who have
some power over their work are more likely to be satisfied with their
job (Kanter 1977). In this sense, if unionization provides individuals with
more control over their working conditions, especially through collective
bargaining, then union members should be more satisfied than non-members.
Finally, Pfeer and Davis-Blake (1990) argue that the act of joining a union
is an activity that involves investing some eort into changing workplace
conditions. Thus, if unionization leads to organizational commitment, we
would expect to find that unionizationhas a positive eect on job satisfaction,
especially in workplaces where union members are often involved in union
activities.
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2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
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