Union Organizing as a Mobilizing Strategy: The Impact of Social Identity and Transformational Leadership on the Collectivism of Union Members
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2009.00733.x |
| Author | Pauline Stanton,Timothy Bartram,Christina Cregan |
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
Union Organizing as a Mobilizing
Strategy: The Impact of Social Identity
and Transformational Leadership on the
Collectivism of Union Membersbjir_733701..722
Christina Cregan, Timothy Bartram and
Pauline Stanton
Abstract
This article investigates the effect of union organizing as a mobilizing strategy
on the collectivism of union members. We examine the impact of a worker’s
social identification with fellow members and the transformational leadership
qualities of the local union representative. We employ regression analysis with
tests of mediation to analyse the survey responses of c. 1,000 rank and file
members of a major professional union, collected in July 2004 during a mobi-
lization campaign. Social identification and transformational leadership were
associated with members’ union loyalty and willingness to work for the union.
Social identification acted as a mediating variable in both cases.
1. Introduction
There are two different perspectives on union organizing. At one level, it is
held to be a cost-effective, decentralized recruitment strategy, brought about
by person-to-person contact at the workplace (Bronfenbrenner and Juravich
1998). At a deeper level, it is viewed as a mobilizing strategy (Cregan 2005).
This article investigates organizing as a mobilizing strategy. The aim of a
mobilizing strategy is to change the group ‘from being a passive collection of
individuals to an active participant in public life’ (Tilly 1978: 69). A union
conducts this strategy by means of a mobilization campaign. It encourages its
members to engage in on-site struggles alongside other members under the
Christina Cregan is at the University of Melbourne. Timothy Bartram is at La Trobe University.
Pauline Stanton is at Victoria University.
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2009.00733.x
47:4 December 2009 0007–1080 pp. 701–722
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2009. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
inspirational leadership of a workplace representative; this leads to the social
identification of workers with the union and the strengthening of collective
attitudes and behaviour (Kelly 1998). Individual consumers of union services
become active participants in collectivism (Carter and Cooper 2002). The
union and its members are transformed from within (Grabelsky and Hurd
1994).
There has been no systematic investigation of organizing from the per-
spective of a mobilizing strategy (Heery and Adler 2004). One major study
has examined the impact of a mobilization campaign on the collectivism of
individual members (Klandermans 1984). But there has been no empirical
study of mobilization that examines the impact of workers’ social identifi-
cation with the workplace union and local union leadership on members’
collectivism. This is the approach that we adopt in this article. In contrast to
Klandermans (1984), we use a non-calculative, group-based view of mobi-
lization (Kelly 1998). Our contribution to the literature is to extend and
investigate Kelly’s social identity framework, incorporating transforma-
tional leadership. The inspirational elected workplace leaders envisaged by
union organizing (Charlwood 2004; Fletcher and Hurd 1998; Sharpe 2004)
can be described as transformational leaders (Burns 1978; Weber 1947).
They direct the mobilizing strategy and help transform the ‘mode of
operation of their group from individual-oriented, hedonistic, rational-
economic...to...collective, moral and value-oriented’ (Shamir et al.
1993: 579).
We bring together two sets of literature — social identity and transfor-
mational leadership — to construct hypotheses to examine the strength of
collectivism in union members. Only a handful of empirical studies have
used social identity theory to investigate collectivism in union members
(e.g. Blader 2007; Kelly and Kelly 1994; Metocchi 2002), and there are even
fewer studies of the effect of leadership on groups, in particular, of trans-
formational leadership (e.g. Fullagar et al. 1992; Kelloway and Barling
1993; Twigg et al. 2008). ‘Very little is known about the impact of trans-
formational leadership on collectives...although virtually every transfor-
mational leadership model presumes such effects’ (Feinberg et al. 2005:
473). It is generally agreed that local union representatives have a ‘pivotal
role’ in the socialization process of membership (Fullagar et al. 1994: 530),
but we know of no major work that has empirically investigated both
social identification and transformational leadership in relation to
collectivism.
In July 2004, we carried out a survey of the members of the Victorian
branch of the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) during a well-planned
mobilization campaign. We present an analysis of the impact of social iden-
tification and transformational leadership on aspects of members’ collec-
tivism in the form of union loyalty and willingness to work for the union.
Regression analysis with tests of mediation is employed to investigate the
survey responses of c. 1,000 union members. The results are discussed in the
light of implications for effective union organizing.
702 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2009.
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