MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

with managerial tasks of achieving the smooth, continuous and efficient
co-operation of all employees in pursuit of the official objectives of the
organisation…and motivating maximum performance’
It is argued in this chapter that both management and trade unions
have changed. Literature is discussed which suggests that managerial
activities are recognisable in trade unions and this research
endeavours to explain if and why that situation has arisen, seeking also
to identify both the nature of managerial activities and the reasons they
are undertaken. In that the case study unions have arisen from merger,
explanations are sought as to whether that feature will be likely to play
a part in the development of managerial activities, including the
management of the merger itself – though literature has recognised
that management in trade unions may be a problematic concept.
However, the use of models derived from management and
organisational literature can, it is argued, provide insights into these
issues. It is noted as a fact that one of the case study unions has been
awarded the Investors in People standard and two others aspire to it.
This does not suggest that Fryer and Hyman’s assertion that
management in trade unions exhibits little professionalism is axiomatic
in today’s world.
This is not to say that trade union specific literature is not important. It
is argued that the identification of unions as polyarchies (e.g. Banks
1974), structures in which legitimate interest groups compete for power
and influence, is of particular significance. Whether or not the
assumption is made that conflict between these groups is inevitable
(which this research does not assume), it is argued that polyarchy is a
recognisable reality. The argument goes further and seeks to make
links between the management of organisations identified as
polyarchies and the practice of stakeholder management. ‘Normative’
stakeholder management (Donaldson and Preston 1995) assumes that
stakeholder interests (the interests, for example, of interest groups
within a polyarchy) are legitimate and intrinsically valuable. If trade
union management is practised within a polyarchy, therefore, it is
difficult to see how it will not include the necessity of undertaking some
managerial activities vis-à-vis interest groups operating within the
union. Thus, it is argued, normative stakeholder management should
be an identifiable reality within the case study trade unions even if
boundary management, arising from political and power relations
between the various stakeholders, may render that activity one of some
complexity.
Normative stakeholder management is an ethical activity founded on a
belief in the intrinsic value of legitimate stakeholders. It has always
been recognised that trade unions have been founded on sets of
principles, even if the literature has found it difficult to define them with
any consistency. This research adopts the definition proposed by
Batstone (1977) which talks (inter alia) of ‘unity’, ‘social justice’,
‘fairness’, and ‘equality’. The argument is presented that such
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