MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Trade union managers
CHAPTER NINE: CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS
9.1. INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER NINE
The previous four chapters presented within-case analysis. This
chapter is designed to address the cross-case analysis data from the
four cases, consistent with a multiple case study approach (Miles and
Huberman 1994; Yin 1994).The intention is to contribute further to the
understanding of, and insights into, trade union managers and how
they manage.
The chapter is divided into five sub-sections, the next four of which of
which have relationships to the propositions outlined in chapter 2:-
TOPIC IN SUB-SECTION PROPOSITION
9.2 Acceptance of managerial
roles
1
9.3. Managing people and
physical resources
2, 3 and 4.1
9.4 Stakeholder management 4.2 and 5
9.5. Resource deployment (4.2)
9.2 ACCEPTANCE OF MANAGERIAL ROLES
The merger context
Merger was a significant contingent factor in the choice of the case study
unions. The literature review - in particular in its review of the work of
Bouono and Bowditch (1989) - suggested that one should not treat merger
as a single, one-off event. Merger travels through a number of phases
(they identify seven – shown in Exhibit 2.4) during which staff exhibit
different emotional responses, calling ideally for different managerial
responses. Hence, in examining the extent to which managerial roles are
accepted, these aspects of the merger context acquire some significance.
All four unions had become legal entities some years before research
commenced. Thus, in terms of the seven stage model, they could all be
expected to have reached the sixth or seventh stage. A more complex
picture emerges, however, arising from a range of factors. The first of
these is how the unions approached the management of the mergers that
created them.
The four case study unions adopted different approaches to managing
mergers. UNISON adopted by far the most pro-active approach; its
commissioning of an anthropological survey of the cultures of the merging
unions is probably unprecedented and its use of various training
techniques, in management of change and management development,
were extensive. PTC used some of these ideas upon merger but it could