MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

there are factors contingent on merger which clearly had an impact. In
PTC, for example, it was the development of a new management
structure for the new organisation that led directly to the Templeton
College sessions which sought to influence managers to accept
managerial roles. The same structures were used for PCS when that
union was formed. Similarly, the need to manage the merger was
perceived by CWU managers, principally originating from the NCU,
which led to sessions at Cranfield to look at how management of the
new organisation could be approached, taking into account the different
cultural experiences of managers from the two old organisations.
In UNISON, several managers suggested that it was merger in
particular which led to the development of a management culture and
the size of the new organisation as being a contingent factor. The
General Secretary of UNiFI talked about how he wanted to use the
process of merger to introduce things which had not been there in his
previous union – an HR specialist, individual assessment and,
consequently, IIP.
Depending on the phase of merger which the union had reached,
organisational changes occurred which required managers to manage
– new structures, new systems, programmes for senior managers in
merger management and so on. Managers did not, however, generally
express the incidents of merger mentioned in proposition 1 – with the
exception of the size of the organisation – as being the major factor
causing them personally to accept managerial roles, though the size of
the new organisation being created was clearly a factor. Rather,
contingent factors outlined in the above hypotheses led to greater
institutional support for the concept and thus changed the environment
in which they managed.
9.3 MANAGING PEOPLE AND PHYSICAL RESOURCES
Any examination of the way in which trade union managers manage
people and physical resources and the reasons for how they do so
needs to be undertaken in the light of the research propositions. These
suggest (proposition 3) that the experiences of trade union managers in
confronting managers in their negotiating roles will be a significant
factor in management being regarded as a problematic concept. As
conceptualised using Hales’ (1999) model, cognitive rules deriving from
those experiences will impart meanings impacting on the way in which
trade union managers act. Proposition 4 suggests that trade union
principles, as defined by Batstone et al (1977), influence the way in
which trade union managers undertake their managerial roles,
specifically in the management of people. So, describing this
proposition in the light of Hales’ (1999) model, ‘norms’, arising from
moral rules deriving from the principles espoused by trade union
managers, will impact on the way in which they act as managers.
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