MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

10.3. THEORY REPLICATED OR CONFIRMED
Trade union principles
Trade union managers expressed a variety of views on the nature of
trade union principles. One unsurprising conclusion is that trade union
managers are highly principled people. They did not, however, express
the same principles, however closely related their definitions were. The
word used most often was ‘fair’ and this suggests that an involved
definition, such as that of Batstone et al (1977), might include values
that were less or more espoused by different people. Willman et al
(1980) defined trade union principles as involving justice and fairness
and this research confirms that most of the principles articulated by
trade union managers could be related to these two values, even
though they were often found to be difficult to articulate.
Merger management
Buono and Bowditch (1989:92) described the process of culture
change during merger as a ‘time-consuming, evolutionary process.’
UNISON had been in existence for over 9 years when this research
took place and managers were still aware of cultural issues and had
ideas for dealing with them. In addition, they postulated significant
differences in the performance of organisations in well managed and in
unattended mergers. The differences between the UNiFI and UNISON
mergers, which to a greater or lesser extent were managed, and the
other two mergers, which were largely unattended, supports this view.
However, in the UNISON case, integration was affected by split site
working at national level, supporting Becker’s (1990) view that physical
space issues should be linked to organisational strategy.
10.4. THEORY DEVELOPED OR EXTENDED
Analysing managerial work
In its analysis of managerial work, this study used the framework
presented by Hales (1999). Hales reviewed a wide variety of studies of
managerial work and concluded that many of them, including those of
Mintzberg (1973 and 1994) were descriptive or correlative. He set out
to facilitate an explanatory account of managerial work which was
‘attentive to the constitutive influence of context – how managers’
location within different institutional and organisational systems both
generates and shapes their work.’ (p 342)
This study was examining managerial work in a context where this had
not been attempted before; one where the context was assumed to be
of particular importance. Hales’ framework was therefore considered to
be potentially a useful tool for getting to grips with what trade union
managers actually did.
The study has confirmed the utility of the model in a context where it
had not been employed before – one which Hales had probably not
considered, though he did suggest that the framework might be of help
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