MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

• In connection with trade union governance, is it possible to use
the Cornforth (2002) idea of a paradox perspective to arrive at
clearer ideas about the dynamics of governance as it affects lay
activists (who should be additional subjects of research) and
managers? Is there a ‘partnership model’ and how can it be
defined? In any case, is it possible to arrive at shared views
about where boundaries lie?
• There is work in the public and not for profit sectors on the
relationship between, and the consequent boundaries between,
managers and those with governance responsibility. Research
may reveal the extent to which that work can be of utility in
examining the boundaries between trade union managers and
lay activists.
• In connection with union mergers, research around the following
proposition arising from Cartwright and Cooper (1994). ‘In a
merger between unions at opposite ends of the continuum
between leadership predominance and membership
participation, lay members from unions where the leadership is
predominant will welcome the creation of a new organisation in
which they have less constraints; concomitantly, managers from
those organisations will be less likely to welcome a new
organisation in which they perceive the constraints on them to
have increased.’
10.9. EVIDENCE OF DISSEMINATION
A paper, ‘Get Thee to a Nunnery; trade union managers, values and
governance’, was accepted by a process of peer review for the Second
International Symposium on Management in the Non-Profit Sector in
Nicosia, Cyprus on 5 th -6 th December 2003. A further paper, ‘Trade
Union Managers; invisible actors in trade union governance’ has
received a favourable referees’ report for publication as a Cranfield
Working Paper, provided the material on trade union governance is
expanded. This will be done in 2004.
10.10. POSTCRIPT
It all seemed so easy. The supervisor said that anyone could do a PhD
if they wanted to do so. I had a brilliant idea of what to do. My
organisation agreed to pay half the costs and my Cranfield Centre
agreed to pay the rest. I negotiated being late at choir practice so I
could attend the (excellent) research methodology course and off I
went.
But the topic changed by the month, sometimes more frequently.
Access became a real problem. Every piece of writing, viewed some
months later, seemed inexplicable. Every stage in the research
seemed problematic – transcribing interviews took for ever until I
discovered speech recognition software, coding seemed a mystery until
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