MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

management, the researcher is under no illusion that these might
reflect espoused theory rather than, necessarily, theory in action.
A third contextual contingency relevant to this research project is
merger. All of the case study unions have been created as a result of
merger. As noted above, the rationale for this was that management
activity was more likely to be identified in unions that had merged
because there had to be some proactive action taken to bring the
merging organisations together. It could be said that the case study
unions were in this sense a ‘test bed’, enabling trade union
management to be observed even if it was invisible elsewhere.
Merger
There has been very little examination of the management of trade
union mergers – as could be expected when so little has been written
about many other aspects of trade union management. Only identified
to date are Dempsey (2000) and Dempsey and McKevitt (2001), both
examining aspects of the merger which created UNISON. It is
suggested (Dempsey 2000:51) that the management of mergers is a
management task in itself. It follows that there may be managerial
activities which will become visible from research amongst managers
who were, in most cases, directly involved in the merger of their unions.
Bouono and Bowditch (1989) proposed a seven stage model for the
examination of activities occurring when organisations merged. This is
set out in Exhibit 2.4. Dempsey and McKevitt (2001) found that they
could identify many of the features found by Bouno and Bowditch
(1989) in their case studies – loss of organisational pride, employee
detachment, fractionalisation, loss of job security and feelings of
helplessness – many of which were unanticipated consequences. They
also found that the Bouono and Bowditch (1989) stages were
recognisable and that many of the predicted consequences occurred.
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