MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

One specific issue is relevant to the discussion above of staff
autonomy. In looking at cultural change during merger the authors note
that Cartwright and Cooper (1996:63) adopt a simple cultural typology
of power, role, task/achievement and person/support cultures.
Cartwright and Cooper place these on a continuum in which a power
culture is at the limits of placing high individual constraints on
employees and a person/support culture is at the limit of imposing little
or no individual constraints. They then argue that it is not so much the
distance between the merging parties that is important, but the
direction in which the other culture has to move, i.e. ‘whether members
of organisations experience the culture which they are expected to
adopt as imposing more or less constraint on them as individuals.’
Dempsey and McKevitt (2001) found that managers from NALGO,
used to a role culture, tended to feel less constrained whilst those from
NUPE, a power culture, felt more constrained. So the level of staff
autonomy may depend on more than merely the extent to which
national and individual objectives are set and monitored.
The word ‘culture’ is almost as pervasive in the public prints as the
word ‘stakeholder’ but it is inherently difficult to define and there are
many disagreements about its meaning. Fryer (2000) highlights the
extensive use of the idea in discourse during the negotiations that led
to the creation of Unison. He makes the point that participants who
used the word did so in a way which was pregnant with their own
perceptions of their own union’s culture, and of the culture of the other
unions and this is undoubtedly true. Nevertheless, the astonishing
pervasiveness of the concept, one which previously had had precious
little provenance in any literature relating to trade unions, is reflected in
this research. Culture was not an area of enquiry during the interviews
held in pursuance of this research but, of the 56 interviews held, 53
interviewees used the term. Searching against the word produced 289
coded passages. In some cases, the use of the word did not relate to
organisational culture – there was reference, for example, to the
enterprise culture. But it is plain from the case studies that interviewees
had vivid understanding of the meaning of the term as it impacted on
them, either with relation to their old union, to a partner union or to their
new union.
Instead of using the idea of culture as an analytical tool, Fryer (2000)
uses the term ‘character’ which he defines (page 30) as ‘that rich
collection of aims, values, purposes, ways of working, relationships,
moods, signs, symbols, rites, ‘feel’, orientations and identities which go
to make up what has sometimes been referred to as the ‘ethos’ of an
organisation. A union’s character is also recognisable from its
reputation, style and the typical vocabularies and attitudes expressed
by its leaders and members. The notion of organisational character
thus deliberately acknowledges the effective and emotional dimensions
of organisational life and its construction, which are utterly central to
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