A Comparative Look at Dual Commitment: An International Study

Abstract

North American scholars have had an historical interest in the extent to which workers can be committed to both their employer and their union. This is particularly relevant given the recent emphasis on greater labor-management cooperation as part of a competitive strategy. This paper reviewed the correlational literature concerning the relationship between company and union commitment. Meta-analysis procedures were applied to the results of 76 samples involving a total of 15,699 respondents and found a mean corrected effect size of .42. The extended analyses included multiple studies from Canada, Japan, Sweden, and the United States. A system-level moderator, adversarial, or consensual approach to industrial relations, was found. While further moderator analysis was warranted, studies lacked sufficient information for coding. Conceptual and practical implications from the findings are drawn.

Dual Commitment to the Organization and the Union

“…The accumulated data on this issue led to three meta-analyses on the relationship between the two variables. Reed, Young and McHugh (1994) found a mean corrected correlation of .42, which supported the notion of the existence of dual commitment. Bamberger, Kluger and Suchard (1999) found a corrected correlation of .36 in 41 samples involving a total of 17,935 respondents.…”

Perceived support in a dual organizational environment: Union participation in a university setting

“…It appears that a sense that the administration can be trusted to represent employee needs and concerns reduces the belief that a union is necessary. This is not the case in all organizations, as evidence has shown widely disparate relationships between organizational commitment and union commitment depending on the context (Bamberger et al, 1999;Reed, Young, & McHugh, 1994). However, in our specific research site, there were clearly antagonisms between the union and administration, with the administration actively campaigning for the removal of the union; the very conditions under which union commitment and organizational commitment are inversely related.…”

Industrial Relations Climate and Union Commitment: An Evaluation of Workplace‐Level Effects

“…However, in the wider literature, there have been mixed findings on the organizational commitment-and job satisfaction-union commitment relationships (Reed, Young, and McHugh 1994;Fuller and Hester 1998), and Tan and Aryee"s (2002) Singaporean study found no significant direct effect of job satisfaction on union commitment. In light of such mixed findings, we consider moderation effects (see below).…”

“…For example, whilst most studies have shown a positive association between organizational commitment and union commitment (e.g., Magenau, Martin, and Peterson 1988), some show a negative association (Reed, Young, and McHugh 1994;Fuller and Hester 1998), and IR climate has been identified as a possible moderator of this relationship. Again, a cognitive consistency argument applies:…”