Employee Attitude Surveys in Historical Perspective

Abstract

The history of employee attitude testing in American industry is presented as an example of how behavioral science has been used by management as a tool for solving industrial relations problems. Developed in the twenties, worker attitude surveys were widely used during the late thirties and after World War II to improve employee relations and employee loyalty. Problems associated with surveying, including the inexperience and naiveté of the survey takers, led industry to form close ties with academic behavioral scientists.

The Union Avoidance Industry in the United States

“…EAS experienced a lull in popularity in the immediate post‐Second World War decades, but demand for them grew again in the 1970s and 1980s. By 1981, 45 per cent of manufacturing firms were conducting EAS, up from 21 per cent 20 years earlier (Jacoby 1988). This surge in popularity is in part attributable to a growing hostility towards unionization among American managers and their belief in the utility of the EAS in defeating organizing campaigns (Foulkes 1980: 263; Hammer and Smith 1978).…”

“…In the context of a growing union/non-union wage differential, heightened international and domestic non-union competition, deregulation, changes in the structure of corporate governance that elevated the importance of shortterm share value, and increasing employer demands for flexible work practices, many firms started to resist unionization more vigorously (Jacoby 2001;Lawler 1990: 94). One prominent consultant estimated that the size of the union avoidance industry increased tenfold in the 1970s (U.S. House of Representatives 1979), as employers sought out firms that could help them defeat organizing campaigns or unload existing unions.…”

“…Employer anti-unionism in the United States is grounded in rational economic and job-control considerations. In both wages and benefits, unionized employees do better than their non-union counterparts, and, in a system of decentralized collective bargaining with low union density in most sectors, employers have significant financial incentives to oppose unions (Flanagan 1999;Jacoby 1991). In manufacturing, the so-called union mark-up has increased as the unionized proportion of the workforce had decreased (Hirsch and Schumacher 2001;Strauss 1995).…”

“…Approximately two-thirds of CVR's work consists of conducting Employee Attitude Surveys (EAS) for its non-union clients. Prominent non-union firms such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. first used EAS in the 1930s-1960s (Jacoby 1986). Developed by the University of Chicago Sociology Department, EAS allowed firms to identify unionization vulnerabilities, and firms using EAS often knew more about their workers' attitudes towards unionization than did the unions attempting to organize them.…”

Upward and Onward: Can Staff Appraise Their Managers?

“…Nevels [19] sees upward appraisal as representing the logical extension of the interest in employee opinion and attitude surveys which have long been a feature of many American organizations [20] and which have become more common in recent years in the UK [21,22,23]. He argues that upward appraisal goes beyond the employee survey in being able to pinpoint problems with individual managers.…”