Premium
Union Leadership and Member Participation
Author(s) -
KAHN ROBERT L.,
TANNENBAUM ARNOLD S.
Publication year - 1957
Publication title -
personnel psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.076
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1744-6570
pISSN - 0031-5826
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-6570.1957.tb00781.x
Subject(s) - psychology , ranking (information retrieval) , interpersonal communication , social psychology , population , productivity , rank (graph theory) , social skills , order (exchange) , work (physics) , interpersonal relationship , public relations , applied psychology , political science , sociology , developmental psychology , demography , business , economic growth , mechanical engineering , mathematics , finance , combinatorics , machine learning , computer science , engineering , economics
Summary T here is a substantial body of research which documents the importance of the leader's interpersonal skills in determining the attitudes and behavior of group members. Most of this work has been done in industry and has been concentrated on the relationship between the foreman and his men. The present article represents an attempt to replicate several of the well‐established industrial findings on a different population–union stewards and the members of their shops. Participation in union activities was regarded as the analog of individual productivity, and it was predicted that this criterion would be related to the perceived leadership skills of the steward in (1) communicating to the men, (2) involving them in decision making, (3) providing “help” to the men, and (4) taking personal interest in how the men get along on the job. These relationships were tested in four local unions of the industrial type in southern Michigan. The locals had been selected to differ with respect to the participation criterion. Data were collected by written questionnaire, with telephone and personal follow‐up. Results were substantially as predicted, with the rank order of locals on the leadership dimensions corresponding closely to the ranking on the participation criterion.