John Thomas Delaney

The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Perceptions of Organizational Performance

In 590 for-profit and nonprofit firms from the National Organizations Survey, we found positive associations between human resource management (HRM) practices, such as training and staffing selectivity, and perceptual firm performance measures. Results also suggest methodological issues for consideration in examinations of the relationship between HRM systems and firm performance.

Reflections on the “High Performance” Paradigm's Implications for Industrial Relations as a Field

Over the past decade, several leading U.S. scholars have advanced a new industrial relations paradigm, according to which “high performance” work and human resource management (HRM) practices have replaced unions and collective bargaining as the innovative force in industrial relations. Although this model fundamentally challenges the traditional focus of the field of industrial relations in the United States, research on it has centered on the diffusion and performance effects of HRM innovations, with surprisingly little systematic reflection on either the underlying tenets of the new paradigm or its implications for the future of the field. Drawing on work of British and U.S. scholars, the authors identify critical aspects of the literature on this subject that deserve careful scrutiny, and suggest several criteria (such as industrial democracy) that need to be used in addition to measures of firm performance in evaluating the new paradigm.

National Union Effectiveness in Organizing: Measures and Influences

The percentage of the U.S. work force that is unionized is at its lowest level in more than 50 years. Although many studies have sought the reasons for this decline, few have investigated characteristics of unions themselves as possible factors. This paper focuses on unions as organizations, and applies a model of national union effectiveness to union organizing. The authors propose a composite measure of organizing effectiveness that goes beyond union success in representation elections. An analysis of data from the 1990 National Union Survey and other sources, with controls for environmental influences, suggests that organizing effectiveness is enhanced by innovation and reduced by centralization of control at the national level. Some evidence is also found that internal union democracy enhances union success in organizing.

An industrial relations perspective on the high-performance paradigm

Abstract Recent studies have suggested that various human resource management (HRM) practices are associated with enhanced economic performance in organizations. This research has led to what we call the high-performance paradigm, a belief that firms can improve performance by adopting certain high-performance work practices (HPWP). We apply an industrial relations (IR) perspective to the high-performance paradigm to extend the insights of HRM studies. After identifying how the perspective typically adopted in IR research differs from that used by HRM researchers, we briefly review the literature on HPWPs, identify limitations in the existing research approach, and suggest issues and areas for future research. In general, we suggest that research on HPWPs has made a valuable contribution to the literature. We urge HRM researchers, however, to devote more attention to underlying conflicts at work, focus more explicitly on the implications of new forms of work for workers, and pay greater attention to the role that cultural forces, unions, and governments play in shaping the workplace.

Unionism and voter turnout

Conventional wisdom suggests that union members and their families are more politically active, and more likely to vote, than nonmembers. This study presents, to our knowledge, the first systematic empirical examination of that conventional wisdom. Results suggest that union members are more likely than nonmembers to vote in a general election, and that union campaign efforts increase voter turnout generally. There is no evidence, however, that union family members are more likely to vote than nonmembers, or that union status affects an individual’s likelihood of voting in a primary election.

Planning for Change: Determinants of Innovation in U.S. National Unions

Although it is commonly argued that unions need to innovate in order to grow and achieve success, little is known about the characteristics of unions that facilitate or hinder innovation. The authors of this study develop a model of union innovation and test it using data collected from many sources, including a 1990 survey of 275 officials and staff members from 111 American national unions. The results suggest that certain union characteristics, such as environmental monitoring (systematic monitoring by the union of developments that could affect it) and rationalization (good structuring and management of administrative activities), are positively associated with innovative behavior. In addition, there is a positive relationship between innovation and the heterogeneity of a unions members.

The Effects of Union Organizational and Environmental Characteristics on Union Political Action

It is well known that organized labor is politically active. Few studies, however, have examined labors political activities or assessed the extent of interunion differences in political action. This study partially fills these research gaps by empirically analyzing the involvement of individual unions in electoral and legislative activities over the years 1978-82. The results suggest that union-specific characteristics influence union political action and, tentatively, that unions make trade-offs between political activity and other activities, such as organizing.

Collective bargaining, interest arbitration, and police salaries

Previous research and conventional wisdom suggest that the practice of collective bargaining, the availability of interest arbitration, and the use of arbitration when available all have a positive effect on salaries. In this study, believed to be the first to incorporate all those variables, the authors analyze data on police salaries in more than 900 cities during the 1971–81 period. The results show that collective bargaining and the availability of arbitration do have positive although modest effects on salaries, but in states providing the arbitration option, salaries do not differ significantly between cities that use the option and those that do not.

Strikes, Arbitration, and Teacher Salaries: A Behavioral Analysis

This study uses Bacharach and Lawlers behavioral theory of bargaining to derive hypotheses about the impact of strikes and compulsory interest arbitration on teacher salaries. Those hypotheses are tested with data sets on Illinois and Iowa school districts and on a national sample of teachers drawn from the Current Population Survey. The results suggest that strike use affects teacher salaries but that arbitration use does not. Additional tests indicate that the availability of both arbitration and of the legal or de facto right to strike has similar effects on salary levels, increasing salaries by about 10 percent. The findings also suggest that arbitration and the strike are used as defensive rather than offensive strategies.

Unions and Information Technology: From Luddites to Cyberunions?

Survey data are used to examine the use of, and views about, infor mation technology (IT) among U.S. national unions. Usable responses were received from nearly two-thirds of such unions. In addition to de scriptive information regarding IT use in national unions, this paper ten tatively explores both the causes and consequences of IT use. While IT use of some sort is found to be nearly universal, there is considerable variation across unions in the use of many forms of IT (e.g., e-mail, websites, video conferences) and in the areas to which IT is applied (e.g., bargaining, organizing, communicating with current members). However, a vast majority of survey respondents feel that IT has improved service and overall efficiency at their unions, and that continued IT emphasis is critical to union success. Results show preliminary support for most hypotheses concerning possible causes and consequences of IT use by unions.