Abstract

The present study attempted to explore (1) the relationship between company commitment(CC) and union commitment(UC) and (2) the relationship of union member's individual characteristics, the union-management relation, the union climate, and the influential power of the union with CC and UC. It also examined (3) the effect on the CC and UC of the effectiveness of the representatives from the union and the company management in the collective bargaining. The final objective of this study was (4) to test whether perceptual congruence between the union members and their representatives and that between the union members and the company representatives have any effect on CC and UC. To this end, data were collected from 251 union members, 73 union representatives, and 33 company representatives of 10 unionized companies. The main results of the study were as follows: (1) the relationship between CC and UC was found to be different depending upon the job type (i.e., white or blue collar). The relationship between CC and UC were significantly positive for the white collar workers, but negative for the blue collar. (2) The union members' individual characteristics had significant but different relationships with CC and UC, depending upon the job type. (3) The relationships between the labor-management relational characteristics and OC/UC were generally positive, but the better the labor-management relation, the lower the blue collar's UC. (4) The effectiveness of the union representatives' behavior during the collective bargaining was found to increase both OC and UC whereas the effectiveness of the company representatives had a positive relationship with CC and a negative one with UC. (5) The representatives from both the union and the company tended to evaluate their own bargaining effectiveness higher than their counterparts'. (6) The perceptual congruence between the union members and the company representatives on the bargaining effectiveness of the company representatives tended to make a significant decrease in UC whereas that between the union members and their representatives on the effectiveness of the union representatives increased UC. Finally, the conceptual and practical implications of the research findings were discussed.