Business Faculty Graduate Students’ Attitudes toward Collective Representation

ABSTRACT: Collective representation is not a not a new phenomenon. Its definition and different forms have been subject to research for more than a century. Traditionally, unions have been the most common form of collective employee representation. But changes in the economy and labor market resulted in a sharp decline in union membership numbers. However, this does not mean that employees have lost their interest in representation. Quite the contrary, the literature started focusing on the ‗representation gap‘, which refers to the fact that employees in nonunion workplaces would prefer to be represented either by a union or some other form of representative entity (Freeman and Rogers, 1993). Absence of such a mechanism would result in widening representation gap. Many researchers reported that although union membership numbers are on the decline, more employees are willing to have representation in the workplace. Such a demand indicates that employees are not satisfied with such human resource management practices as participation programs and they do not view employee involvement programs as a satisfactory substitute for representation (Freeman and Rogers, 1993, Kaufman and Taras, 2000). Accordingly, in the few past decades there has been a growing of interest in employee representation as a way for employees to express their voice, opinions, and complaints to managers. Partnerships established through a representation mechanism in the workplace, is seen as a liberal way of contribution of employees which lead to higher levels of democracy in the workplace (Upchurch et al, 2006). The main purpose of this study was to measure attitudesof graduate students enrolled in EMU‘s Faculty of Business and Economic, toward collective representation. It also focused on measuring their attitudes towards two forms of collective representation: union and nonunion representation. The results of the study indicated that Business Faculty graduate students have positive attitudes toward collective employee representation. Between the two forms of collective representation (union or nonunion) they have more positive attitudes toward nonunion form of representation. The findings also showed that such demographic variables as nationality, undergraduate degree, union experience and having a union member in the family have an infleunece on attitudes toward collective representation and its different forms. Keywords: collective representation, union, nonunion representation. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………