What's inside the black box? Union differences, innovations, and outcomes

Although it is recognized that differences exist across unions, theoretical and empirical analyses of U.S, national unions have been limited by a lack of information on national unions' strategies, structures, and internal operations. This study addresses that gap by conceptualizing and identifying differences among national unions in strategies, structures, and other areas. A review of relevant literature in industrial relations and organizational science is used as the basis for conceptualizing key characteristics and differences. National union strategies, structures, and practices are then assessed empirically via responses to the 1990 National Union Survey and supplementary information from union constitutions. Findings suggest that unions differ considerably in terms of size, democratic structures, and membership heterogeneity, and little in terms of the scope of worker-related issues they attempt to address. Relationships among key characteristics are identified and discussed. In addition, multivariate examinations of relations among union characteristics, union innovation, and union organizing effectiveness are used to illustrate the importance of the general findings. Thus, the paper provides a contemporary broad-based description of national union characteristics and insights into factors that are associated with unions' success as organizations.