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The purpose of this paper is to explore performance management in four UK trade unions. Specifically, the extent to which managers in the four unions accept or dismiss the unitarist, disciplinary and performative values that arguably characterise performance management practices.

A qualitative research design was adopted to investigate trade union managers’ interpretations of performance management. Managers were targeted because they held the power to shape performance management practices in their specific areas. The research employed qualitative semi-structured interviews.

Performance management in trade unions is linked to the structure, purpose and orientation of different types of trade union. It is also linked to the wider environmental context. The trade union managers’ interpretations of performance management are linked to disciplinary and performative values. As such they are comparable to the unitarist forms of performance management described in the literature. There are moreover, similarities and differences between the approaches to performance management between trade unions and for profit or public sector organisations.

The paper adds to the emerging literature on internal trade union management by highlighting a particular aspect of human resource management.

The purpose of this editorial is to review the significance of Roger Undy's book, Trade Union Merger Strategies: Purpose, Process and Performance, Oxford University Press, 2008.

The editorial outlines and evaluates the arguments put forward by Dr Undy to explain why trade union mergers take place. It also evaluates the book's analysis of the politics of trade union mergers.

As trade union membership has declined mergers have been prominent features in strategies of union revival. Yet, there is little empirical research into the effects of mergers on the unions actually merging or on their impact on the wider union movement. Dr Undy concludes that mergers do not provide a solution to the problem of falling membership and that transfers of engagements are often more successful than amalgamations.

The editorial offers insights into the process, performance and effects of trade union mergers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the consequences of a managerial approach to renewal for a union’s behaviour by analysing the UK’s fourth largest trade union – The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW).

The findings draw on in-depth semi-structured interviews with union officials.

The research findings show the significance of a managerialist approach to UDSAW’s renewal strategy and its correlation with existing renewal strategies of organising and partnership. However, this approach was not immune to context, with tensions between agency and articulation challenging the basic concept of managerialism and influencing union behaviour.

The data were collected from a single case with a small sample size.

The authors’ findings suggest that tensions between bureaucracy and democracy will mediate the extent to which managerialist approaches can be used within unions adding support to the strategic choice theory and underlying arguments that unions can influence their fortune. However, institutional and external pressures could see managerialism becoming more prevalent, with oligarchic and bureaucratic forces prevailing, which could be particularly applicable to unions operating in challenging contexts, such as USDAW. The managerialisation of unions has consequences for union officers; with officers facing increasing pressure in their roles to behave as managers with attendant implications for role conflict, identity and motivation.

If managerialism is becoming more prevalent with unions, with oligarchic and bureaucratic forces prevailing, this has potentially wider societal implications, whereby collectivism and worker-led democracy could become scarcer within unions and the workplace, thus irretrievably altering the nature of the employment relationship.

This paper brings together disparate themes in the literature to propose a conceptual framework of three key elements of managerialism: centralised strategies; performance management and the managerialisation of union roles. The authors’ findings demonstrate how there is scope for unions to adopt a hybrid approach to renewal, and to draw upon their internal resources, processes and techniques to implement change, including behavioural change. Consequently, theories and empirical studies of union renewal need to better reflect the complexities of approaches that unions are now adopting and further explore these models within the agency and articulation principles that underpin the nature of unions.

Employee representatives′ perceptions of job evaluation are explored and the impact of job evaluation on the collective bargaining procedure, pay differentials, motivation and performance is considered. In conclusion, an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of job evaluation is given.

Schemes of profit sharing and employee share‐holding have a 19th century origin. The objects of profit sharing vary according to its proponents. The primary focus of this paper will be on managerial schemes of financial participation and the expectations that their installation will lead to an improvement in organizational performance and employee behaviour. Using a survey of 2,827 private sector firms in 11 European countries we test for the effect of profit sharing on profitability, productivity and employee turnover and absenteeism. In addition, the effect of profit sharing on union influence is examined. In common, with other research in this area, our results show that while there is some evidence of a positive relationship between profit sharing and organizational performance, this was not definitive. In the case of union influence, there was some evidence of an adverse effect of these schemes on the solidarity of the collective.

Organizations profoundly create development paths of individual’s careers. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to gain understanding about how organizational context (shaped by the complex relationship between trade union strength and HRM strength) influences the application of organizational career management (OCM) practices seen through the lens of the theory of cooperation and competition (Deutsch, 1949; Tjosvold, 1984).

Inferential statistical analyses (Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney tests) were applied to test the CRANET survey data collected from 92 large-sized private-sector organizations within an EU country characterized by a medium to high-trade union density.

Results offered consistent empirical evidence that a comprehensive set of OCM practices are applied differently across four distinctive modalities of the union-HRM relationship. Specifically, the “union-HRM synergy” relationship (high-HRM/high-unionization) has been recognized as the most promising for adopting such developmental practices, providing an evidence of complementarities between trade unions and HRM professionalism.

The research suggests that synergistic collaboration between trade unions and HRM might provide employees with even more career development opportunities than when organizations pursue the asynchronous single-sided “Total HRM strategy.”

This study rejuvenate a traditional career management research agenda by introducing a new theoretical lens for studying the interplay between trade unions and HRM and have put an emphasis on how their strength is related to the incidence of OCM practices.

Whilst there has been quite a lot of research and speculation about the ability of the unions to adapt to the changed environmental circumstances of the 1980s, there has been no consideration of the impact of such changes on the financial status and performance of trade unions. It is suggested that, contrary to popular opinion, the unions have fared reasonably well during the period of membership decline, in part because they did not benefit very much during the growth phase of the 1970s. Increased membership will not necessarily solve financial problems.

Of all the relationships that auditors enter into, that with employees seems relatively neglected, and with the trade unions virtually absent from consideration. During the anti‐union period of Thatcher and Reagan this may have been explicable, but now that a more balanced role for trade unions is much more accepted by employers and governments, it is high time to give this relationship more attention. This is especially the case since research into the behavioural impact of internal audit tends to be negative, and show no improvement over time. This means that each generation or wave needs to make renewed effort to deal with this problem. The European model of corporate governance has long accorded a more significant role to the trade union.

Review of the literature, especially research findings on the behavioural aspects of an audit. Relevant law and practice is considered.

As internal audit charters become the norm, trade unions are a significant stakeholder to be envisaged, and the same could apply to the letter of external audit engagement. Equally the trade unions themselves might welcome a concord with representative bodies of internal auditors.

Nobody has ever considered the interrelationship of trade unions and internal audit. This is an important stakeholder relationship.

Discusses how since 1970, the colonial government in Hong Kong has exercised its wide legal powers over trade union organization and activities in a benevolent manner. Whether the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government will continue this policy is uncertain: the new government may enforce the trade unions’ legal framework more rigorously. UK trade unions proved themselves reliant and adaptable in the face of a wide raft of legislative “reforms”, brought in by Conservative governments in the 1979 to 1997 period, which laid down strict templates for their internal decision‐making processes. Suggests that the “survival lessons” learned by the UK trade unions during this period of hostile government may be of help to Hong Kong trade unions which face future challenges.

This paper examines the effects of sub-national union coverage on the youth's labor market outcomes.

In the context of the private business sector in Vietnam, this study link individual labor market data with union coverage at provincial level in the period 2013–2016 to investigate the effects of sub-national union coverage on the youth's labor market outcomes. Contingent on the outcome variable, we use the OLS and probit model that control for diverse individual characteristics, year- and industry-fixed effects, and particularly control for selection bias in the labor market.

The empirical results show that the union coverage is positively associated with a wide range of the youth's labor market outcomes, including employment status, wage rate, work hour, and job formality. Also, the coverage is complementary to individual labor contract in determining the youth's wage rate.

Our empirical results indicate positive associations between union coverage and the youth's multi-dimensional labor market outcomes, which contribute to this young age cohort's smooth school-to-work transition, provided that the role of trade union is challenged both in developing and developed countries.

This study provides an in-depth study on the interplay between trade union and the youth's labor market outcomes that contributes to the literature of labor market institutions and youth employment policies in a dynamic transitional economy of Vietnam.