The antecedents of donor commitment to voluntary organizations

The past decade has seen a rapid growth in the number of regular or so‐called committed giving schemes. Charities have been increasingly eager to solicit donors onto a low‐value monthly donation, collected automatically from their bank account or credit card. Although the initial costs of donor acquisition are higher than for cash donations, charities find that committed givers are less likely to lapse and therefore offer substantially higher lifetime values over time. In this article, we examine to what extent these individuals are truly committed, that is, whether they are more committed than occasional cash givers and the factors that might drive that commitment. The results of a series of ten focus groups conducted on behalf of five large national charities are reported and a model of the antecedents of commitment hypothesized. Implications for fundraising strategy are explored.     

Variables related to patterns of union Stewards’ commitment

This article examines whether the union and employer commitment of stewards can be predicted by the same antecedent factors and whether any o f those factors are related to dual or unilateral commitment. It modifies a conceptual framework of organizational commitment to recognize the presence of a union and then applies that framework to both union and employer commitment. The analysis found that the predictors of union and employer commitment were mostly different, and structural characteristics of the union, employer, and work significantly differentiated between stewards with high and low dual commitment and between standards with high and low unilateral commitment.     

From union hegemony to union disintegration: Collective bargaining in cement and related industries

The cement industry provides an interesting example of the impact of collective bargaining where management determines that it cannot afford a strike, yields to extreme union demands, but deludes itself that it can withstand the economic impact of unionism under such circumstances because almost all competitors are similarly situated and labor costs can be partially offset by automation. The small Cement, Lime, and Gypsum Workers Union won not only high wages and benefits, but imposed restrictive rules as severe as those in any industry. Eventually, however, foreign competition and economic realities forced the companies to revolt, and the union found that it could not sustain strikes. An ill-conceived merger broke up, an independent union was formed, and today unionism, once so strong, is weak and divided as management imposes or forces acceptance of its conditions. The story, while unique in many ways, resembles what has occurred in other industries with high fixed costs, militant unions, and the reluctance of management to sacrifice current gains for longer run needs. Professor Emeritus of Management and former Director, Industrial Research Unit. Ms. Sue Torelli, Librarian, Industrial Research Unit, and Kevin Barry, Librarian, Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University, provided helpful information and numerous documents.     

Consequences of organizational commitment in abolished company sports team - a case study in Japan

The purpose of this study was to show that how the abolishment of company sports team influenced the organizational commitment in employees. In this study, Three-Component Model of Organizational Commitment (Meyer and Allen, 1997) was tested with 16 employees (10 males, 6 females) of T Company in NAGANO prefecture. The average age of the participants was 44, 50 years (SD=±0.85). And from 16 employees, 3 male employees were measured on organizational commitment with interview test. According to the analysis, the relation between organizational commitment in employees and the abolishment of company sports team was not positive significant correlation. Furthermore, results of interview test did not show the relation between organizational commitment in employees and the abolishment of company sports team. However, results of interview test showed the relation with organizational commitment of players in T Company sports team. Consequently, the goal to possess a sports team in T Company was not to boost organizational commitment in employees. In addition, it is necessary to reconsider the correlation among employees engaged in T Company in the future.     

Construction union programs to regain jobs: Background and overview

All union initiatives discussed herein are based on union demands for monopoly. Unable to compete with the open-shop contractors on an economic basis, the construction unions seek to offset economic considerations with political initiatives. They have been remarkably successful in so doing; yet their membership continues to lag.⁴⁷ The question for the future is whether politically assisted monopoly will smother economics with the public as the big loser. The author is Professor Emeritus of Management and was formerly, Director, Industrial Research Unit, and Chairman, Labor Relations Council.     

Local union mergers: Frequency,forms, and national union policy

This paper presents the results of a survey on the characteristics of almost 1,900 union mergers. It was found that a large proportion of national unions had some local mergers, but a majority of cases occurred in a few very active unions. Most mergers were absorptions of smaller locals into larger ones. Formal requirements for local mergers, either through general policies or constitutional clauses, were infrequent, but national level governing bodies appear to have substantial control over the approval of mergers. Suggestions are made for the further study of local mergers in relation to bargaining structure, local autonomy, membership participation, and local effectiveness.     

Caring: commitment to excellence or condemnation to conformity?

The art of caring to alleviate illness and to promote health is nursing's unique commitment to society and the health-care industry. How this practice is implemented dictates the success or failure of prescribed strategies. In addition, the way in which caring is implemented defines emotional maturity on both a personal and professional level. Several goals to rehabilitate the psychologically codependent person include: Developing an awareness of the origins of codependency and how early family experiences affect subsequent behavior and beliefs about oneself; Identifying the personal price and payoffs for continuing codependent behaviors; The ability to openly express personal needs, wishes, feelings, and opinions while respecting the rights of others; Learning to discriminate between loving/caring and the destructive control of codependency; and The ability to take responsibility for another rather than being responsible to another. Codependent behaviors are prevalent within professional nursing practice, as evidenced by examples provided from three specialty areas in nursing and the fact that women (who are traditionally assigned the cultural role of caring) constitute the majority of professional nurses. Therefore, it is a professional challenge to each nurse to ascertain whether practices are functional or dysfunctional: is the professional interpretation of caring a commitment to excellence or a condemnation to conformity in the unique delivery of health-care practice?     

Early childhood and maternal antecedents to drug use.

In a longitudinal study, the substance use/abuse histories were obtained on a community sample of 640, (mean age of 24.9 years) randomly selected from the 8,000 Philadelphia black subjects who had been studied comprehensively from birth to seven years of age in the National Collaborative Perinatal Project (NCPP). Among other conclusions, it is postulated from some of the many significant associations found between early life variables and substance use/abuse in early adulthood, that an infant is at risk who has the following combination of characteristics and family situation: outgoing, responsive, assertive or impulsive, or willful, and who is in an unfavorable family environment, with a mother who is generally negative toward the infant, has a larger number of small children and has had more fetal deaths, in a generally poor social environment.     

Challenges to professionalism and union voting intentions: The case of pharmacists

Using data from a national survey of pharmacists who are members of the American Pharmaceutical Association, we examine the union voting intentions of employee pharmacists. We find that union instrumentality regarding professionalism is a primary predictor of union voting intent among these employees. In addition, this predictor mediates the relationship between the level of professionalism at a pharmacist’s current employment situation and his or her expected union vote. Also important to union voting intent are respondent beliefs about union instrumentality regarding pecuniary issues, prior union experience, as well as overall job satisfaction. Implications for employers, unions, and researchers are drawn. We thank Mary Graham, Jann Skelton, Paul Swiercz, Terry Thomason, and participants at the Seventh Bar-gaining Group Conference at Michigan State University for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. This research was made possible by a grant from the American Pharmaceutical Association.     

Outsiders in the union: organizing,consent, and union recognition campaigns

Although outsiders have played an important role in social protest in the U.S., outsiders’ role in the U.S. labor movement has been the focus of spirited debate. Debate about outsider organizers, in particular, reached a fevered pitch in the late 1990s, and continues today. This paper scrutinizes two of the core assumptions of this debate: that insider and outsider organizers operate differently on union recognition campaigns, and that workers respond to them differently in these settings. We analyzed 153 in-depth interviews with workers and organizers conducted at the height of the debate, in order to answer two questions: What is the role of outsider organizers during private sector union recognition campaigns, and how do outsider organizers secure workers’ consent in these settings? All of the organizers in our data-set were graduates of the AFL-CIO’s Organizing Institute, and 64 of them were outsiders. The outsider organizers in our data-set confronted barriers that insider organizers did not, including workers’ concerns about their youth, inexperience and lack of professionalism, and their own inability to relate to workers. While many critics of outsider organizers claim that these barriers are insurmountable, we found the opposite to be true. The vast majority of outsider organizers in our data-set successfully secured workers’ consent by demonstrating commitment, building relationships, and being honest and forthright. After proposing changes in organizer training and leadership development in response to these findings, we conclude with a brief discussion of the enduring debate about outsiders’ role in social protest in the U.S.     

The compensation of national union presidents: Moderating effects of union size

Over the last forty years numerous reseachers from the fields of economics, finance, and human resources management have proposed and empirically evaluated a number of models in efforts to identify determinants of executive compensation. Recently, similar research efforts have been undertaken to identify compensation determinants for union officers, both at the local and national levels. As an extension of these works, this study found measures of union financial strength, job complexity, performance and tenure in office to be directly related to national union presidents’ compensation. Although union income and relative union member earnings were the strongest determinants of officer compensation for the sample of unions as a whole, analyses of three subgroups of unions based on size revealed very different findings for large as opposed to small and medium-sized unions.     

Member participation in union activities: Perceptions of union priorities,performance, and satisfaction

Data obtained from union respondents of a survey using a national probability sample that is representative of the U.S. labor force revealed that members’ perceptions of their unions’ effectiveness in obtaining both extrinsic and intrinsic benefits and the unions’ responsiveness to membership were significantly related to member participation in union activities. Union satisfaction was inversely related to participation. Perceptions of union power and service and demographic variables, such as age and education, were found to have less significant linkages with member participation.     

Investor commitment to serial entrepreneurs: A multilayer network analysis

Social networks are complex systems composed of interdependent organizations and people with diverse network structures. Understanding network dynamics, such as exchange commitment, requires a methodological toolkit that does not assume away complexity. In this study, we extend a technique for analyzing longitudinal, multilayer network data called network alignment. We introduce a novel metric – intersect proportions – for analyzing similarity between divergent graphs. We demonstrate the application of network alignment and intersect proportions to the context of investor commitment to startups and entrepreneurs. Using this technique, we are able to disentangle exchange commitment across complex networks.     

San Diego's 6 to 6: a community's commitment to out-of-school time

San Diego is the first major city in the nation to provide free before- and after-school services to every public elementary and middle school within its borders.