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Article Excerpt
If asked to describe a union employee, most people would probably summon an image of a male factory worker or tradesman. Unions in the USA no longer reflect this image. Forty-two percent of current union employees are women, up from 33% in 1983 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2003). However, this membership shift toward women has yet to manifest itself in union leadership (Eisenscher, 1999; Forrest, 2001). Women hold less than 25% of entry-level local union offices such as steward (Clawson & Melcher, 2001), less than 10% of top local union offices such as president (Goldberg, 1995) and only a fraction of regional and national union offices (Ganz, Voss, Sharpe, Sommers, & Strauss, 2004).
Concerned with the problem of gender disparity in union leadership, unionists have called for policies and programmes to develop women leaders (e.g. Cobble, 2004). Of specific concern is the effect of gender disparity in leadership on union membership rates (Forrest, 2001; Yates, 2000). Because future rates are likely to depend on unionizing occupational areas dominated by women, having women leaders who are likely to be more responsive to women's needs could be a pivotal influence.
Union researchers have also responded to the gender disparity problem in union leadership. In an interview study with women and men stewards, Roby (1995) found that women and people of colour cited one-to-one contact with union leaders who encouraged their leadership as pivotal in their decision to lead. In a related study, Bulger and Mellor (1997) found that women's union self-efficacy, defined as expectations of success in pursuit of union activities, mediated the relationship between perceived union barriers and actual union participation. Based on these studies and others that focus on perceived barriers to lead, we sought to understand the effect of verbal persuasion as a source of self-efficacy to serve as a steward, with the intent of applying this knowledge to the disparity problem. (1)
Inducing self-efficacy
Bandura (1995) defined perceived self-efficacy as 'beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations' (p. 2). Within the framework of social-cognitive theory, Bandura (1986) has indicated that efficacy beliefs are responsive to particular modes of experience, referred to as induction modes, that occur naturally within the environment. One such mode, verbal persuasion, acts as a resource of information about abilities and skills related to anticipated success. When a person with performance experience in the situation, referred to as the model, provides verbal persuasion, the recipient's efficacy beliefs should be strengthened. Noted in studies on self-efficacy is the general finding that when the recipient perceives that he or she shares attributes (e.g. age, socioeconomic status, gender) with the model, the effect of verbal persuasion is augmented (see Bussey & Bandura, 1999).
Several studies have examined self-efficacy in a union environment (e.g. Bulger & Mellor, 1997; Cole & Latham, 1997), but none has examined how efficacy beliefs: (a) may be induced, (b) may be related to anticipated success to lead or (c) may be augmented by perceived similarity. Our study is the first to examine the augmenting effect of gender similarity as a shared attribute of models and recipients in a union environment, and to do so in relation to the effect of verbal persuasion on self-efficacy to lead.
Our hypothesis about gender similarity and stewards' verbal persuasion is as follows: gender similarity and verbal persuasion by a steward interact to influence self-efficacy to serve as a steward, such that the influence of verbal persuasion on self-efficacy will be strongest for same-gender cases and weakest for cross-gender cases.
With gender similarity defined as members'...
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