THE EFFECT OF PARTICIPATION IN A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING SIMULATION ON THE EXPECTATIONS AND ATTITUDES OF UNION AND MANAGEMENT REPRESENTATIVES Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 9, 1982 5 THE EFFECT OF PARTICIPATION IN A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING SIMULATION ON THE EXPECTATIONS AND ATTITUDES OF UNION AND MANAGEMENT REPRESENTATIVES Marcus H. Sandver, Ohio State University ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the effects of participation in a collective bargaining simulation on the attitudes of union and management representatives. This paper uses attitude data collected from 16 management representatives and 40 local union officers participating in a collective bargaining simulation exercise conducted by the author. INTRODUCTION The importance of participant attitudes in determining negotiating behaviors has been documented in the collective bargaining literature for several years. Indeed, Walton and McKersie identify the process of attitude change or “attitudinal restructuring” as the major stimuli to compromising behaviors in bargaining.1 In the Walton and McKersie model, the participants’ attitudes and beliefs towards each other determine the entire spirit of the collective bargaining relationship; a relationship that in many cases transcends the bargaining table and extends right down to the shop floor.2 While the importance of attitudes and beliefs in the bargaining process has been identified and discussed in past research, the process of attitude change during the bargaining experience and its resultant effect on outcomes has not been nearly as well documented. This does not mean to imply that such research has not been conducted, however; as early as 1962 Ann Douglas in her pioneering work Industrial Peacemaking employed linguistic analysis to make inferences about attitude change in bargaining.3 In more recent research, retrospective studies have been conducted asking representatives of labor and management to identify critical incidents of attitude change in recently concluded bargaining experiences.4 Finally, some laboratory experiments have been conducted using college students in simulated bargaining experiences which have attempted to identify the process of attitude reformulation during the 1 See Richard E. Walton and Robert B. McKersie, A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations, McGraw Hill Book Co., New York, 1965, Chapter 6. 2 See for example James Kuhn, Bargaining in the Grievance Settlement, Columbia University Press, New York, 1961, for a more complete discussion of the continuous nature of the bargaining relationship at the shop floor level. 3 Ann Douglas, Industrial Peacemaking, Columbia University Press, New York, 1962. 4 See for example Walter Blake, Kenneth Hammond, and G. Dale Meyer, ‘Application of Judgment Theory and Interactive Computer Graphics Technology to Labor Management Negotiations: An Example,” Industrial Relations Research Association Proceedings, 1972, p. 193- 201 or Richard Peterson and Lane Tracy, ‘Testing a Behavioral Theory Model of Labor Negotiations,” Industrial Relations, Vol. 16, No. 1, (February 1977) p. 35-50. course of bargaining interactions.5 All of the research mentioned in this brief review can be criticized on one or more dimensions. The work of Douglas, for example, documents very nicely the change in communications patterns and content during negotiations conducted in the presence of a mediator. The Douglas research unfortunately begins only at mediation and does nothing to measure attitudes and communication patterns in the negotiations that preceded the intervention of the mediator. The retrospective studies can be fairly criticized in that they do not measure attitude change during negotiations but only at the beginning and at the conclusion of negotiations. Finally, the laboratory studies may be criticized in that the attitudes and behaviors of the sample population (college sophomores enrolled in introductory psychology courses) may not be representative of the attitudes and behaviors of the typical union or corporate representative. The ideal research design would be to monitor actual labor- management negotiations and to collect attitudinal data from the parties at the beginning of negotiations and at the conclusion of each and every bargaining session. As might be expected, however, such carte blanche access to the participants in actual negotiations is seldom extended to the researcher. A close approximation to actual access to negotiations, however, can be accomplished through the use of a simulated bargaining exercise conducted under conditions similar to those actually encountered in bargaining. Furthermore, the generalizability of the results obtained through such research can be enhanced if the simulation participants are actual union and management representatives. THE PRESENT STUDY Data necessary to conduct this study were obtained from participants in two adult education classes conducted by the author. The first group was comprised of sixteen management representatives participating in an Ohio Management Training Institute seminar in collective bargaining. The second group was comprised of 40 local union officers participating in a Franklin County Labor Federation course in contract negotiations. Each group was given a revised version of Kornhauser’s Union-Management Attitudinal Scale to assess pre-negotiation attitudes towards both labor and management. Each group was then randomly assigned into four person teams and were exposed to eight hours of negotiations using Sandver and Blain’e TEACHNEG: A Collective Bargaining Simulation in Public Education (Grid Publishing Co., Columbus, Ohio, 1980).6 5 See for example Ian Morley and Geoffrey Stephenson, The Social Psychology of Bargaining, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1977. 6 For a discussion of the use of this particular bargaining simulation, see Marcus H. Sandver and Harry Blame, 'TEACHNEG: The Development and Implementation of a Real World Collective Bargaining Simulation,” Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall 1980) p. 106-114. Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 9, 1982 6 One of the first objectives in analyzing the questionnaire data was to identify similarities and differences in the demographics and background characteristics of the two groups. As the data in Table 1 indicate, there were some differences to be noted in comparing the results obtained between the two groups. For example, the students in the management training sessions tended to be older, better educated and slightly better paid than were the union officials. One especially interesting bit of information was that the students in the labor sessions were twice as likely as students in the management sessions to have a parent who was a member of a labor union. TABLE 1 Background Data for Labor and Management Representatives Management Labor Age (yrs.) 42 37 Sex 37.5% female 63.5% male 23% female 77% male Education (yrs.) 15.5 12.1 Income $18,500 $17,500 Parents belonged to union 25% 50% Parents worked as supervisors or managers 37.5% 40%. It should be noted that most of the students in the management sessions were relatively new to their positions as managers and had little or no actual collective bargaining experience. The students in the sessions conducted for the labor representatives were generally more experienced in collective bargaining; most of the students had participated in at least one actual negotiation, some had participated in three or four negotiations. Most of the union leaders were from unions having an industrial structure and which negotiated local labor agreements. None of the labor officials were fulltime union officers; all worked at full tine jobs and conducted union business on a “lost time” basis or in their spare time. The attitude questionnaire was devised by the author but was inspired by Kornhauser’s writings on attitude formation during the bargaining process.7 In particular, the questionnaire was designed to measure four dimensions of attitudes towards unions and management. One series of ten questions were designed to measure “anti-union” feelings. The statements comprising the anti-union scale made statements about unions causing inflation, portrayed unions as undemocratic and corrupt, blamed unions for the decline in U.S. productivity since World War II and so forth. The second ten-item scale in the 40 question attitude survey attempted to measure the students’ “pro-employer” feelings. The statements in this scale asserted that the employer can generally be trusted to look out for the best interests of the work group, that higher profits are the only source of higher wages and that the open door policy was the fairest and most equitable method to deal with employee grievances. The other seven items in the pro-employer scale were of a similar 7 See Arthur Kornhauser, “Human Motivations Underlying Industrial Conflict,’ in Arthur Kornhauser, Robert Dubin and Arthur H. Ross, Industrial Conflict, McGraw- Hill, New York, 1954, p. 62-85. nature. The third scale on the attitude questionnaire attempted to measure the participants’ feelings of “pro-unionism.” The ten items in the pro-unionism scale stressed the positive social and political activities of unions. In addition, the statements in this scale emphasized the democratic nature of most unions and stressed that unions do not cause inflation but only protect their members from it as much as possible. The final stale attempted to measure the “anti-employer” feelings of the participants. The statements comprising this scale portrayed supervisors as incompetent and unconcerned about the feelings of their subordinates and generally portrayed employers as anti-employee. The forty items in the final questionnaire were selected from over 80 statements originally compiled. The final list of statements was chosen after a content sort exercise in which three colleagues sorted the original 80 statements into “pro- union”, “pro-employer”, “anti-employer” and “anti-union” categories. Any statement not receiving unanimous agreement was rejected from inclusion in the final questionnaire. All questionnaire responses were recorded on a five-item strongly agree-strongly disagree scale. The attitude data were collected before and after the eight hour negotiation exercise which was preceded by eight hours of lecture and discussion on labor relations and collective bargaining. RESULTS The first objective from the attitude measurement exercise was simply to identify the base line attitudes of management and labor representatives on the four scales discussed above. The results froth this analysis are given in Table 2 below. TABLE 2 Baseline Attitudes of Union and Management Representatives Attitude Scale Management Labor Anti-union 3.24 4.05 Pro-employer 3.01 3.47 Pro-union 2.85 2.18 Anti-employer 3.10 2.70 In interpreting the scores above it should be pointed out that a high score (above 3) means that the respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statements; a low score indicates agreement or strong agreement with the statements in the scale. As might be expected, the union representatives tended to disagree more strongly than their management counterparts with statements containing anti-union content although both groups scored above 3 on this attitude scale. On the pro-employer scale the union officers scored higher (indicating more disagreement) than did the management representatives, but again both groups were above the middle score of three on this scale as well. On the pro- union scale the union leaders had a quite low score of 2.18 indicating almost universal agreement with the pro-union content of these statements; on the other hand, Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 9, 1982 7 the managers generally were higher on this scale (2.85) but still scored below three, indicating weak support for the pro- union statements. On the anti-employer scale, the union and management attitudes were on different sides of the midpoint; managers tended to generally disagree with the anti-employer statements, the union representatives tended to agree (albeit weakly) with the anti-employer statements. The next step in the data analysis was to compare the attitudes of the labor and management representatives on each of the four attitude scales before and after the simulation exercise. In addition, the responses are reported in Table 3 based on the assignment of students to labor or management bargaining teams. Thus, in Table 3 management-management refers to the attitude scores of managers assigned to a management negotiating team, management-labor refers to managers who were assigned to a labor negotiating team in the simulation exercise. TABLE 3 Attitudes of Labor and Management Representatives Before and After Collective Bargaining Exercise Before After Anti-Union Management-Management 3.12 3.20 Management-Labor 3.31 3.31 Labor-Management 4.00 4.06 Labor-Labor 4.15 3.98 Pro-Employer Management-Management 2.82 2.84 Management-Labor 3.14 3.18 Labor-Management 3.50 3.47 Labor-Labor 3.42 3.49 Pro-Union Management-Management 2.92 3.23* Management-Labor 2.78 2.66 Labor-Management 2.38 2.21 Labor-Labor 2.06 2.00 Anti-Employer Management-Management 3.34 3.07 Management-Labor 3.08 2.90 Labor-Management 2.88 2.73 Labor-Labor 2.54 2.66 *t-test for difference in means significant at .10 level or greater. The data in Table 3 show a number of interesting results. For example, in the anti-union attitude scale little movement was noted in attitudes as a result of participating in the collective bargaining exercise. The scores for managers assigned to labor negotiating teams was higher than for those assigned to management negotiating teams at least partly due to an “identification effect”; the pre-test questionnaire was administered after team assignments were announced. On the pro-employer scale, again, little attitude change is noted for any group. As with the anti-union attitudes, the managers assigned to the union negotiating teams may score higher (more disagreement) on pro- employer statements as a result of being assigned to a union team before the pre-test attitude survey was administered. On the pro-union attitude scale a significant movement in attitudes was demonstrated by the management representatives assigned to management negotiating roles. In this instance managers’ attitudes favoring unions showed a sharp and significant reversal as a result of participating in the bargaining exercise. Contrastingly, management representatives negotiating on a union team in the simulation showed movement in the more pro-union direction as a result of participating in the simulation. In both cases for the union representatives participating in the simulation exercise strengthened their pro-union sentiments. Finally, both management groups showed less disagreement with anti-employer statements as a result of participating in the simulation exercise. Interestingly, the scores for the managers assigned to the union negotiating team fell below three, indicating some agreement with the anti-employer statements in the attitude survey, although this change was not statistically significant. Finally, the union officers assigned to management roles showed a movement towards even greater agreement with the anti-employer statements as a result of participating in the exercise while the union leaders assigned to union roles showed a slight movement away from agreement on the anti-employer scale. DISCUSSION The results from the data presented in this paper lead to a number of tentative conclusions, but such conclusions must be interpreted with some caution due to the small sample sizes involved and also due to the exploratory nature of this study. The purpose of this paper was to a dialogue on the subject of attitude change and formulation as a result of participating in a collective bargaining simulation--not to give the last word on the subject. The results from the data in Table 3 do suggest that participant attitudes may change as a result of participating in a collective bargaining simulation. In particular, attitudes regarding one’s own party in negotiations can be strengthened when one is allowed to play a role reinforcing this affiliation. The only significant movement observed in attitudes was for managers who took on the role of management negotiators in the simulation. In this case, pro- union attitudes of managers were significantly changed (and diminished) as a result of participation in the exercise. It is interesting to note that with a few exceptions the attitudes of managers tended to be more volatile and likely to change than did the attitudes of the union representatives. The reasons for this may trace back to family history or to the reinforcement of attitudes among peers, which has been found in past research among union leaders to be particularly strong. The final result of this study is that in no case did the attitudes of union or management officials change drastically or come to approximate the attitudes of the opposing group as a result of participating in the bargaining exercise. Attitude change, when it did take place, tended to be small and probably short term. Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 9, 1982 8 REFERENCES [l] Black, Walter, Kenneth Hammond and C. Dale Meyer, “Application of Judgment Theory and Interactive Computer Graphics Technology to Labor Management Negotiations: An Example,” in Industrial Relations Research Association Proceedings, 1972, pp. 19 3-201. [2] Douglas, Ann, Industrial Peacemaking (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962). [3] Kuhn, James, Bargaining in the Grievance Settlement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961). [4] Peterson, Richard and Lane Tracy, "Testing a Behavioral Theory Model of Labor Negotiations,” in Industrial Relations, Vol. 16, No. 1, February 1977, pp. 35-50. [5] Walton, Richard E. and Robert B. McKensie, A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1965), Chapter 6. Table of Contents Volume 9, 1982 The Value of Conjoint Analysis in Enhancing Experiential Learning The Effect of Participation in a Collective Bargaining Simulation on the Expectations and Attitudes of Union and Management Representatives Conflict Resolution in Experiential Learning The Use of Simulation to Test Theories of Bargaining in a Business Context The Nominal Group Technique: A Vehicle for Improving Case Method Courses A Framework for Developing a Business Policy Case Produce Your Own Video Cases for Classroom Use: A Demonstration An Experiential Effect from Charismatic Encounters Nine Topic Oriented Mini Simulations: Descriptions, Purposes, and Observations A Hospital Simulator (HOSPSIM) A Report of the Model and Results Expected from Field Testing An Evaluation of SLIM (A System Laboratory for Information Management) An Experiential Exercise Introducing Students to the Role Ambiguity Faced by Salespersons The Advertising Research Project as an Innovative Experiential Learning Technique The Small Group Research Project: An Experiential Learning Approach for Undergraduate Marketing Research Students The Relationship of Cognitive Style Maps to the Preference for Experiential Learning of Undergraduate Students The Learning Style Inventory Debate Revisited: An Empirical Assessment fo the Construct Validity Issue Related to Experiential Learning Theory Conducting a Classroom to Facilitate Career Goal Attainment Corporation Executives' Ratings of Policy Learning Techniques The Generation and Application of Evaluation Criteria for Management Policy and Strategy Simulation Games Experiential Opportunities with Microcomputers Leading Students to Learning: The Teacher's Obligation An Experiment in Teaching Principles Courses: The Mini Debate Formula Developing Creative Thinking Through Experiential Learning Heuristic and Systematic Evaluation of Policy: Exercise in Decision Making A Case Study Approach for the Litigation Decision: Employing Decision Analysis to Determine When a Business Should Settle or Go to Court Learning Negotiation Skills Through Simulation Union vs. Management: A Simulation of Collective Bargaining in Action Inside the Black Box: An Analysis of Underlying Demand Functions in Contemporary Business Simulations A Review of Channel Exercises and the Description of a New Alternative SIMCON I: A computer Based Simulation Model for Evaluating Physical Distribution Strategies Involving Order Consolidation Toward Competency-Based Management Education: The Interpersonal/Communications cluster The Value of Pre-Teaching in Role Playing Some Effects of Positive Personal Reinforcement upon Socializing Students in an Experiential Learning Course Who Gains and Who Does Not from Experiential learning Toward the Ultimate Experiential Exercise, the Student View Simulating Professional Writing Experiences in the Classroom The Johari Window as a Measure of Personal Development Windows Into Management: A Participative Aid to Learning Get Your Faculty Involved A Pedagogical Approach to Business Gaming for the Commuter Student Super Service for Computer Game Administrators Expand the Role of Simulation with Creative Scenarios The Delivery, Administration, and Evaluation of an Executive Development Program Using a Total Enterprise Business Game An Application of Experiential Learning in International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment International Management: Building Bridges Analysis of a Business Simulation Exercise: Organizational Survival and Success The FALRIS Organizational Scavenger Hunt Trainee V. Trainee Subordinates' Evaluation of Experiential Learning Longitudinal Analysis of an Innovative Teaching Intervention Student Perceptions of Effective Teacher Behaviors Revisited Realism and Learning: The Evolution of a Management Game A Merger and Acquisition Simulation A Stock Market Investor Simulation Experiential Learning in Consumer Behavior: Perceptual and Attitude Change Exercises The Recycling Industry Problems of Women in Management: A Role Playing Exercise for a Course in Contemporary Organizational Problems Experimental Three Weekend Course: Empirical Results A Process for the Analysis and Development of Course Content and Instructional Methodology for Large Class Sections Problems Associated with the Assessment of Experiential learning Using the Multiple Choice Test Combining Lecture and Simulation Teaching Methodologies Qualitative Determinants of Team Performance in a Simulation Game The Effects of Different Team Sizes on Business Game Performance Comparison of Problem-Solving Technologies: A Free Simulation Approach Consistency in Business Games A computer Simulation of Personnel Selection Decisions Giving Praise Exercise Job Enrichment A Look at the Spoken and Written Word in Organizations A Pattern of Group Communication A New Generation in Business Simulation Adapting Mainframe Business Simulations to Min Computers File Access is the Essential Prerequisite to Time-Flexible and Interactive Computer Simulation A Microcomputer Simulation for Teaching Retail Location Strategy Blocks & Chips: A computer-Assisted, Geno-Typical Entrepreneurial Game Development of a Self-Paced Course in Business Statistics The Involvement of Student Bodies in the Teaching of Advanced Technical Concepts Systems Learning Sequence: An Experiential Course Module for Management Information Systems An Experiential Approach to Developing Managerial Competencies Communication Research, Inc. An Experiential Learning Activity Developed as a Practicum for a Course in Organizational Communication