How Collective Is Union Citizenship Behavior? Assessing Individual and Coworker Antecedents

TitleHow Collective Is Union Citizenship Behavior? Assessing Individual and Coworker Antecedents
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2014
AuthorsSnape, Ed, Redman, Tom, and Gould-Williams, Julian
JournalILR Review
Volume67
Issue4
Pagination1306 - 1325
Date Published2014///
Keywordsgroup norms, solidarity, union citizenship behavior, union commitment, union participation
Abstract

Contributing to an emerging literature on solidarity or group-norm effects on union participation, the authors examine the extent to which union citizenship behavior (UCB) can be characterized as a collective phenomenon. Findings from studies of UK local government workers and teachers suggest that, for organization-focused behaviors, it is meaningful to think of collective or group-level UCB. Furthermore, group-level UCB had a significant positive association with individual-level UCB. There was no evidence that a greater consistency of citizenship within a unit was associated with a stronger relationship between collective and individual citizenship behaviors. These findings suggest that it is worthwhile to analyze UCB as a collective phenomenon, and the authors call for more work on the contextual antecedents of union citizenship and participation.