The Potency of One-to-One Contact With Union Leaders: Enhancing Self-Efficacy to Become a Union Steward

Abstract

Finding ways to encourage union members to become union leaders is a perennial problem for unions. P. A. Roby (1995) originally found the importance of one-to-one contact with union leaders in becoming a union steward. In this study, the authors examined stewards' descriptions of their one-to-one contact with a union leader before becoming a steward. They sought to (a) replicate and strengthen Roby's findings, (b) explore one-to-one contact as a self-efficacy (i.e., confidence) enhancing experience, and (c) identify self-efficacy enhancement modes to strengthen the potency of the contact experience. The results from a mostly open-ended questionnaire of 44 stewards mirrored Roby's findings. The results indicated that self-efficacy enhancement modes were present in the one-to-one contact experience and that the enhancement modes were related to self-efficacy to become a steward. Two of the modes, verbal encouragement and emotional inhibition, were independently related to self-efficacy. The authors suggest how leaders could increase the potency of their contact with members as a means of encouraging members to become stewards.

Keywords:

• self-efficacy
• union leaders
• union members