Do cultural groups differ in their attitudes towards unions? Evidence from Indian and Taiwanese samples

Abstract

We assess the impact of national cultural differences at individual level and job-related factors on employees’ attitudes towards unions, drawn from a survey of full-time employees in large and mid-sized organisations in India and Taiwan. Preliminary analyses showed attitudinal differences in perceived work stress, work-situation dissatisfaction and leadership style of managers, whereas perceived job autonomy was found to be a distant cause of (un)favourable attitudes of both samples towards unions. We based our predictions about the attitudes of Indian and Taiwanese employees on their respective classifications as horizontal and vertical collectivists. Our analysis showed that, independent of cultural background, horizontal and vertical individualism–collectivisms influence employee attitudes and are significant and positive predictors of attitudes of both Indian and Taiwanese employees. This implies that collectivist ideological beliefs and feelings play a profound role in creating favourable attitudes towards unions among employees in both nations. However, we found differences concerning the role of individualism in predicting such attitudes: Indian employees with pro-union attitudes were more concerned about achievement (vertical individualist), whereas Taiwanese employees’ greater need for independence (horizontal individualist) were more associated with pro-union attitudes. To conclude, the results of our study confirm cross-national variation in employees’ attitudes towards unions.