Loyalty, Voice, and Intent to Exit a Union Firm: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis

INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW, October 1997

Posted: 30 Jul 1997

See all articles by Karen E. Boroff

Karen E. Boroff

Seton Hall University - W. Paul Stillman School of Business

David Lewin

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Anderson School of Management

Abstract

Drawing on economics and organizational behavior concepts, the authors develop a model of employee "voice" (defined in terms of the frequency of grievance filing) and employee intent to exit the firm. They test the model using data on a sample of non-management employees of a large multinational telecommunications firm in 1991. Employees' loyalty to the firm and their perception of the grievance procedure's effectiveness are the main independent variables. In tests that focus exclusively on employees who reported having been treated unfairly by the employer at some time, loyalty is found to have had a consistently strong negative association with both the exercise of voice and intent to exit the firm. One implication of these findings is that loyal employees who experienced unfair workplace treatment primarily responded by suffering in silence.

JEL Classification: J50, J52

Suggested Citation

Boroff, Karen E. and Lewin, David, Loyalty, Voice, and Intent to Exit a Union Firm: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis. INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW, October 1997, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=8660

Karen E. Boroff (Contact Author)

Seton Hall University - W. Paul Stillman School of Business ( email )

400 South Orange Avenue
245 Stillman
South Orange, NJ 07079
United States
973-761-9597 (Phone)
973-761-9217 (Fax)

David Lewin

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Anderson School of Management ( email )

110 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
United States
310-206-7666 (Phone)

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