Applying Work and Organizational Psychology in the Field of Labor Relations: Exploratory Study in Trade Unions in the Basque Country

Historically, the relationship between work and organizational psychology and trade union organizations has been one of mutual indifference and neglect. The aim of this study is to explore whether trade union members’ social representations of organizational psychology affect their organizations’ en...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Authors: Ulacia Aramendi, Imanol, Smith Echeberria, Clara Angela, Beldarrain Durandegui, Ángel
Format: article
Publication Date:2022
Country:España
Institution:Universidad del País Vasco
Repository:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/59232
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/59232
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:work and organizational psychology
labor relations
trade union organizations
limitations
social representations
Basque Country
Description
Summary:Historically, the relationship between work and organizational psychology and trade union organizations has been one of mutual indifference and neglect. The aim of this study is to explore whether trade union members’ social representations of organizational psychology affect their organizations’ engagement with this discipline, conditioning their ability to derive benefit from its findings. In a sample of 448 members of the four main trade unions of the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain, social representations of six concepts relating to Psychology or Trade Union Activity were explored using the free association technique. Forty-five categories were created and their frequency and percentages were calculated. In addition, the means of the categories shared by the representations of two different concepts were crossed and statistically tested. Although some associations were found between the representations of the two sets of concepts, most were non-significant. These results highlight that the structure of the representations of Psychology gives only a partial explanation for this lack of connection. The implications of the study and its limitations are discussed, and some recommendations for future research are proposed.