Trust, Support and Conflict Management among European Employee Representatives

In the present context of organizational changes and the inevitable conflicts coming with these changes, worker representatives are confronted with new challenges in negotiation. Worker representatives act as mediator in organizational conflicts between management and employees. New and complex issues and growing diversity in constituents can increase stress of worker representatives. On the basis of models of interpersonal conflict at work (e.g. Frone, 2000), we analyze the relation between frequency and severity of conflict with management and co-workers, and burnout. Thus, we hypothesize that: a.) frequency and intensity of conflict with management and with co-workers are positively related with burn out; b) This effect is stronger for conflict with co-workers (in-group), compared with conflict with management (out-group); c.) conflict with co-workers plays a moderator effect in the relation between conflict with management and burnout. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 719 Spanish worker representatives using multiple regression analysis. Results confirm our three main hypotheses and show that conflict with the constituency affects more strongly the perceived burnout by worker representatives. Based on organizational psychology and sociological theories we discuss different reasons that justify these results. Studying predictors from burnout in worker representatives contribute to promote the well-being in the practice of their role. We put into practice improvement strategies through knowledge transfer and action plans which can help to improve the role of worker representatives in the new industrial relations context.status: publishe