Shop stewardship is considered here as a process whereby shop stewards translate into behaviour some of their basic, implicit beliefs about the nature of industrial society. A theoretical model is developed, including four images of industrial society (independent concepts) and five types of steward role behaviours (dependent concepts). These dimensionalities, together with the relations between them, are estimated empirically. The empirical results are discussed with special attention given to their implications for steward selection processes and training programmes.
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