FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE IN BRITISH TRADE-UNIONS

This article examines changes in the financial performance of British trade unions in the early 1990s. Using survey data, it looks for a rel ationship between changes in financial management and changes in finan cial performance. Unions have continued to increase the concentration of financial decision-making and the sophistication of financial syste ms. However, financial concerns have become no more central to union d ecision-making and as a result financial management improvements do no t lead to improvements in financial performance. We argue that new fin ancial management techniques lead to increases in the cost base as uni on organizations become more centralized and bureaucratic. The implica tions for representative effectiveness are discussed.