Psychological marginality and dual commitment among black first line supervisors in South Africa

[摘要] The industrial supervisor is the classical example of the person in the middle orthe 'marginal person' Placed between management and the workforce,supervisors encounter conflicting expectations and demands. For the blacksupervisor in South African industry, these problems are exacerbated, typicallyhaving been promoted from the ranks and operating at an essentially whitemanagement, black workforce interface. Previous researchers have discussed thedysfunctional consequences faced by these people and, further, have alluded to thepossible relationship between this and supervisors' dual loyaltles. This researchexamines the marginality of black supervisors and how this relates to their possibledual commitment. Towards this end, a psychometrically sound measure ofpsychological marginality was constructed, following which an empiricalinvestigation was undertaken to investigate the relationship between blacksupervisors' psychological marginality and their dual allegiances. Factoranalytical techniques revealed that black supervisor's marginality comprises twovariables; namely, management marginality and worker marginality. Therelationships between both marginality variables and levels of organisationalcommitment, union commitment and dual commitment were not significant. Thissuggests that the management and worker marginality experienced among blacksupervisors is not related to dual commitment, unilateral commitment andalienation. Implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed anddirections for future research provided. The primary shortcoming of the studywas small sample sizes as a result of the sensitive nature of the subject. However,this was mediated by the rigorous methodology adopted throughout.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand