The intersection of organizational change and public sector labor relations in the Badger State: Assessing the management of changes to collective bargaining rights

As the public sector continues to search for ways to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency, a recent wave of reforms have focused on restricting collective bargaining laws and curtailing union power in order to increase organizational performance while lowering costs. In 2011, the state of Wisconsin enacted sweeping changes to the rights of one of the oldest public sector labor organizations. While the changes garnered wide spread attention, there has not been an effort to assess the impact of these changes on Wisconsin state employees. This dissertation will apply organizational change methods for discerning individual perceptions of the change process, its outcomes, and the types of resistance the change may have produced. The research will then attempt to see if there is a relation between these variables and work-related outcomes. The goals of this dissertation are to revitalize interest in public sector labor relations research, develop a mechanism for assessing individual responses to changes in collective bargaining, and discern the effects of Wisconsin's collective bargaining reforms on state employees.