An exploration of South African trade union renewal through the lens of business model innovation

Abstract

Trade unions globally and in South Africa have been faced by a survival crisis over the last few decades because of growing questions over their relevance and efficacy as social partners. The existential crisis has been reflected in the consistent decline in union density and key financial matrices, such as subscription revenues. As a result of the growing survival threat, trade union renewal became the subject of extensive research over the years. The literature revealed that trade union renewal research mainly focused on the need for unions to evolve certain aspects, such as their collective bargaining strategies, ideological principles, policy positions and operational strategies. There had been no research that explored trade union renewal through the lens of business model innovation. The literature also revealed the lack of research that sufficiently explored the process or approach that trade unions follow or adopt when attempting to renew their business models including how their ideologies impact the process or approach. The study followed a qualitative multiple case study method of inquiry. Four South African trade union cases were used for purposes of primary data collection. The four cases were made of two evolving trade unions and two less evolving unions. Business model innovation theory and related frameworks were used as the basis of the study, particularly for understanding the process or approach that trade unions used for innovating or renewing their business models and understanding the impact or effect that their ideologies and institutional factors had to the process. The results of the study demonstrated that both the evolving and less-evolving South African trade unions attempted to a greater or lesser degree business model innovation as a renewal alternative, albeit at different levels of strategic intentionality and success. The evolving trade unions adopted business model innovation consciously and as a matter of strategic imperative. The less-evolving trade unions, on the other hand, depicted a reactive and coincidental stance on business model innovation. The results also unearthed the different unions’ institutional factors that affected their business model innovation process and outcomes. The results also showed the ideological postures for the two types of unions including how they impacted their business model innovation approaches or processes. The research contributes by extending business model innovation theory to a trade union renewal context for purposes of understanding how South African trade unions innovate their business models. The research also proposes two types of conceptual frameworks that demonstrate the business model innovation approaches adopted by evolving and less evolving unions.