Strategic management of trade unions: necessity and potential

This article presents a review and analysis of the theoretical framework for the strategic management of trade unions as specific non-governmental organizations. The aim of the study is to theoretically justify the need for strategic management of trade unions and to empirically clarify strengths and weaknesses of Latvian trade unions, as well as the formulation of their mission and goals. The paper theoretically describes the stages of strategic management process; it finds out the role of the strategic direction; it offers the analysis of trade union goals. To provide a successful strategy formulation process, methods to analyse internal and external environmental factors of trade unions have been proposed, and the nature of their strategy implementation and evaluation has been described. The author has empirically established Latvian trade union leaders’ views on the strengths and weaknesses of unions' internal environment, opportunities and possible threats in the external environment, as well as the formulation of the unions' missions and goals. Methods of data acquisition and processing: a survey in the form of a structured interview and the SWOT analysis method. It has been concluded that the strategic management of trade unions is necessary because it would ensure that they would be able to adapt to the changes in the external environment.