Europeanization and Organizational Change in National Trade Associations: An Organizational Ecology Perspective

Abstract

The first section of this chapter on Europeanization in relation to organizational change in national trade associations addresses the paradigm of Europeanization and business interest associations. The second section discusses change in sectoral business associations from an ecological perspective, looking at the different strategies that organizations can use to confront external challenges. Absorption and compensation, integration, cooperation and intervention. The third and final sections of the chapter are written with particular reference to the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Sector and the Chemicals Sector in Germany. The third section, on change-inducing environmental factors, distinguishes between the political, economic, technological and social environments that influence the individual groups and group populations in different ways according to sector via national, European or international channels. The final section looks at change in an intra- and inter-organizational perspective, and describes the interest group populations and focal organizations dominating both sectors before looking at selected results that shed some light on the ways that leading representatives of trade associations perceive external challenges and related modifications in the application of resources.

Lobbying influence: Meaning, measurement and missing

“…Quite simply, interest organizations are first and foremost organizations. Their overriding priority, then, will be surviving in a world of scarce resources, and their actions -like those of all organizations (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978) -will be primarily focused on securing the resources they need to survive (Grote and Lang, 2003;Lowery, 2007). A failure to exercise influence on a specific issues may, then, represent a victory on a mobilization and/or maintenance task or even influence on another issue entirely.…”

Critical resource dependencies and the Europeanization of domestic interest groups

“…Europeanization is generally referred to as the process through which key political actors such as political parties, interest groups, national bureaucracies and legislators adapt themselves to the impact of European integration (Goetz 2000;Ladrech 1994Ladrech /2005Börzel 1999;Green Cowles et al 2001;Hanf and Soetendorp 1998;Harmsen 1999;Kassim et al 2000;Knill 2001;Olsen 2003). Many studies on the Europeanization of interest groups suggest that this impact is largely mediated through, and conditioned by, existing domestic institutions, policies, cultures and identities (see also Sidenius 1999;Cram 2001;Beyers 2002;Eising 2003;Grote and Lang 2003;Saurugger 2005). There is no automatic shift of activities and loyalties to the European level.…”

Interest groups in EU policy-making

“…Yet other studies point to socio-economic and technical dynamics such as in the merging of telecommunications, media and information technology (Bartle 1999: 369-370;Knill 2001;Grote and Lang 2003). Already in the pluralist tradition of interest groups, these factors have been considered to be important influences on the organization of interests (see Truman 1993: 75) because they reduce the cost of organization and communication, change the scope of interest domains, raise new issues that associations must deal with, or because they open up new courses of action.…”