Systemic Effects of Organisational Change in German Business Associations

The focus of the paper is on the organisational change of business associations. The underlying assumption is that the way associations modify their organisation will not just affect the performance of the individual organisation but may also have systemic effects. The merger of associations, the spin-off of parts of existing associations, the proliferation of new associations and a shift in types of organisations prevalent in a given system are most likely to have a profound impact on the relative importance of associations, on the mode of interest representation and on the exchange relations with policy-makers. The comparative research of more than 200 branch and sector associations of German industry shows that organisational change cannot just be explained by functional necessities. Rather, associations act according to multiple rationalities. We discern an institutional and an instrumental rationality and a rationality of appropriateness. A business association is a special purpose entity which for some is a partnership of convenience and for others a community. Consequently, an institutional rationality does not result in uniform behaviour. Similarly, associations differ widely in their repertoire of instruments and thus in their action capacities. Further, the instrumental rationality is discursively codified and varies according to the context of specific arenas. Even though the institutional and instrumental rationality follow a logic of consequentiality, ideas of appropriateness are not absent in the world of business associations. “Narratives of legitimacy” (Sack 2014) are also very present and influence the associations’ behaviour. Empirical findings based on extensive interviews and document analysis confirm the relevance of these multiple rationalities and document extensive organisational change. The paper aims at extending the conceptual dimensions proposed by Schmitter and Streeck in order to evaluate the likelihood of system change.