The strange non-death of employer and business associations: An analysis of their representativeness and activities in Western European countries

Bernd Brandl and Alex Lehr
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Bernd Brandl: Durham University Business School, UK
Alex Lehr: Radboud University, Institute for Management Research, Department of Political Science, The Netherlands

Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2019, vol. 40, issue 4, 932-953

Abstract: Against the background that corporatism is on the decline in recent decades, one could expect that the representativeness of employer and business associations is also declining. In this article it is argued and shown that, contrary to this expectation, this decline is not observable for employer and business associations. So the question arises as to whether employer and business associations are simply relics of a different era with no longer any purpose. Using a cross-national approach it is shown that by adapting their organizational structure as well as their activities to the changing needs of business, employer and business organizations are as ‘strong’ and active nowadays as ever.

Keywords: Collective bargaining; corporatism; employer associations; industrial relations; interest groups (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:40:y:2019:i:4:p:932-953

DOI: 10.1177/0143831X16669842

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