Abstract

Employers interest associations are coping with important changes. From one side they are shifting from "interest representation" to "business service suppliers" and "political economy governance structures". From the other side inter-organisational innovations are taking place particularly in the field of small and medium firm associations, like Enti bilaterali, which are regional bilateral Associations among employers and trade unions to provide welfare and services to members. Finally the reform of Chambers of Commerce opens a new scenario towards a more direct enterprise representation and the promotion of the local economies, and possibly towards a meso-level of interest intermediation. Competition and cooperation between Chambers and associations, as well as competition and mergers among associations are the contradictory outcomes. The article reviews these and other institutional experiments and proposes some theoretical explanations based on interest organisation literature and on structural sociology (associations as structural holes governance structures).