Developing the Peripheral Economy: Role of an Industry Association

Abstract

Industries Association (IA) as an institutional mechanism is receiving significant attention for promoting industrial growth in the post-liberalisation period. The basic rationale underlying .a membership association is that it helps building up collective strength and thereby achieves economies of scale and scope. This may help expediting growth of not only at the level of member units or a cluster of such units but, also at national as well as global levels. Conventionally, the IAs is expected to .perform three important roles for promoting interest of the member enterprises. These are (i) advocacy support; (ii) information dissemination as well as counselling; and (iii) networking. While all these three are important functions for IAs, especially, for those based on membership fees, the relative significance of each of the three functions may however depend on their effectiveness with the member clients. Since the LAs are one of the several agencies working towards the above goals, it is essential that each IA carves out a niche area where its intervention can yield significant value addition at different levels (Atherton and Gibb, 1996)