"Analysing a unique data set of the organizational characteristics of 358 German employers' associations, the article investigates how employers manage to represent the contradictory interests of competitors within a single organization. Previous research has strived to solve this puzzle by way of distinguishing between two competing logics which operate within those associations: one logic focusing on the relationship between the member company and the association, a second bringing to bear the relationship between the association and the environment. While in much of this literature the first (membership) logic is sacrificed to the advantage of the second, I argue that members' interests are protected by way of establishing an elaborated set of rules. Such rules guard the association's ports of entry, resolve conflict among members and between members and leadership, activate and emphasize certain interests but also block the associations access to confidential business information, thus insulating parts of business interests from collective representation."

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