ABSTRACT
Typical American associations seem to hold eclectic interests, contrary to some images of “single issue” organizations. This chapter presents a descriptive overview of the organization and membership samples. It shows the range of variation in some of the major explanatory variables. These measures—organization size, administrative structure, goals, and environments—frequently serve as independent or control variables in the theoretical analyses. The American national association population is so heterogeneous, some simple comparisons are made across the four main sub-populations defined by the sampling design: trade associations, professional societies, labor unions, and recreational groups. The National Association Study used a two-stage sampling design to draw representative samples of 459 collective action organizations from the population of 13,000 national associations, and 8746 members from 35 professional, recreational, and women’s organizations. Organization theorists variously view bureaucracy as a rational structure or as a symbolic form, but the implications for resource management are similar.
