Although producers in the same industry compete with one another in markets, they also commonly affiliate in associations. Producer's associations take a variety of forms, and serve a number of functions: They identify communities of producers as "industries," instate norms governing relations among competitors, and act as agents for dealing collectively with suppliers, distributors, competing industries, consumers, and regulators. As a community and as an agent, producer's associations thus play a role in the regulation of production and the larger political economy. This study examines the Salt Producer's Association and its successors, focusing on changes in the association's functions and on the ways in which the producers organize themselves through the association. These changes are hypothesized to be responses to dynamics of the industry's niche in the larger economy--a niche that affects the rational interests of firms and the solidarity of their community. Data will be drawn from two sources: (1) Aggregate statistics, histories, and documents for studying the organizational ecology of the industry, and (2) content analyses of the minutes of the meetings of the Salt Producer's Association for measuring how stake-holders use the association for internal regulation and external representation of the industry. The research will contribute to our understanding of the factors that shape the roles of producers associations, and how these roles change in response to factors within industries and the environments within which industries operate.
