Reimagining Industry Growth

2Trade Associations

Trade Associations Are Strategic Partnerships

It seems clear that strategic partnerships of all varieties are increasingly necessary and desirable in the modern global economy. This important factor is not apparently clear to most industry executives. It is one particular venue where strategic partnerships are vastly superior, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to all others, yet they are underutilized. And for every imaginable industry, that venue is already in place, and in a huge number of cases it has been for a very long time. The history of trade associations is instructive.

Collegia

“Collegia are thought to have existed since the beginning of the [Roman] Republic and were constituted of groups of individuals of similar interest, usually members who shared the same craft or trade.”¹ Later, under the empire, one of the distinguishing marks of the collegia was that they provided “necessary work for public use.”² Many of them were recognized and to some extent protected by the government because they provided a public service; their products or services were needed for the general good of society. The most prominent of the collegia that were authorized during the empire include textile dealers,³ millers and bakers,⁴ firefighters, builders, and carpenters.⁵

Notably, as we shall see later, bakers were among the first to be certified as essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Firefighters, as first responders, fall into ...