A method (300) and a corresponding system for managing associations in the CIM model are proposed. An association is modeled by a particular class, which includes two or more references to other classes; the association is implemented by a corresponding provider. Whenever a management application (such as a performance monitor) needs to access the association, a corresponding request is transmitted (309) to the provider. In response thereto, the provider enumerates (315) all the resource objects instantiating the references of the association, and creates (324) an instance of the association for any combination. In the method of the invention, the provider further sets (318,327) a property of each instance of the association, according to dynamic characteristics of the corresponding resource objects. In this way, an active association is provided, allowing cross-analysis of the resource objects participating in the association.