332
Organizing Organizations I: Meta-Organizations and Their Role in Modern Society

Thursday, 19 July 2018: 10:30-12:20
Location: 205C (MTCC NORTH BUILDING)
RC17 Sociology of Organization (host committee)

Language: English

Meta-organizations—that is, organizations that have organizations as their members—are an important phenomenon in contemporary society. There are now hundreds of thousands of meta-organizations worldwide, including business associations, trade union confederations, sport associations, military alliances, and intergovernmental organizations. They may be national or international, and often play an important part in shaping modern society.

Meta-organizations differ fundamentally in many ways from organizations whose members are individuals. Unlike individual-based organizations, meta-organizations’ members are also organizations. Meta-organizations may need to compete with their member organizations for autonomy and often struggle to become strong actors in their own right.

Despite their societal significance, scholarly interest in meta-organizations has been limited. This session aims to facilitate a broader discussion in organizational sociology on meta-organizations, their characteristics, and their relevance. It will be open to theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Struggle for autonomy between meta-organizations and their members
  • The effects of membership upon member organizations
  • Power among and within meta-organizations
  • Differences between weak and strong meta-organizations
  • Typologies of different types of meta-organizations
  • Different levels of meta-organizing, from meta-organizations to meta-meta-organizations and so on, and their relevance
  • Development of meta-organizations over time
  • Differences between meta-organizations and (partially organized) networks and how networks become meta-organizations
  • The roles of individuals in meta-organizations as employees, representatives, and boundary spanners
  • The role of meta-organizations in shaping modern society and vice versa
Session Organizers:
Göran AHRNE, Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score), Sweden, Nils BRUNSSON, Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score), Sweden and Michael GROTHE-HAMMER, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Germany
Chair:
Göran AHRNE, Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score), Sweden
Oral Presentations
332.1
Meta-Organizations and Inter-Organizational Arrangements: A Partial Organization Framework
Heloise BERKOWITZ, CNRS (UMR5303), TSM-Research, France; Sanne BOR, Hanken School of Economics, Finland
332.2
(In)Dependence in Meta-Organisations: The Dynamics of Independence within the European Accreditation Infrastructure
Cecilia FREDRIKSSON, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
332.3
Leadership and Threat Management in Meta Organizations: Case Studies from English Primary Medical Care
Ruth MCDONALD, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
332.4
Meta-Organizational Perspective on Interest Intermediation in Multi-Level Governance Contexts: Theoretical Propositions and Empirical Illustrations from the European Knowledge Policy Domain
Martina VUKASOVIC, Ghent University, Belgium
332.5
The Role of Metaorganizations in the Emergence of an Industry. the Case of Renewable Energy
Hervé DUMEZ, École polytechnique, France
Distributed Papers
332.6
When a Practice Becomes a Contract (and vice-versa): The Construction of Inter-Organizational Partnerships for the Co-Design of Welfare Services
Paolo ROSSI, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy; Monica COLOMBO, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
See more of: RC17 Sociology of Organization
See more of: Research Committees
<< Previous Session | Next Session >>