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Resurrecting organization without renouncing society: A response to Ahrne, Brunsson and Seidl

Author

Listed:
  • Apelt, Maja
  • Besio, Cristina
  • Corsi, Giancarlo
  • von Groddeck, Victoria
  • Grothe-Hammer, Michael
  • Tacke, Veronika

Abstract

In a recent article in this journal, Ahrne, Brunsson, and Seidl (2016) suggest a definition of organization as a ‘decided social order’ composed of five elements (membership, rules, hierarchies, monitoring, and sanctions) which rest on decisions. ‘Partial organization’ uses only one or a few of these decidable elements while ‘complete organization’ uses them all. Such decided orders may also occur outside formal organizations, as the authors observe. Although we appreciate the idea of improving our understanding of organization(s) in modern society, we believe that Ahrne, Brunsson, and Seidl's suggestion jeopardizes the concept of organization by blurring its specific meaning. As the authors already draw on the work of Niklas Luhmann, we propose taking this exploration a step further and the potential of systems theory more seriously. Organizational analysis would then be able to retain a distinctive notion of formal organization on the one hand while benefiting from an encompassing theory of modern society on the other. With this extended conceptual framework, we would expect to gain a deeper understanding of how organizations implement and shape different societal realms as well as mediate between their particular logics, and, not least, how they are related to non-organizational social forms (e.g. families).

Suggested Citation

  • Apelt, Maja & Besio, Cristina & Corsi, Giancarlo & von Groddeck, Victoria & Grothe-Hammer, Michael & Tacke, Veronika, 2017. "Resurrecting organization without renouncing society: A response to Ahrne, Brunsson and Seidl," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 8-14.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eurman:v:35:y:2017:i:1:p:8-14
    DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2017.01.002
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ken Starkey & Christopher Barnatt & Sue Tempest, 2000. "Beyond Networks and Hierarchies: Latent Organizations in the U.K. Television Industry," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(3), pages 299-305, June.
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    4. Ahrne, Göran & Brunsson, Nils & Seidl, David, 2016. "Resurrecting organization by going beyond organizations," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 93-101.
    5. Victoria Groddeck, 2011. "Rethinking the Role of Value Communication in Business Corporations from a Sociological Perspective – Why Organisations Need Value-Based Semantics to Cope with Societal and Organisational Fuzziness," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 100(1), pages 69-84, April.
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    1. Ahrne, Göran & Brunsson, Nils & Seidl, David, 2017. "On the fruitfulness of the concept of partial organization: A rejoinder to Apelt et al," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 297-299.
    2. Michael Grothe‐Hammer, 2020. "Membership and contributorship in organizations: An update of modern systems theory," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 482-495, May.
    3. Michael Grothe-Hammer & Héloïse Berkowitz & Olivier Berthod, 2022. "Decisional organization theory: towards an integrated framework of organization," Post-Print hal-03699112, HAL.
    4. Héloïse Berkowitz & Antoine Souchaud, 2020. "Book Review: Organization outside organizations. The abundance of partial organization in social life," Post-Print hal-02874945, HAL.
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    6. Grothe-Hammer, Michael, 2019. "Organization without actorhood: Exploring a neglected phenomenon," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 325-338.
    7. Adrien Laurent & Pierre Garaudel & Géraldine Schmidt & Philippe Eynaud, 2019. "Civil Society Meta-organizations and Legitimating Processes: the Case of the Addiction Field in France," Post-Print halshs-02020886, HAL.
    8. Roth, Steffen, 2021. "The great reset of management and organization theory. A European perspective," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 538-544.
    9. Héloïse Berkowitz & Michael Grothe-Hammer, 2022. "From A Clash Of Social Orders To A Loss Of Decidability In Meta-Organizations Tackling Grand Challenges: The Case Of Japan Leaving The International Whaling Commission," Post-Print halshs-03271137, HAL.
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    11. Roth, Steffen & Schwede, Peter & Valentinov, Vladislav & Pérez-Valls, Miguel & Kaivo-oja, Jari, 2020. "Harnessing big data for a multifunctional theory of the firm," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 54-61.

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