Building Organizations as Communities: A Multicase Study of Community Institutional Logic at Chinese Firms

The fact that many Chinese business organizations incorporate social function units into their structures as well as social services into their practice has surprisingly received insufficient attention in organization studies. To theorize an organizational model that resembles community building in many aspects, we conduct case studies on this phenomenon and explain it from a new perspective, focusing on community arrangement within organizations. Our study draws on theoretical insights from institutional logic perspectives and builds a new conceptual schema through which to view organizations as communities. In our case studies of five firms in four cities, we find that, despite changes in the larger society, these Chinese firms built and maintained a model for organizations that communities can be embedded in organizations of various scales and in various industries. This community model of organizations offers new theoretical insights into organizations more broadly and has practical implications for improving the quality of employees’ work life. 很多中国企业在其组织结构中设置了一些社会功能单元并提供社会服务或者社区服务，这种现象让许多本土的研究者习以为常，以至于忽视了对其做深入的研究，更遑论理论化的努力。在本文中，我们报告我们所做的一项多案例研究的过程和结果，来探讨为什么在组织中会有社区式的安排和设施这种现象。我们在研究过程中和制度逻辑理论的学者对话，提出社区型组织的概念，通过数据结构建立机制模型，并做出初步的理论化努力。通过对四个中国城市中的五个公司进行的深入研究，我们发现一些中国公司建立和保持了一种特殊的组织模型：把社区嵌入到组织内部之中。这种组织模型可以提供人性化组织建设的一个理论基础，也可以在实际中改善组织中员工的工作和生活质量。