Why Meta-Organizations Matter: A Response to Lawton et al. and Spillman

What is it about?

There had been published two good papers online in the Journal of Management Inquiry on the topic of meta-organization, the organization of organizations, such as trade associations, alliances and consortia. The first was Lawton, Rajwani and Minto (2017), the second was Spillman (2017). Their focus was on an approach that can be traced back to a paper published in the Strategic Management Journal (Gulati, Puranam and Tushman, 2012), which differs from our approach, which builds on Ahrne and Brunsson’s work (2005, 2008). With this article we aim to bridge these two approaches discussing meta-organization and propose a shared research agenda. We also contribute by giving visability and summarising the theorising already done in Europe thusfar.

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Why is it important?

The work on meta-organizations drawing on the approach of Ahrne and Brunsson (2005, 2008) has developed our theoretical understanding of meta-organizations. Particularly, the difference made by having member organizations and its associative character, and the effects these particularities have on the organization have been specified. This work had, so far, been overlooked. This paper supports the spreading of the theorising work done and assists other researchers in finding their contributions.