Organizations and meta-organizations

Most theories about organizations assume implicitly or explicitly that the members of organizations are individual persons. However, a large and growing number of organizations are “meta-organizations” whose members are other organizations. How organizations function is affected by the kind of members that they have. In this article it is argued that meta-organizations differ from individual-based organizations in important ways, and that they thus call for somewhat different theories. An outline of a theory for meta-organizations is suggested below. It aims to explain three fundamental elements in any theory of organizations: the creating and sustaining of formal organizations, the sources of and the reactions to conflict within organizations, and the question of organizational change.