Why is there a need for a meta-organizational approach to society at all? Is it not enough to speak of a society of organizations? The meta-organizational perspective introduces two primary distinctions. First, it provides a different theoretical framework for examining how organizations create ‘decided order’ among and beyond organizations. And second, it represents a different perspective on the dynamics of societal transformations. In this book, I describe some of the consequences of having so many meta-organizations.

Our contemporary societies are made of meta-organizations — organizations composed of other organizations. These range from international bodies like the International Whaling Commission, to national industry or business associations like the crowdfunding association Finance Participative France, to local associations such as fisheries co-management committees in Catalunya. Meta-organizations have become a defining feature of how actors coordinate, govern and make collective decisions. But what exactly makes them distinct, and why do they matter — both in theory and in practice? This book delves into the importance, characteristics and diversity of meta-organizations. It explores four interrelated perspectives: meta-organizations as a widespread, heterogeneous empirical phenomenon in contemporary society, as a conceptual framework that raises specific methodological challenges, as part of a broader theory of decision-based social orders, and ultimately as arenas where hegemonic and counter-hegemonic dynamics may unfold. By bridging theory and practice, this work offers new insights into how meta-organizations operate, how they can be studied and understood, the problems they raise and what they can achieve under certain conditions — making it essential reading for practitioners, students, scholars, and policymakers alike.

Collaborations among organizations may happen through a variety of inter organizational arrangements, such as alliances, supply networks, industrial districts, policy networks or meta-organizations. We join recent efforts in analysing this plurality and diversity of organizations by drawing on the concept of rhizome to study inter-organizational arrangements. We aim to provide tools which can help analysis, comparison and cumulating knowledge about inter-organizational collaborations by moving beyond categories (which are often specific to one field, theory, sector, and so forth). To do so, we build on Deleuze and Guattari's concept of rhizome and develop an analytical rhizomatic framework focusing on connections among members, heterogeneity of members, multiplicity of interactions and connections, asignifying rupture in the connections, cartography of interactions, and decalcomania in the adoption of knowledge. On this basis, we develop an inter-organizational web approach of collaborations among organizations and outline possible applications and research venues.

Localization is the process of adapting and developing international aid to suit local contexts. Thus, localization involves paying attention to the relations between organizations and local actors receiving development aid. One key question that has not, as yet, been satisfactorily answered is how to collectively organize localization to empower local actors. Through an in-depth case study of an innovative development aid project in Senegal focusing on employment and skills ecosystems, this paper explores the impact of viewing localization as a meta-organized process on discussions about localization going forward. Our findings unpack the dynamics and processes of sustainable localization in development aid through a place-based and multi-stakeholder meta-organization. We show that this process is supported by intermediation work, carried out by a group of actors acting as transition intermediaries, who support the emergence of a shared vision during a collective project and enable sustainable collaborative transition dynamics to be engaged. Our results also highlight that the intermediation work happens in three sequences: (1) emerging localization; (2) intermediated localization; and (3) transformative intermediated localization. We contribute to the literature by highlighting that intermediation work is made possible through a set of key functions played by the meta-organization: (1) place direction-setting; (2) capacity mobilization; and (3) ecosystem orchestration.

Crowdlending is an investment tool that appeared in the early 2000s. This tool allows individuals and companies, via an online platform, to finance directly, in the form of remunerated loans and in a traceable way, projects which are presented to them and on which they can interact publicly.

Existing literature on meta-organization is divided into two distinct streams in organizational and management studies, with different definitions and boundaries, potentially leading to inconsistencies and theoretical misalignment. Can we disambiguate the conceptualizations of meta-organizations, and what insights can be gleaned from this clarification? Using a systematic review of the meta-organization literature, we propose a novel classification, distinguishing between meta-organizations as ‘meta-level actors’, rooted in the organizational perspective, and meta-organizations as ‘orchestrated systems’, grounded in the management perspective. While synthesizing current knowledge about meta-organizations, we highlight the commonalities, divergences and specificities of both perspectives. We contribute to the literature on meta-organizations by bringing greater clarity to the field, by disambiguating the uses of meta-organization, by outlining a state of the art for both new categories and by providing a detailed research agenda. We also provide fundamental insights about two distinct ways of meta-organizing, that is creating order among and beyond single organizations through collectively decided social orders and orchestrated social orders.

In this introduction to the special issue of M@n@gement for the 30th anniversary of the AIMS, dedicated to complex societal problems, we examine issues of scale and non-scalability, inspired by Tsing’s work and recent calls for an ethics of care and responsiveness, thus highlighting the need to develop more care and relationality in the study of complex problems and grand challenges. This means questioning scale, recognizing the agency and value of human and nonhuman beings, prioritizing local knowledge, mutual respect, solidarity and coexistence.

A recommendation of: Denis Tagu, Françoise Boudet-Bône, Camille Brard, Edith Legouy, Frédéric Gaymard A qualitative and multicriteria assessment of scientists: a perspective based on a case study of INRAE, France https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7961579

This article addresses one of the oldest, most fundamental questions: how social order comes about. Many established conceptions of social order either tend to overemphasize one specific form of social order such as institutions or networks thereby losing sight of others, or subscribe to a single binary definition often distinguishing between spontaneous and organized social order. Although we do not deny the analytical fruitfulness of these approaches, we argue that they fall short when it comes to fully grasping certain social phenomena. Against this backdrop, we expand existing approaches by accounting for the multi-dimensionality of social order. Drawing on decisional organization theory, we present a theorization of social order that outlines four properties: ontology (system or structure), determination (decided or non-decided), changeability (decidable or non-decidable), and acceptance (accepted or contested). As we will show, this framework offers a fine-grained understanding of social order on a more generalized level, accounting for the complex, relational, and processual nature of social order. This approach allows us to move beyond established categorizations of social phenomena into, for example, institutions or networks, and to put the emphasis on properties of social order, the identification of tipping points, the unpacking of complexity, and the analysis of potential incompatibilities.

Successive digital innovations create technologically-induced governance gaps that make public regulation quickly obsolete and that might be filled by sectoral governance. The literature has shown that most sectoral governance happens at the level of meta-organizations, organizations whose members are themselves organizations, although we lack a temporal understanding of this phenomenon. Further, while regulation is generally understood as a salient function of innovation intermediaries, the literature on innovation intermediaries has focused mostly on other functions such as idea sourcing, knowledge sharing, or capacity building. We know relatively little about regulatory innovation intermediaries, especially how they might evolve in response to the emergence of technologically-induced governance gaps. In this paper, we conduct an in-depth case study of the evolutions of the FinTech sector in France over almost 30 years, using more than 3000 min of interviews, 4500 pages of archives, and non-participant observations. We study three successive (non)digital financial innovations: business angels, crowdfunding platforms for SMEs, and blockchain technologies. We develop a meta-organizational analysis to investigate meta-organizations as regulatory innovation intermediaries. We describe the evolutions and interrelations of new technologies and meta-organizations, and unpack mechanisms of meta-organizational capacity building for multiple contributors, effects of innovation on organizationality and trajectories of meta-organizational filiation.