Meta-organizations

Meta-organizations

Meta-organizations Göran Ahrne Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score), Stockholm University, Sweden and

Nils Brunsson Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score), Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden

Edward Elgar Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© Göran Ahrne and Nils Brunsson 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited Glensanda House Montpellier Parade Cheltenham Glos GL50 1UA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2008927707

ISBN 978 1 84720 950 4 (cased) Typeset by Cambrian Typesetters, Camberley, Surrey Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall

Contents Preface List of abbreviations and acronyms

vii viii

1

1 4 6 9 9 12 14 17 22 38 43 44 49 53 57 62 62 65 77 85 90 92 93

2

3

4

5

Organized organizations The need for a theory An overview of the book Many meta-organizations Organizations that do not know who they are Why “meta-organizations”? Meta-organizations over time How many are there? Case studies Other meta-organizations Environment, members, and meta-organizations Organization as order Decided and non-decided orders Organizational environments Individuals or organizations as members Creating and sustaining meta-organizations Eliminating environment Incentives for creating meta-organizations Recruiting members Dependence on members From environment to member Similarity, dissimilarity, and identity formation The first and last names of organizations Shifting relations between similarity and dissimilarity

v

100

vi

6

7

8

9

Contents

Conflicts and decision-making problems Sources of conflict Difficulties solving conflicts Handling conflicts in meta-organizations The dynamics of meta-organizations Survival or dissolution Transitional forms Meta-organizations and individual-based organizations Underestimated organizations? Organized globalization Globalization through meta-organizations Globalization of meta-organizations Governance and networks A striped order? The study of meta-organizations

107 107 113 123 132 132 137 142 146 149 149 155 162 166 170

References Index

173 185

Preface This book has been written with two audiences and two objectives in mind. First, we would like to convince our colleagues in organization theory that organizations with other organizations as members constitute an important and intriguing field of study. And second, we want to suggest to colleagues who are studying globalization and international politics that organizational theory provides a useful instrument for understanding international organizations. Trying to address two audiences simultaneously has been a rewarding but challenging experience, requiring a few compromises. There are some – albeit different – pages of this book that provide no new insights for one of these audiences or the other. We hope, however, that these pages are few enough for the reader to maintain interest in our main argument. For the production of this book, the multidisciplinary research environment of the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score) has been particularly stimulating and fruitful. Our colleagues at Score have provided assistance and resistance, both of which have been helpful. We owe special thanks to Susanna Alexius, Daniel Castillo, Elisabeth Lindberg, and Ebba Sjögren, who, for various periods, have been engaged as research assistants in this long-lasting project. Nina Colwill not only turned the language into readable English, but also provided useful comments on the contents. The research has been partially financed by a grant from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation for the project “The New Regulation” and by a Swedish Research Council grant to Nils Brunsson. Göran Ahrne and Nils Brunsson Stockholm, November 2007 vii

Abbreviations and acronyms ACEA

AFC ASEAN BIPM

BRD CAF CEMR CEMS CEN CIS CISDA CONCACAF CONMEBOL DDR ECSC ELFAA EPA EU

Association des Constructeurs Européens d’Automobiles (European Automobile Manufacturer’s Association) Asian Football Confederation Association of Southeast Asian Nations Bureau International de Poids et Mesures (International Bureau of Weights and Measures) Bundesrepublik Deutschland (German Federal Republic) Confédération Africaine de Football Council of European Municipalities and Regions Community of European Management Schools and International Companies Comité Européen de Normalisation (European Committee for Standardization) Commonwealth of Independent States Confederation of International Soft Drinks Asssociation Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Football Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (South American Football Confederation) Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic) European Coal and Steel Community European Low Fares Airline Association European Parking Association European Union viii

Abbreviations and acronyms

EUA FCC FIBA FIFA FMCU-UTO FSC GATT IATA IAU IBRA ICC ICF ICMCI IEC IFA IFF IFOAM IIHF ILO IMO INTOSAI ISA ISO ITU ITUC IULA LO MERCOSUR NATO

ix

European University Association Federation of Swedish County Councils (Landstingsförbundet) International Basketball Federation Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Federation of United Cities Forest Stewardship Council General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade International Air Transport Association International Association of Universities International Bee Research Association International Chamber of Commerce International Cremation Federation International Council of Management Consulting Institutes International Egg Commission International Fertilizer Industry Association International Floorball Federation International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements International Ice Hockey Federation International Labour Organization International Maritime Organization International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions International Sociological Association International Organization for Standardization International Telecommunication Union International Trade Union Confederation International Union of Local Authorities Landsorganisationen i Sverige (Swedish Trade Union Confederation) Mercado Común del Sur (Southern Common Market) North Atlantic Treaty Organization

x

NUS OECD OFC OGS PIARC PIM SALA SALAR

SAMC SFF SPUR

SUHF SVEPARK UCLG UEFA UIC UK UN UNIDO UPU USA WANO

Abbreviations and acronyms

Det nordiska universitetssamarbetet (Nordic University Association) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Oceania Football Confederation Organic Guarantee System Permanent International Association of Road Congresses Partnership in International Management Swedish Association of Local Authorities (Kommunförbundet) Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting) Swedish Association of Management Consultants Swedish Floorball Federation (Svenska Innebandyförbundet) Svenska Personaluthyrnings- och Rekryteringsförbundet (Swedish Association of Temporary Work Businesses and Staffing Services) Sveriges universitets- och högskoleförbund (Association of Swedish Higher Education) Svenska Parkeringsföreningen (Swedish Parking Association) United Cities and Local Governments Union of Football Associations (Union Européenne de Football Association) Union Internationale des Chemins de Fer United Kingdom United Nations United Nations Industrial Development Organization Universal Postal Union United States of America World Association of Nuclear Operators

Abbreviations and acronyms

WOA WTO

World Ostrich Association World Trade Organization

xi

1. Organized organizations All over the world, the media report daily on the debates and decisions in organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Union (EU), and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), and the meanings of their acronyms and abbreviations are familiar to newspaper readers around the planet. A number of similar organizations are less generally known: the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), for example. There are yet other organizations known by few people outside their own memberships: the Confederation of International Soft Drinks Associations (CISDA), the International Egg Commission (IEC), and the International Cremation Federation (ICF), for instance. The existence of these organizations is both an expression and a result of what is usually called the globalization of our contemporary world. Even as globalization has contributed to the growth of these organizations, the organizations have, in turn, contributed greatly to globalization. Several of them have been of crucial importance in the coordination of technical and administrative systems around the world. The technical inventions in transportation and communications, which are usually held to be driving forces for increased global contact, would not have exerted their major impact without organization. We take for granted that we can send a letter to any country by going into a post office, buying a stamp, and dropping the letter into a post box. But this convenience was not easily attained, and the work of the Universal Postal Union during the 19th century was of crucial importance to its realization. The Wright brothers made a key contribution to air 1

2

Meta-organizations

travel, of course, but it is through the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA’s) joint rules governing air travel that the international air transportation of today became possible. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has made international telegram and telephone traffic possible. International trade is another form of interaction regulated by organizations such as the WTO and the EU. Other organizations create or augment global identities and create global status systems. The FIFA defines football, and through its organization of the World Cup, sports lovers everywhere know which soccer team is the best in the world. Still other organizations have the main purpose of changing the world around them by deed and talk. The UN and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) lead military endeavours all over the world, for instance. The International Egg Commission (IEC) is a pressure group that exerts influence over the rules and conditions for producing and trading in eggs; the World Ostrich Association (WOA) plays a similar role in ostrich breeding; and BirdLife International protects wildfowl. Some of these organizations are attracting increasing scholarly interest. There is an entire corpus of literature dealing with the EU, for instance. Some scholars see the organization they are studying as being unique, and fail to make comparisons with other similar organizations. Others classify these objects of study as international organizations, emphasizing the fact that the members of all these organizations come from different countries. In this book, we argue that organizations such as the EU, IATA or FIFA do not constitute unique cases, but that they exhibit strong similarities to each other and to many other organizations. We concede that organizations with members from different cultures and countries can have special problems with special solutions, of course, but we do not believe that the fact that they are international constitutes the most fundamental attribute for their functioning. Instead, we emphasize a common characteristic that we consider to be more noteworthy: rather than individuals being their members, the members of these organizations are other organizations. We call such organizations meta-organizations.

Organized organizations

3

Far from all meta-organizations have members from several countries. There are many national meta-organizations. Most countries have national trade associations for companies in different industries, labour union associations for labour unions, and national sports associations for sports clubs, for example. We believe that such organizations have a great deal in common with the UN and the EU, and that we have much to learn about the UN and the EU by studying national trade and sport associations – and vice versa. The UN and the EU are more similar to other such meta-organizations than they are to organizations like Amnesty International and IKEA, which, although international, are not meta-organizations. Meta-organizations are associations, and as such they differ from federative states and business conglomerates, which could perhaps be thought of as having organizations as members (see Chapter 2). The members of meta-organizations may be states, firms, or associations. The members have considerable autonomy. They have applied for membership by choice and they are free to leave at any time. They cannot be forced to become members or to be purchased. And as members they keep most of their autonomy and identity as independent organizations. Furthermore, in meta-organizations, as is typical for associations, members are equals. The purpose of this book is to explain and discuss how and why meta-organizations differ from other organizations. The existence of meta-organizations raises a series of questions. Why do organizations want to be members of other organizations? How can member organizations be recruited and motivated? How is it possible to lead organizations that already have leaders of their own? How can organizations reach common decisions? How can the members of meta-organizations sustain their identity as organizations? It is necessary to understand how meta-organizations work if one seeks to understand globalization processes. Globalization is often discussed in such vague and sweeping terms as global networks, or global governance. But we believe that in order to understand the fascinating politics and dynamics of globalization,

4

Meta-organizations

we must understand the forms in which it is carried out. Globalization is largely concerned with organization across national boundaries, and an important part of this organizing is constituted specifically by meta-organizations. We argue that an understanding of the particular conditions for organizing and decision-making that exist in meta-organizations will help us to make sense of some of the new forms of interaction and governing that are summarized in the all-too-inclusive concept of governance.

THE NEED FOR A THEORY Almost all organization theories build on the assumption that the members of organizations are individuals. Theories on the recruitment of members and employees are based upon the notion of individual membership. The starting point of motivation and control theories is the assumption that individuals must be motivated and controlled. Leadership theories are based on the presupposition that it is individuals who are to be led. Theories addressing organizational positions and hierarchies refer only to people who are forging their careers and filling positions in their organizations. Within organizational theory, it is virtually always taken for granted that organizations have greater resources than their members do and that an organization’s leaders have more power than any of its other members. This focus on individual-based organizations has its roots far in the past. In 1958 James March and Herbert Simon summarized organizational research up to that time in their influential book, Organizations, and laid strong foundations for further research. They established introductorily and explicitly that they were specifically interested in individual-based organizations, contrasting their concept of the organization with “the diffuse and variable relations among organizations” (March and Simon 1958: 4; their italics). Over the past 50 years, the field of organization studies has followed March and Simon’s programme by continuing to address individual-based organizations, although this

Organized organizations

5

emphasis is seldom articulated as explicitly as March and Simon stated it. As a result, students of organizations have shown little interest in meta-organizations, and when they have, it is to treat them as individual-based organizations. We believe that it is high time for organizational theorists to pay more attention to meta-organizations. There are obviously many characteristics and processes in these organizations that can be understood on the basis of our current extensive knowledge of individual-based organizations, but we argue that metaorganizations contain special features that elevate them to a special category deserving of study. In this book, we present the fundamental features of a theory for meta-organizations. The study of meta-organizations can also contribute to general organizational theory. Certain problems in meta-organizations constitute particularly clear illustrations of problems basic to all organizations and apply to the fundamental problem of how to devise and establish organizational forms. We suggest that metaorganizations are organizations that do not know who they are. There are fewer clear norms, rules, and models for metaorganizations than for individual-based organizations, a situation that provides greater scope for experimentation, innovation, and conflict in ways of organizing – and thus excellent opportunities for studying and analysing fundamental organizing processes. In this book, we deal with two main themes of particular interest for the understanding of meta-organizations. The first theme deals with organization and other forms of order. In organization theory terms, this theme concerns the relationship between organization and environment. What are the differences between an order that is organized within a formal organization and one that is not? What are the differences between meta-organizations and other forms of collaboration among organizations, such as networks? The second theme deals with membership. We discuss the essential differences between individuals and organizations and the effects of each of these types of members on organizational functioning. How do authority and management differ when the organizational members are other organizations rather than individuals?

6

Meta-organizations

And how can organizations sustain their identity in metaorganizations? We have created our theory of meta-organizations through a combination of deduction and induction. We build this theory axiomatically on the basis of a number of assertions about the differences between individuals and organizations that give rise to fundamental differences between individual-based organizations and meta-organizations. Our conclusions follow largely from these assertions. The choice of assertions, however, has been based partially upon empirical studies of the structure and composition of meta-organizations and their methods of working. Empirical studies have also been important for a more precise investigation of the practical consequences of the formation of meta-organizations. They have also helped us to illustrate our theory with examples.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK Before we become involved in our themes, the next chapter more closely defines what we mean by the concept of metaorganization, provides examples of meta-organizations, and demonstrates their commonality on both the national and the international stage. The number of international metaorganizations has increased sharply over the past half-century. Chapter 2 also offers a more detailed description of how we have studied meta-organizations and provides short summaries of our case studies. In Chapter 3, we sketch the principal lines of our two main themes – environment and membership – beginning with the theme of environment. Many social scientists avoid the concept of organization in their analyses, relying upon concepts like bureaucracy, institution, regime, or network, even when describing phenomena that we and many other organizational theorists designate as organizations. In Chapter 3, we describe some fundamental characteristics distinguishing the formal organization from other types of order in society.

Organized organizations

7

Social scientists do not always distinguish between individuals and organizations, often referring to both entities using the generic term “actors”. For our second theme of membership, the difference between the individual and the organization is key; we present a list of assertions dealing with the differences between these two entities. In Chapter 4, we primarily discuss the theme of organization and environment, analysing why meta-organizations are established. Meta-organizations are attempts to convert part of the members’ environment to organization, and the success of these attempts is dependent upon the existing environment of these members and their opportunity to acquire a different environment. People trying to establish meta-organizations face other problems and find other solutions than do those trying to establish individual-based organizations. Chapters 5 and 6 deal primarily with the theme of membership. We discuss two problems that are particularly difficult for meta-organizations because of the nature of their members. The necessity of finding a suitable balance between similarities and dissimilarities among the members is one of these problems: the tension between the members’ need for their own identity and the meta-organization’s need to create a common, all-embracing identity is discussed in Chapter 5. The second problem concerns acceptable forms of decision-making and conflict resolution. In this area as well, the prerequisites of meta-organizations differ from those of individual-based organizations. In Chapter 6, we discuss the problems that meta-organizations encounter with their decisions and their conflicts, as well as the solutions they choose. In Chapter 7, we discuss the dynamics of meta-organizations. The nature of a meta-organization’s membership creates a certain instability. The central authority in many meta-organizations is strengthening or weakening. If these changes are far-reaching, they will lead to the meta-organization’s transformation into one or more individual-based organizations. At a certain point, we find meta-organizations with different relative strengths between organization and membership.

8

Meta-organizations

Chapter 8 summarizes the differences between metaorganizations and individual-based organizations as a function of their differing memberships. We list a number of hypotheses generated by our theory. In Chapter 9, we develop the discussion around metaorganizations and their environments, paying special attention to globalization processes. In understanding these processes, concepts such as governance, institution, and network are not enough; rather, a major part of globalization is created through organizing in different forms. In this chapter, we explain why meta-organizations constitute a key form of global organizing. Furthermore, we compare meta-organizations with other forms of collaboration between organizations and with other forms of organizing.

2. Many meta-organizations In this chapter we expand on the definition of meta-organizations we made in the previous chapter. We also demonstrate what we mean by meta-organizations by providing many examples. We give a short historical overview of the development of metaorganizations and present some figures that represent the number of national and international meta-organizations. Finally, we present summaries of nine of our case studies as well as short descriptions of 15 more meta-organizations that appear in the book.

ORGANIZATIONS THAT DO NOT KNOW WHO THEY ARE Meta-organizations seem to find it difficult to make up their minds about the type of organization they are. Their leaders and members use myriad terms for describing themselves – association, union, league, club, consortium, federation, confederation, commission, network, round table, and protocol being some of the most common. Politicians, journalists, and researchers seem to find it equally difficult to describe the nature of meta-organizations within an organizational framework. They are often described shortly and sweetly as “umbrella organizations”, a designation that we have been unable to find any meta-organization to be officially using itself. As mentioned in the previous chapter, certain meta-organizations are sometimes described as “international organizations” (Murphy 1994; Archer 2001; Barnett and Finnemore 2004). Yet there are international organizations that are not meta-organizations, and, above all, there are many metaorganizations that are not international; in fact most are not. There 9

10

Meta-organizations

are meta-organizations with members solely from the same country (e.g., a national trade association) or even from the same city (e.g., a local trade association). This variation of names reflects the lack of institution for metaorganizations. The institutionalized conceptions and systems of rules for organizations seem to be based on the assumption that organizations have individuals as members. The meta-organization form has no special legal status, making it difficult for it to present itself and to know which rules apply. And it prevents them from having the same self-evident legitimacy as do various forms of individual-based organizations. In our definition of meta-organizations we connect with some well institutionalized forms of organizations: firms, states, and associations (Polanyi 1968; Sjöstrand 1985; Ahrne 1994). These organizational forms encompass all the elements characterizing organizations (see Chapter 3). They differ primarily with regard to their participants. Firms, states, and associations can all have employees. But firms also have owners, and these owners, who expect the firm to make a profit, have decisive formal power in their hands. States have citizens. Citizenship forms a kind of obligatory membership in the organization. One is born as a citizen of a state, and it is very difficult to renounce or change one’s citizenship – at times impossible. Citizenship is also based on territorial demarcation – where one happens to have been born or to live – not by one’s interest in economic gain or in the activities conducted by the state. An association has members, and the position of a member differs somewhat from that of a citizen. A common designation for an association is “voluntary association”, referring to the fact that the members are volunteers (Knoke 1986). In fact, they often have to pay a membership fee to join. The primary goal of most associations is not to make a profit; rather, their purpose is to conduct activities in the interest of and for the benefit of all its members. Thus, associations are sometimes described as “mutualbenefit associations” (Blau and Scott 1966: 45). The organizational form of the association is also distinguished from that of the

Many meta-organizations

11

firm, especially by its basically democratic nature and by its mandate to represent the interests of its members (Blau and Scott 1966; Warren 2001: 84). The relationships among association members are often described as horizontal (Warren 2001: 31), in contrast to the vertical relationships existing in firms. All members are expected to be of equal value and, in principle, to exert equal influence. There is, however, one prerequisite that enables the representative purpose to work together with horizontal relationships, voluntary membership, and equal influence: a similarity between members and certain common interests. Meta-organizations are all associations. Membership is voluntary and members can withdraw at will. The purpose of a metaorganization is to work in the interests of all its members, with all members being equally valuable and membership being based on some form of similarity. One could perhaps argue that a major business combine with highly independent subsidiaries is a type of organization consisting of other organizations. But a business combine is not an association, and it involves a clear hierarchical member structure. Through its ownership, the parent company has the ultimate power over its subsidiaries; it can appoint their management teams and even control the minutiae of their operations. The subsidiaries cannot decide unilaterally to leave the combine. It could also be argued that federative states such as Germany or the USA are organizations with other organizations as members, the members consisting of individual states such as Bavaria in the case of Germany and California in the case of the USA. However, in federative states, the citizens of the member states are also citizens of the federative state, and the member states may not leave the federation without the consent of the federative state (Burgess and Gagnon 1993; Nicolaida and Howse 2001). Thus, it seems fair to say that business combines and federative states are not as radically different from individualbased organizations as meta-organizations are. In business combines and federative states, the various sub-organizations can be conceived of as organizational departments within a highly decentralized organizational structure.

12

Meta-organizations

There is yet another important difference between metaorganizations on the one hand and business combines and federations on the other. Federative states have other states as members and the members of business combines are firms. Members of meta-organizations do not have to be other associations, however; they can just as well be firms or states. So although both the UN and the IATA are associations, members of the UN are states and members of the IATA are firms. In all probability, this openness to different types of membership has contributed to some confusion as to what kind of organization meta-organizations actually are.

WHY “META-ORGANIZATIONS”? In spite of what has been said so far, it is clear that there are not only differences but also some similarities between the concept of federation and the concept of meta-organization. The term “federation” has a clear theoretical and institutional grounding. We could have adopted and adapted the term to describe the organizations we are interested in rather than coining a new concept. However, we fear that such a terminology would have been confusing rather than clarifying. In our opinion, the concept of federation is too narrow and too vague to provide a good understanding of the phenomenon of the meta-organization. A narrow use of the term federation is to be found in political science. Federations are almost always described in that literature as a federation of states. Because both states and individuals are members of federative states, there is a direct link between individual citizens and the federation, and another direct link between individual citizens and the federated states. The European Union is not normally seen as a federation; it is said during debate, however, that some politicians are working towards making it into one. The term federation is also problematic because of its ideological dimension. Federalism is a political ideology concerning something that is often described as a society of societies, based

Many meta-organizations

13

on horizontal power distribution among the member states or organizations. In federal ideology, there is a fundamental, positive evaluation of diversity (Burgess 1993). Supporters of federalism are critical of centrally governed states and advocate a balance between self-government and centralism (Petersson 2004). The term federation also occurs in research into firms and associations, where, in our opinion, its sense is too vague and unclear. When one speaks of firms as federations, the aim is to apply political principles within the management of firms (Handy 1992). There have also been several attempts to describe associations as federations (Warren 1967; Provan 1983; Oliver 1990). In these attempts, however, the crucial difference between federations and confederations is easily overlooked: a confederation is a weaker form of federation. Traditionally, their difference has been described in terms of the federation’s governing body, which can enact binding laws for all members – something that is not possible in a confederation (Forsyth 1996: 32). An example of a confusion of the concepts of federation and confederation is an often-cited article about inter-organizational relations, in which Roland Warren used the designation of federation for describing a council of churches in which decisions were, in fact, subject to ratification by the members, and considerable unit autonomy was tolerated and expected (Warren 1967). In his description of the distinctive features of international organizations, Paul Tharp takes as his starting point “traditional confederal principles” such as the right of member organizations to leave an international organization and the right of member states to interpret unilaterally the rules to which they have consented. Furthermore, he asserts, consensus decisions are commonplace in confederations and confederations have no direct ties to the individual citizens of their member countries (Tharp 1971: 5; Archer 2001: 103). Certain agreement obviously exists between the concept of confederation and what we call meta-organizations. If one bears in mind the difference between federations and confederations, it is clear that meta-organizations are not federations, but could actually be described as confederations. Yet we prefer to use the

14

Meta-organizations

term meta-organization. We believe that the difference between a confederation and a federation is crucial to understanding these different forms of organizing. This difference often disappears in discussions however, when the concept of confederation is not being used in a distinctive way and, above all, because the concept of federation is so often used to indicate confederations as well. It seems better, therefore, to completely abandon both terms here. We would also like to avoid starting from the original political science discussion about federations, which focuses on internal political processes. The federation concept turns one’s thoughts to forms of governance, whereas the meta-organization concept refers to the organizational form itself. Through our more organizational theory approach, we would like to broaden the discussion to encompass things other than forms of governance and influence and investigate the relationships of meta-organizations to their members and their environments. The relationships among members of a meta-organization are, in many respects, dependent upon their relationships with their environments, which piques our interest in the way organizations set their boundaries and handle their relationships with their environments. Such issues are brought to a head in meta-organizations.

META-ORGANIZATIONS OVER TIME Even if research into meta-organizations has been modest, the organizational form itself is hardly new. On the contrary, we believe that the meta-organization is a relatively old-fashioned and primitive form of organizing, even if this belief is difficult to substantiate. We believe that many older forms of organizing, such as associations of states, professional associations, and guilds, often encompassed the characteristics of metaorganizations. The Swedish House of Nobility, for example, is a meta-organization that was created for noble families in 1626, in order to “make order in the existing ‘nobility chaos’’’, and has survived to this day. To be recognized as noble, a family must be

Many meta-organizations

15

represented at the House of Nobility; each family has one vote in the decision-making assembly (Bäärnhielm 2002). Although it is difficult to say for certain how far back in time the meta-organization extends, it is definitely not a new form of organizing that has arisen in response to intensified globalization during recent decades. In the literature on international organizations, there are a good many overviews describing meta-organizations established during the second half of the 19th century. International meta-organizations International organizations are often described as being of three generations (Murphy 1994: 6). The first generation arose in the 1860s and extended to World War I, the second generation existed during the interwar years, and the third was post-World War II (cf. Boli and Thomas 1999: 23–4). The International Telecommunication Union (originally the International Telegraph Union), founded in 1868, and the Universal Postal Union (originally the General Postal Union), founded in 1874, are often mentioned as the first two international meta-organizations (Codding 1964; Codding and Rutkowski 1982; Archer 2001: 11). By 1914, some 30 international metaorganizations had been established (e.g., the International Bureau of Weights and Measures [BIPM – Bureau International de Poids et Mesures] in 1875 and the Permanent International Association of Road Congresses [PIARC] in 1909) (Murphy 1994: 47–8). In the world of sport, FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) was established in 1904 by football associations in seven countries: France, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, and the Netherlands (England did not join until 1905). In 1886, however, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales had already formed an International Board that established many of the rules of football (Sugden and Tomlinson 1998: 10). The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) was established in France in 1908 by France, Belgium, Great Britain, Switzerland, and Bohemia, but Canada did not join until 1920 (Howell and Howell 1985: 400).

16

Meta-organizations

Some of the meta-organizations established prior to World War I were dissolved during that war: the International Sugar Union and the International Association for Public Baths and Cleanliness, for example. Others ceased to exist in a formal sense, but became incorporated in different ways into the League of Nations, a meta-organization formed in 1920 (Murphy 1994: 83; Archer 2001: 14). The League of Nations ceased its activities before the outbreak of World War II, being described by Archer as “an empty shell abandoned by countries unwilling to involve themselves outside their domain” (2001: 20). According to calculations, around two-thirds of the earliest established international organizations were dissolved (Boli and Thomas 1999: 22). The survival rate has risen considerably, however, primarily since World War II. And as demonstrated in this chapter, the past 50 years has yielded the greatest increase in meta-organizations. Meta-organizations can serve several purposes and have members who are active in a number of different sectors, from religion and sport to industrial manufacturing and research. To demonstrate the breadth of these business spheres, we take examples from some of the areas with the highest number of international meta-organizations, according to the Yearbook of International Organizations 2003/2004 classification. The largest business sphere is development, which includes the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), with members from 171 countries. Within the research sphere we find the International Bee Research Association (IBRA), with members from 132 countries. Representing education is Education International, with members from 154 countries. In the category of industry, is the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), with members in 90 countries. Meta-meta-organizations Even though many meta-organizations grow with time, there are limits to their total possible membership, and it is unusual for them to have more than a few hundred members; many have fewer than 100. In this sense they are small organizations. Meta-

Many meta-organizations

17

organizations usually define who can be a member in a way that allows few organizations to join: there is a limited number of soft drink producers in the world, for instance, thus limiting the number of possible members in the Confederation of International Soft Drinks Association (CISDA). The number of members can also be limited by a meta-organization adding geographical limitations to its membership requirements, limiting itself to members within a certain municipality or region, or within a certain country. There are many meta-organizations with words such as British, German, European, or American in their names. If the number of members in a meta-organization threatens to become too large, a common strategy is to form a “meta-metaorganization” – an organization with a limited number of metaorganizations as its members. These members, in turn, have a limited number of organizations as their members. The trade associations within a country often form a common meta-metaorganization for the entire national industry, of which the various industry associations are members; and national trade associations in Europe are members of meta-meta-organizations at the European level. For example, Swedish parking companies are members of the Swedish Parking Association (SVEPARK), which, in turn, is one of many national meta-organizations that are members of the European Parking Association (EPA).

HOW MANY ARE THERE? It is particularly difficult to count meta-organizations because of the lack of a clear institutional grounding. There is no ready-touse register to consult, no statistics on the occurrence or evolution of meta-organizations in individual countries, much less in the world. The closest sources are registers of associations, which often include meta-organizations in their official statistics. To get an idea of the occurrence of meta-organizations today, we have made use of two registers of associations: a register of Swedish non-profit organizations compiled by Statistics Sweden

18

Meta-organizations

and the register of international voluntary associations compiled by the Union of International Associations and published in the Yearbook of International Organizations. To be able to use these listings to calculate the number of meta-organizations, however, it has been necessary to obtain details about the type of members – individuals or organizations – belonging to each organization. The following are our calculations of the occurrence of metaorganizations in Sweden, followed by the figures for international meta-organizations. Sweden has a population of approximately 9 million. The Statistics Sweden register of non-profit organizations in Sweden listed 23 766 registered associations in 2004, from which we randomly selected 400 associations throughout the country. To determine if any of them were meta-organizations, we investigated each of the 400, primarily through their websites, in order to ascertain the nature of their membership. Among these 400 associations, we found 71 meta-organizations. This number corresponds to 18 per cent of all non-profit associations in Sweden. Extrapolating, we would expect there to have been about 4300 meta-organizations in Sweden in 2004. Among them were local trade associations; local labour unions; alliances between free churches; associations for cultural purposes; and organizations such as the Coordination Committee for the Associations for Disabled Persons in the City of Norrköping or the Water Conservancy Association of the River Nissan. We believe that most people would not have expected to find such a large number of meta-organizations in a country the size of Sweden, but, upon reflection, perhaps the number is not surprisingly large. Some organizations are part of only one meta-organization, but many are part of several meta-organizations. A firm can be part of a trade association, an employer organization, and a local business association, for instance – or even more if one includes international meta-organizations. According to an official investigation in 1992, government agencies or other state-run organizations of the Swedish state were part of as many as 3754 meta-organizations – five times more than in 1960 (Riksdagens revisorer 1995/96).

Many meta-organizations

19

It is impossible, of course, to transfer with any certainty our calculation of the number of meta-organizations in Sweden to estimations of the occurrence of national meta-organizations throughout the world. If each country had as many metaorganizations as Sweden, then the figure would be approximately 800 000. However, many countries are smaller than Sweden and even more can be expected to be less well organized. It is our guess that societal structure is a more important factor than population in determining the number of meta-organizations. Europe is relatively homogeneous economically, culturally, politically, and organizationally, thus, the same type of calculation should be relatively reliable when estimating the number of meta-organizations within Europe. A calculation that was based only on the number of states and did not account for the fact that many of these states have a much larger population than Sweden does, would indicate the occurrence of approximately 200 000 national meta-organizations in Europe. International meta-organizations To calculate the number of international meta-organizations, we have used the Yearbook of International Organizations for 2003–2004. The organizations included in the Yearbook are coded into five clusters. For our estimations, we have used only Cluster I, which contains permanent international organizations for which the information seems to be relatively reliable. “International” means that the organization has members from at least three countries and that it is financed by at least three countries. In this cluster, according to the 2003/2004 edition of the Yearbook, there are 11 373 organizations. The Yearbook of International Organizations does not provide any special classification of meta-organizations. However, there is information indicating whether or not an organization allows only individual members. Of the 11 373 organizations defined as international, only 1168 or about 10 per cent, had only individual members. But can we regard as meta-organizations all organizations that have both individuals and organizations as members? In

20

Meta-organizations

order to answer this question, we conducted a separate investigation of all organizations listed in the Yearbook of International Organizations that were established during 2001 or 2002. Of the 127 organizations established during 2001, we were able to find membership information on 102. Of these, 17 had only individual members and 77 had only organizations as members. Among organizations that allowed both individuals and organizations as members, 33 had both organizations and individuals as members. Few of these organizations provided details of the exact number of members. However, for the few cases in which there were details of both the numbers of organization members and the numbers of individual members, the number of organizations was significantly higher (e.g., 30 organizations and two individuals or 78 organizations and six individuals). Of the 58 organizations established the following year (2002) for which we were able to find membership details, there were eight that had individual membership exclusively. And among the 50 that allowed both individuals and organizations as members, 42 had only organizations as members. We believe that these figures provide support for our assumption that the great majority of organizations that are not intended solely for individual members are meta-organizations in which the membership is dominated by organizations. In addition to examining the organizations established in 2001 and 2002, we also conducted random samples among older organizations that allowed both individual and organization members, and found the same tendency. According to the Yearbook of International Organizations, the EU, for instance, has both individuals and organizations as members, but the individual members turned out to be the approximately 20 commissioners of the European Commission. If we thus exclude the 1168 organizations from the total number of international organizations in Cluster I for 2003, those organizations that have only individual members, then 10 205 of what we can regard as meta-organizations remain. As previously mentioned, about 18 per cent of the associations in Sweden were meta-organizations. Why is the proportion of meta-organizations so much higher among international organiza-

Many meta-organizations

21

tions than among national organizations? It is probably because in each country individual members are recruited locally into many individual-based associations – whether sports associations or churches – and because these associations combine into fewer national meta-organizations. Many of these national metaorganizations are, in turn, part of international meta-metaorganizations. Meta-organizations are thus interwoven, thereby connecting the national and the international. In describing international organizations, a distinction is often made between intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs or simply NGOs). In practice, however, this distinction is not easily made. Generally speaking, IGOs have states or government agencies exclusively as their members, but this does not mean that no government agencies or other state-run organizations are members of INGOs. Sometimes, these INGOs can be seen as hybrids (Archer 2001: 39). The fact that state-run organizations can join INGOs is the reason why the Swedish state can be part of so many meta-organizations. In the Yearbook of International Organizations, a distinction is made between IGOs and INGOs. Of 11 373 organizations, 974 or less than one-tenth were IGOs. Because one can assume that IGOs are always metaorganizations, the proportion of organizations with individual members will be higher if we look only at INGOs. Of the total number of organizations worldwide, 10 399 are defined as INGOs, and of these, 1168 or about 11 per cent comprise individual members exclusively. These data clash with what would seem to be the normal assumption – that INGOs are “not-for-profit” organizations for individuals (see, for instance, Boli and Thomas 1999: 51, 282). But if we look at the sectors in which the majority of INGOs are active, it becomes clear that most INGOs also have other organizations as members. Almost two-thirds of all INGOs in 1988 were to be found within industry, trade, communication, medicine, the sciences, or sport (Boli and Thomas 1999: 42). And even though the vast majority of these meta-organizations are “not-for-profit”, many have members that are commercial organizations.

22

Meta-organizations

The number of international meta-organizations has increased substantially since World War II – especially during the last 20 to 25 years. Of the approximately 10 205 meta-organizations that we identified in 2003, just over 100 were established before 1900, and only 1000 were established before 1950. This means that 90 per cent of the existing international meta-organizations have been established during the last 50 years. Even more telling is the fact that one-quarter of all existing international metaorganizations were established during the last decade. Even if the figures are uncertain, it is clear that there is a large number of national and international meta-organizations in the world – at least relative to the low degree of visibility of this organizational form and the limited attention it has received in organizational research. A large portion of INGOs are metaorganizations, and the image of INGOs will undeniably vary depending on one’s belief about them: are the members individual, committed people from all over the world or are they organizations comprising major companies or national sport associations? The large number of international individual-based organizations throughout the world consists of international firms.

CASE STUDIES The main empirical basis for the analysis in this book consists of case studies of ten meta-organizations: • BirdLife International; • International Cremation Federation (ICF); • International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM); • Community of European Management Schools and International Companies (CEMS); • Swedish Parking Association (SVEPARK) and European Parking Association (EPA); • Swedish Floorball Federation (SFF); • Swedish Association of Temporary Work Businesses and

Many meta-organizations

23

Staffing Services (SPUR); • The Federation of Swedish Industries; • The Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA); • European Union (EU). The empirical investigations are based on reviews of extensive documentation and secondary material, combined with interviews with key people. The selection of cases was developed gradually under the guiding principle of a broad spectrum. This strategy has resulted in meta-organizations with widely differing characteristics, but they were not primarily chosen to investigate their differences but to examine their similarities. Our objective has been to distinguish the phenomenon of the meta-organization and to compare organizations that many people would probably perceive as being more different than similar: the EU and the Swedish Floorball Federation, for example. But in all our case studies, we have been struck by the similarities and by the opportunities for generalization that they have provided. We have studied meta-organizations with various types of members, selecting national and international meta-organizations, some relatively well known, but most of them relatively unknown. We also point to some of the differences among various types of meta-organizations. However, a systematic investigation of such differences is a project that must wait. First, we have to establish the similarities – without which the differences would not really be noteworthy. In this section we provide descriptions of the meta-organizations we have studied, by way of providing the reader with some empirical illustrations of our argument. How are metaorganizations established? How do they work and change? And what problems do they encounter? We start with short descriptions of seven organizations and end with somewhat more extensive descriptions of two cases that we studied in greater depth: the Federation of Swedish Industries and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities. (The tenth case is the European Union and we assume that the reader is already familiar with that metaorganization so we have not described it here.) Some of our cases

24

Meta-organizations

are global meta-organizations in their own right, and two of them are illustrative of the interconnectedness of national and international meta-organizations. The remaining cases are national metaorganizations. Three of the global meta-organizations are devoted to various common causes (the preservation of birdlife, cremation, and organic agriculture). The others primarily defend the interests of their members. Some of the cases have been reported earlier (Ahrne, Brunsson and Garsten 2000; Ahrne and Brunsson 2001). In the descriptions of these meta-organizations we have used the terminology that they have used themselves in presenting their organizations and activities. BirdLife International BirdLife International was founded in 1993 by representatives from 20 national ornithological societies. It strives to conserve birds, their habitats, and global biodiversity. One of its main objectives is to prevent the extinction of any bird species and maintain and if possible improve and enlarge sites and habitats that are critical for the preservation of birds. The organization owns or manages over 1 000 000 hectares of land in various parts of the world. In its vision statement, Birdlife International says that “birds are beautiful, inspirational and international”. Because many birds move over long distances and spend winters and summer in different parts of the world, a cooperation involving many countries and regions of the world is necessary in order to improve the conditions for birds. This is one reason why BirdLife International has been actively trying to establish partnerships and support new ornithological associations in countries with no such activities. BirdLife International and its partners currently operate in over 100 territories worldwide. BirdLife International has three types of members. BirdLife partners are membership-based NGOs that represent BirdLife in their own territory; they are voting members and key implementing bodies for BirdLife’s strategy and for regional programmes in their own territories. BirdLife partners designates are membership-based NGOs that represent BirdLife in their own territory.

Many meta-organizations

25

They are in a transition stage to becoming full partners, and have no voting rights. BirdLife affiliates are usually NGOs, but can be individuals, foundations, or government institutions. They act as BirdLife contacts, with the aim of developing into, or recruiting, a BirdLife partner in their territory. Currently, in 2007, BirdLife International has 53 full members, 15 designate members and 33 affiliates. In several other countries they manage different kinds of country programmes. Every four years BirdLife International holds a world conference and global partnership meeting to adopt strategies, programmes, and policies, and to elect a global council and regional committees. The council appoints a Chief Executive Officer to head a decentralized international secretariat that coordinates and supports the partnership to achieve the aims and objectives of BirdLife International. The member organizations of BirdLife International are highly autonomous. They are not obliged to follow the plans and strategies that have been adopted by the global council, but in practice most of them do. International Cremation Federation (ICF) The first move towards the founding of the International Cremation Federation was taken during a meeting in Prague in September 1936 arranged by the Czechoslovak Cremation Society. One year later, the ICF was founded in London by 11 non-profit organizations from various European countries with an interest in cremation. Now, in 2007 the ICF members are non-profit organizations from 24 countries; most are European, but there are also members from Asia, America, and Australia. ICF also has associate members – private enterprises related to the practice of cremation. Associate members do not have the same rights as do members to participate in decision-making during the general council meetings of the ICF. In 1996 the International Cremation Federation was granted Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. The main aim of the ICF is to promote the practice of cremation, to provide information concerning cremation, and to free

26

Meta-organizations

cremation from legal restrictions in countries where they still exist. The ICF also works towards simplifying the process of cremation and securing a general recognition of this rite. One specific aim is to eliminate problems encountered in transporting the ashes of a deceased person from one country to another. The ICF has developed a Code of Ethics regarding the practice of cremation. ICF works towards its objectives by holding international cremation congresses and by publishing journals and newsletters. It also negotiates with ecclesiastical and government authorities in its attempt to make cremation possible in more situations and localities and to implement agreements between organizations concerning the cremation of deceased members of organizations abroad. For many years the International Cremation Federation had fought for the repeal of the ban forbidding Roman Catholics to be cremated. In 1963 it was instrumental in securing the lifting of the ban and by 1966 Roman Catholic priests were allowed to conduct services in crematoria. Today ICF supports cremation movements in countries where cremation is not officially recognized. One such example is Greece where the Orthodox Church is strongly opposed to cremation. The ICF has no member from Greece, but the Committee for the Right of Cremation in Greece is a “sponsored member” of ICF. International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) IFOAM was established in 1972 during a meeting in Paris, initiated by one of the leaders of the French organization Nature et Progrès. Present at this meeting were representatives from four other organizations that shared an interest in working for the diffusion and exchange of information on the principles and practices of organic agriculture in all schools and across national and linguistic boundaries. The four other organizations represented at this meeting were the UK’s Soil Association, the Swedish Biodynamic Association, the Soil Association of South Africa and Rodale Press from the USA. These were the five original members of IFOAM.

Many meta-organizations

27

Right from the start, IFOAM offered voting memberships to groups and associations with published aims in line with the principles of organic agriculture. The possibility also existed for individual non-voting members to join as supporters. Among the members of IFOAM are a great variety of organizations: businesses as well as non-profit organizations, and producers as well as traders and buyers, consultants, and certifiers. In order to become a full member of IFOAM, however, the activities of the organization must be predominantly organic. Individuals as well as organizations with activities that are not predominantly organic may become non-voting supporters and associates. Membership increased slowly during the 1970s, but during the 1980s it grew rapidly. In the early 1980s IFOAM had approximately 100 members, but ten years later the number had risen to approximately 500. As of 2007 IFOAM has around 750 members in 108 countries. Almost from the start, one of the most important tasks of IFOAM has been the development of basic standards for organic production and processing. Today IFOAM provides a market guarantee for the integrity of organic claims. The Organic Guarantee System (OGS) offers a common system of standards, verification, and market identity. The IFOAM General Assembly elects a World Board for a three-year term. This board appoints members to various official committees and task forces, such as the Norms Management Committee, which includes members of the Standards Committee and the Accreditation Criteria Committee. The Development Forum works towards the development of organic agriculture in developing countries. Community of European Management Schools and International Companies (CEMS) CEMS was founded in 1988 by some of Europe’s leading academic institutions in the field of management and business. It evolved quickly at first, despite certain misgivings among outsiders regarding a joint degree, initially encompassing four member schools and growing to 12 within four years. Schools

28

Meta-organizations

desiring to join CEMS are carefully evaluated with reference to their education standards and international profile. Only one school per country, the one considered to be the “best”, is approved for membership in CEMS, and the schools must comply with the basic rules regarding international emphasis and quality. By 2006 the number of European members had grown to 17. In 1998 CEMS took a big step towards globalization. After a period of preparatory work and initial contacts, four associate academic members from North and Central America joined CEMS in 2001. In 2006 five more associate members joined, including three Asian schools, one Australian, and one Russian. CEMS also has corporate partners in order to bridge the gap between the academic and corporate worlds. At the outset there were nine corporate partners. Currently, in 2007, they number 50. The CEMS student body is organized on a local level within the “CEMS Clubs” and on a central level in the pan-European Student Board. The aim of CEMS is to train future company leaders, equipping them with the skills needed to work internationally – to foster individuals who can understand and adapt to different cultures, who can work in several languages, and who are knowledgeable about European and international professional procedures. The aim is to develop and harmonize European management training at the university level. The schools offer a joint Master’s degree (MSc in International Management), CEMS MIM. In order to earn this degree, a student must take certain courses available at all of the member schools, have certain linguistic abilities, and take one semester of courses at a member school other than the Alma Mater. CEMS determines what a CEMS MIM degree is, and regulates certain aspects of the educational programme, such as the courses to be offered and the way studies abroad are to be conducted. CEMS has no further rules, however, for how the member schools are to be set up or how they are to conduct their teaching. Swedish Floorball Federation (SFF) The Swedish Floorball Federation was founded in 1982 as part of

Many meta-organizations

29

a move to get floorball recognized as a top-level sport in Sweden. Floorball is played with sticks and a ball as in field hockey or bandy, but the game is played indoors and not on ice. A student handball enthusiast introduced floorball in Sweden at the end of the 1960s, and it became popular among handball players and students. Floorball was played for fun, sometimes in connection with big parties, in many different constellations, and without fixed rules. Some occasional clubs were formed with amusing names like “The Gang of Four” or “Sweethearts’. By the end of the 1970s, floorball was a popular form of exercise but was not recognized as a serious sport. The first floorball club, formed with the intention of making floorball a serious elite sport played on a large court, was founded in the Swedish town of Sala in 1979, but it needed other clubs to compete with. An inner circle of six clubs was slowly formed, and together continued the process of setting rules. They sought membership of the Swedish Federation for Bandy Clubs, but it would not accept floorball clubs as a subdivision. Therefore, in 1981, they formed the Swedish Floorball Federation, which began with only 17 member clubs. One of the first goals of the federation was to arrange regular championship tournaments, and eventually to start a national league. In order to accomplish this goal, they had to recruit and educate referees as well as stimulate the founding of many more clubs. During its first year, the federation had only 35 members, but within three years there were more than 100 members, and in 1990 there were more than 1000 clubs. These clubs were then organized as members of districts and the districts became members of the Swedish Floorball Federation. Thus, the Swedish Floorball Federation had become a meta-meta-organization. One of the main aims of the SFF was to increase the status of floorball as a serious elite sport – not merely a game for children or a form of exercise. During its first years, the federation had to work hard to increase discipline within the clubs, some of which did not show up in time for the scheduled matches. The clubs were forced to adopt serious names, and were encouraged to wear proper outfits during matches. Men and women were not allowed

30

Meta-organizations

to play on the same team and club members were only allowed to wear shirts numbered from 1 to 20. All in all, the Swedish Floorball Federation has been enormously successful in establishing floorball as an elite sport in Sweden. As of 2007 it is one of the biggest sports in the country. Another step in increasing the status of floorball occurred in 1985, when floorball was recognized as a member of the Swedish Sports Confederation. One requirement of becoming a member is that the sport be considered international. SFF had been active in introducing floorball into Finland, and the first game between Sweden and Finland was played in 1985. One year later, the International Floorball Federation (IFF) was founded with members from three countries: Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland. One of its first tasks was to standardize the rules of the game, as floorball was played with different rules in Switzerland than in the other two countries. Another important aim of the international federation was to introduce floorball into other countries. Ten years after the foundation of IFF, it had 13 members, and the first world championship floorball games were played. By 2007 IFF had 38 member associations. Swedish Parking Association (SVEPARK) and European Parking Association (EPA) SVEPARK was founded in 1981 by a small number of new enterprises managing parking establishments and controlling parking in Swedish cities. One reason for the founding of this metaorganization was the increasing privatization of the control of parking. One of the main aims of the organization is to work towards a general recognition of this new type of enterprise. As of 2007, SVEPARK has 37 full members. Among the members are privately owned enterprises, enterprises owned by cities or municipalities, and enterprises owned and run by the large airports in Sweden. In addition, SVEPARK has around 40 associated members consisting of enterprises that are suppliers of equipment used in the parking business, as well as construction enterprises specializing in the construction of parking establishments.

Many meta-organizations

31

Membership in SVEPARK is considered to be a guarantee of quality service, and the members of SVEPARK have committed themselves to following the ethical code established by SVEPARK. This ethical code consists of rules underlining the public nature of the activities, and it aims towards increasing the transparency of the member firms. All staff of parking enterprises must wear a uniform while in service for instance, the name of the company must be highly visible on all vehicles, and all employees must take the introductory courses arranged by SVEPARK. In 2002 SVEPARK sharpened its control over adherence to its ethical code, and started to issue warnings to members who do not fully live up to its requirements. In 1983 SVEPARK was one of the founding organizations of the European Parking Association (EPA), which began with nine members. Currently, in 2007, there are 21 members representing 21 European countries, 27 associate members, and a small number of individual honorary members who have provided “outstanding service” to EPA. The membership fee for members of EPA consists of two components: one basic fee and one additional fee. The basic fee is a fixed amount for all members, whereas the additional fee depends on the number of private cars in the country. The main objective of EPA is to support and increase the exchange of professional experience among the members. Every two years, the EPA hosts a congress to discuss the problems and perspectives of stationary traffic in connection with traffic development in European cities. In order to pursue its goals further, EPA has established the EPA awards for excellence in parking. A prize can be awarded in several categories, such as newly built car parks, specialist parking products, or on-street parking projects. Swedish Association of Temporary Work Businesses and Staffing Services (SPUR) SPUR was founded in connection with deregulations of the labour market in Sweden in 1992. Until then no private enterprises were allowed in the field of staffing services. SPUR was established in 1993 by the head officers of the largest new enterprises in the

32

Meta-organizations

business. The purpose of the new association was to work for “high quality, ethical rules and a healthy personnel policy in the temporary employment business”. After five years SPUR had 14 members, and was actively working to recruit new members. Every member pays an annual fee to the association, part of which paid for a consultant to help them in their contacts with other actors in the labour market. Meetings of members are held biannually, at which information about new rules and events relevant to business operations is disseminated. SPUR offers training related to new employment constraints. Knowledge of the regulatory framework and of similar methods of working has high priority. On the member companies’ initiative, SPUR has developed ethical rules to be used in-house, in relationships between managers and associates, and externally in customer relations and marketing. SPUR has also set up an ethical council to monitor compliance with the rules, even by non-members. The council functions as a type of court, to which employees, customers, and member companies can report members who do not comply with the ethical rules. SPUR has its own emblem, used by member companies, in their advertisements for instance, as a guarantee of serious intent and as an assurance of quality. In 2003 SPUR changed its name to the Swedish Association of Staff Agencies (although throughout the book, we will refer to it as SPUR). Now, in 2007, this association has 350 member companies and has become a member of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. The Federation of Swedish Industries At a meeting organized by the Swedish Technologist Society in spring of 1909, a provisional committee consisting of representatives from large Swedish enterprises was formed with the purpose of founding a federation. The committee sent an invitation to a number of enterprises. When the Federation of Swedish Industries was constituted in 1910, a total of 234 enterprises became members. By 1918 the number had increased to 1214. Initially it was a federation of manufacturing enterprises. Although the initiative came from a small number of large enter-

Many meta-organizations

33

prises, the federation has always been open to both large and small enterprises. For small enterprises, however, there have been several other competing meta-organizations. In 1941 an important change occurred in the organizational structure of the Federation of Swedish Industries when statute changes were introduced to the effect that only trade associations can be members of the federation. All enterprises are members of branch associations that took over the administrative work of collecting membership fees from the member enterprises and handling the communication directly with them. The different trade associations are meta-organizations, with enterprises as members, and the Federation of Swedish Industries is a metameta-organization with other meta-organizations as members. This has meant that there is a greater similarity between the Federation of Swedish Industries and its members than there is between the trade associations and their members. In the 1980s, the Federation of Swedish Industries widened its definition of potential members, because the boundaries between industry and service production have become less clear and because many new service enterprises are working for the industry. This extension of membership categories has meant, among other things, that trade associations have been established for management consultants as well as IT businesses in the last 20 years. From the beginning, the foremost aim of the Federation of Swedish Industries has been to guard industrial interests. For the founders of the new federation, such interests were not being duly represented in the parliament or in politics in general. The idea was to give industry a voice in public administration. At the same time there was a strong wish to counteract any unnecessary involvement of the state in industrial matters. Along with the division of labour between trade associations and the Federation of Swedish Industries, its position as a lobbying organization has been more and more pronounced. The Federation of Swedish Industries has occupied itself with many questions regarding general industrial conditions such as taxation, education, and energy supply. During the last 20 years,

34

Meta-organizations

environmental issues have increased in importance. In connection with the referendum on nuclear energy in 1980, the Federation of Swedish Industries engaged itself in the political debate as never before. Early on, however, the Federation of Swedish Industries was also engaged in issues that would ease interaction and cooperation between enterprises. One important issue was to help improve technical and economic education in general. Another was to offer advice to individual companies and to assist them in establishing modern administrative routines. Moreover, the federation has been heavily engaged in formulating technical standards. Nearly all the largest enterprises in Sweden, as well as many of the smallest enterprises, are members of a trade association that, in turn, is a member of the Federation of Swedish Industries. Size differences among members have caused many conflicts and tensions in the organization. There is a common feeling among the large enterprises that the smaller enterprises have too much power in relation to their economic power. On the other hand, many people from small businesses are dissatisfied that they do not have enough time and resources to commit themselves to the activities of the federation. The differences among members also cause problems with membership fees. Many members feel that the small enterprises do not pay in proportion to their size or influence. Most complaints have come from the middle-sized companies that are of the opinion that the federation subsidizes both large and small enterprises. The great differences in access to resources across the membership also affect the relationship between the leadership of the Federation of Swedish Industries and the representatives of big business. Most top managers of large-scale enterprises have a higher status in society and have access to far larger economic resources than do the administrative leaders of the Federation of Swedish Industries. People in administrative positions have expressed concern that top managers of large-scale enterprises would treat them as if they were subordinates. There was also the feeling that several large enterprises occasionally acted independently, ignoring the federation and its decisions. Leaders of the

Many meta-organizations

35

federation voiced the opinion that many business managers had difficulty understanding and accepting the fact that the federation’s activities were more political in character than oriented towards managing an enterprise. Many business managers find decisions too slow, because they do not understand the nature of the organization of the Federation of Swedish Industries. In 2001 the Federation of Swedish Industries merged with the Swedish Employers’ Confederation to form the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. The Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA) The history of SALA goes back almost a century. Its origin can be traced to two separate meta-organizations that were founded in 1909 and 1919, and later merged into one. The Swedish Town Federation was founded in 1908 during a congress for towns and cities. The members of the new federation were cities, towns, and urban districts. Most of the larger cities and towns of the realm joined the federation from the start but it was not until the 1930s that all the towns had joined. Less than half of the urban districts joined from the beginning. A little over ten years later (1919) the Federation of Swedish Rural Districts was founded, allowing both rural and urban districts as members. Thus, the urban districts could join both federations and their membership fees were split between them. The influx of members in this federation was not general either. Initially only every fifth rural district became a member of the federation; in the 1930s, about two-thirds of the districts belonged. The uncertainty regarding who could become a member of the two federations was intensified in 1963, when the Federation of Swedish Rural Districts permitted towns to become members. The background was that towns had, by state decree, been allowed to incorporate parts of previously rural districts. This competition for members between the federations was due to a lengthy process of changing borders between town and country. The disagreement between the two federations was dissolved in 1968 by a merger, the result of which was the Swedish

36

Meta-organizations

Association of Local Authorities, in which all Swedish municipalities became members from the beginning. The inspiration for the founding of the Swedish Town Federation in 1908 came from England and Denmark, where similar organizations already existed. Its central aim was to address “the social question”, in order to achieve increased cooperation between cities and towns and to find solutions to various social problems caused by urbanization. Its founders wanted to increase the opportunity of sharing information about all types of social reforms, and possibly stimulating competition between cities and towns. The Federation of Swedish Rural Districts offered a well developed advisory service for helping rural districts in administrative and reformatory matters. It produced statistics on municipal matters and an extensive supply of courses and conferences. More recent examples of activities are the production of indexes for municipal activities and a system for responding to employers’ questions about issues such as coordinated wage negotiations and standardized employment contracts. From the beginning, the two original federations had another goal: to protect the regional governments from state influences and to promote local self-government. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that this aim has increased in importance relative to the cooperation that the federations have been able to engender. Because many municipalities have merged since 1968, and have acquired more resources of their own, the need for advice and exchange of information has diminished. The activities of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities have gradually become far more external, especially towards the Swedish state. But it was not until the end of the 1970s that the association made it an official aim to support and promote local selfgovernment. And no doubt the municipalities would have been more heavily governed and controlled by the state if the Swedish Association of Local Authorities had not been established. The activities of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities have not been without their problems. Tension has arisen from the conflicting interests of large and small municipalities and from the

Many meta-organizations

37

calculation of membership fees. All the municipalities were originally represented by at least one person at the congresses, but smaller municipalities must now share representatives, leading to strong protests from many of them. There is constant discussion in the federation on what constitutes fair and democratic representation. The question of how to calculate membership fees is another bone of contention dividing large and small municipalities. Forms of decision-making have also been on the agenda on several occasions. The official line has generally been to support a principle of consensus. It often happens that the federation abstains from taking a stand on questions on which opinions are divided or on questions that are too politically or ideologically charged: taxation issues, for instance. These conflicts have sometimes been so great that the two largest municipalities, Stockholm and Gothenburg, have considered leaving the federation because they believe that they have not received enough benefits from their high membership fees. With their larger financial resources, they could, in fact, manage well on their own. Furthermore they have been able in the past to pursue their interests in relation to the state in a more efficient way independently. In 2007 SALA merged with the Federation of Swedish County Councils (FCC) and became the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) (although throughout the book we will refer to it as SALA). Fundamentally, however, these organizations have always been meta-organizations for local and regional government in Sweden. SALAR is a member of two meta-meta-organizations. One is the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) – a European organization for local and regional government in Europe, founded in 1951. The other is United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), a worldwide organization founded in 2004 through a merger between three previous organizations: International Union of Local Authorities (IULA), World Federation of United Cities (FMCU-UTO), and Metropolis, which was an international association of 81 cities with more than a million inhabitants.

38

Meta-organizations

OTHER META-ORGANIZATIONS Beside these case studies, we have been involved in investigations of meta-organizations conducted by other researchers at our research centre, Score. These organizations appear as examples in the text: the International Labour Organization (ILO) (Brännström 2004), European Automobile Manufacturer’s Asssociation (Association des Constructeurs Européens d’Automobiles; ACEA), Eurelectric (Jutterström 2004), Swedish Association of Management Consultants (SAMC) (Alexius 2007), International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (Tamm Hallström 2004), KRAV (Boström 2006) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Noaksson and Jacobsson 2003). We have also made use of a number of monographs on individual and groups of metaorganizations (e.g., UPU, FIFA, OECD, WTO). These sources are reported in the customary way by references in the text. In conjunction with the selection of the cases we wanted to investigate, we have scrutinized about 30 other meta-organizations by studying their websites. In the rest of this section we provide a list with some information about 15 other meta-organizations to which we refer in this book. The organizations are listed in chronological order according to the year of their foundation. The list is far from complete, but we hope that it is a helpful reference for the reader and provides the reader with an idea of the wide range of meta-organizations in existence. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Founded in 1865 by 20 European states, ITU has 191 member states in 2007 and more than 700 sector members and associates. Among the sector members are some of the world’s largest telecommunications manufacturers. ITU represents a global forum through which government and industry can work towards consensus on a wide range of issues affecting the development of telecommunications. Key priorities are the building of information and communication infrastructures and the management of the radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits.

Many meta-organizations

39

Universal Postal Union (UPU) Founded in 1874, the initial number of members was 21. Currently, in 2007, UPU has 191 members. The mission of the Universal Postal Union is to foster the development of universal and efficient postal services and to guarantee the free circulation of postal items through an interconnected single postal territory, as well as facilitating the provision of technical cooperation. Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Founded in 1904 by football associations from seven countries, by 2007 FIFA had 208 associations as members and six confederations for the national football associations on each continent. FIFA plays a crucial role in the development of world football, managing the FIFA World Cup and assuming responsibility for its rules and regulations. FIFA offers training courses for instructors, coaches, referees, medical personnel, administrators, and journalists. The Association of ICA-retailers (ICA) Founded in 1917, it began with approximately 250 retailers in Sweden. Now, in 2007, the number of members/retailers is around 1500. The ICA idea is a business model in which the individual retailer owns and operates a store in cooperation with other retailers. This cooperation includes joint purchases and the sharing of marketing costs. International Labour Organization (ILO) Founded in 1919, the ILO began with 42 member states. ILO membership has a “tripartite” structure, which means that each state is represented by representatives from the government, employers, and workers. As of 2007 the ILO has 181 member states. The primary aims of the ILO are to promote rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social protection, and strengthen dialogue in handling work-related issues. The ILO is responsible for drawing up and overseeing international labour standards.

40

Meta-organizations

International Air Transport Association (IATA) Founded in 1945 with 57 members from 31 nations, IATA is the successor to the International Air Traffic Association founded in 1919. Formal IATA membership applies only to airlines, but other industry partners can participate in some IATA programmes. As of 2007, IATA has over 270 members from more than 140 nations. The primary aims of IATA are to promote safe, regular, and economic air transport and to provide means for collaboration among air transport enterprises. IATA also involves itself in the standardization of documentation and procedures for the smooth functioning of world air transport, as well as helping to divide the airfares from multi-airline journeys and to settle the accounts of airlines. Swedish Association of Management Consultants (SAMC) SAMC was founded in 1948 and, as of 2007, has a membership of 25 consulting firms. SAMC is a member of the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI). SAMC is the sole certifying body for management consultants in Sweden. It promotes excellence and ethics in management consulting through certification and education. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Founded in 1961 with 20 member states, the OECD has 30 members as of 2007, with five more states invited into discussions for membership and offered enhanced engagement. The OECD provides a setting for governments to compare policy experiences, address common problems, and identify good practice. The organization monitors trends, analyses and forecasts economic developments, and researches social changes in trade, environment, taxation, and more. International Egg Commission (IEC) Founded in 1964, by 2007 IEC had members in over 55 countries around the world. IEC offers different memberships: membership for country associations, a producer-packer membership, an egg

Many meta-organizations

41

processors’ international membership, an allied industry membership, and a subscriber membership. IEC is the only organization representing the egg industry globally. Activities include monitoring the global egg industry and gathering statistics on feed prices and production costs. IEC is engaged in lobbying for international legislation, in arranging conferences, and is responsible for World Egg Day. KRAV Founded in 1985 by four organizations for organic growers in Sweden, as of 2007 KRAV has 28 member organizations representing growers, processors, and trade. Many of the largest retail chains in Sweden have become members. KRAV is a member of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). KRAV develops organic standards, arranges inspections to ensure that these standards are met, and promotes the KRAV label. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Founded in 1993 at a conference with 130 participants from 26 countries, FSC membership now consists of three chambers: Social, Environmental, and Economic. In July 2006, FSC had 647 members from 82 countries. Most of the members belong to the Economic and Environmental chambers. The FSC promotes responsible management of the world’s forests. Through consultative processes, it sets international standards for responsible forest management and accredits independent third-party organizations that can certify forest managers and forest product producers to FSC standards. World Trade Organization (WTO) Founded in 1994 with 124 member states, the WTO is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). There are 151 member states represented in the WTO as of 2007, with approximately 30 others negotiating membership. The WTO’s overriding objective is to help trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly, and predictably. It does this by administering WTO

42

Meta-organizations

trade agreements, acting as a forum for trade negotiations, handling trade disputes, and monitoring national trade policies The Association of Swedish Higher Education (SUHF) Founded in 1995 by a number of universities and university colleges in Sweden, SUHF has 42 members in 2007. SUHF is in itself member of the European University Association (EUA) and the Nordic University Association (NUS). The association aims at safeguarding the external interests of its members and at strengthening internal cooperation. It is currently addressing the funding of undergraduate teaching and learning, research policies and institutional autonomy, and the legal position of organizations of higher education. G-14: the voice of the clubs Founded in 2000 by 14 of the biggest football clubs in Europe, G14 has 18 members as of 2007. The aim of G-14 is to provide a meaningful executive role for the clubs in the management of the international game. G-14 is concerned with important rulings and negotiations on EC employment legislation, sponsorship and TV rights, intellectual copyright, and format and management of club and national team competitions. European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) Founded in 2003, ELFAA has ten members as of 2007. ELFAA aims to ensure that European policy and legislation promote free and equal competition to enable the continued growth and development of low fares. Consistent with that goal, ELFAA identifies policy areas affecting the low-fare sector and influences regulatory issues.

3. Environment, members, and meta-organizations We base our theory of meta-organizations on two fundamental arguments: one connected with an organization’s environment and another with its membership. At least in their most general form, we expect these arguments to be uncontroversial. We do not intend to present new theories about environments or members, but we do find it necessary to specify clearly the aspects of existing theories on which our theory of meta-organizations is built. Our first argument is based on standard organization theory: we argue that organization makes a difference. It matters whether or not human interaction and communication are arranged under a formal organization. When meta-organizations are formed, organizations create a new order among themselves. If the included organizations have previously been in contact with each other, it has been another type of contact; they have been involved in an order other than that offered by a formal organization. They have, in organization theory terms, constituted an environment for each other. In the first part of this chapter, we highlight some significant elements of the order offered by formal organization. Our second argument is that it is important to differentiate between the individual and the organization. Meta-organizations work under different conditions than other organizations, because their members are organizations rather than individuals. In the second part of this chapter, we specify some differences between the organization and the individual that are central to our understanding of meta-organizations. The view of environment and 43

44

Meta-organizations

membership of organizations that we present in this chapter forms the basis of our analysis, in subsequent chapters, of the various aspects of meta-organizations.

ORGANIZATION AS ORDER Modern society is characterized by a large number of formal organizations. Organizations can even be said to be a dominant social form; we live in an organization society (Simon 1991). Most people in developed societies around the world belong to many organizations. They are citizens of a state; they may be employed by a company; they are often members of a number of associations such as labour unions or interest groups; and they may belong to non-profit organizations such as religious communities or nature conservation societies. They interact on a daily basis with a large number of other organizations and are dependent on even more. They purchase things from companies and are dependent on the infrastructure provided by states. Given the abundance of organizations in this world, the concept of the organization is strikingly underutilized in social science. Sometimes it seems as if scholars – even students of international organizations – are avoiding the concept, even in contexts in which it seems highly relevant and useful. In political science literature it is common to call an organization such as the UN an “institution”, and this term usually remains undefined and foggy. The EU’s subdivisions – its Commission and Parliament, for instance – are also described as institutions, and the entire EU is sometimes described as being unique, difficult to comprehend, and almost impossible to assign to any general category (Hix 1998). The IMF, NATO and GATT (the predecessor of the WTO), have all been described as regimes (Keohane 1993). There is talk of bureaucracies (Barnett and Finnemore 2004), but it is often unclear if the reference is to the entire organization or part of it, or if the emphasis is on the organization’s similarity to Weber’s (1968) ideal type of bureaucracy. Even when organizations are legally defined as organizations or describe themselves as organi-

Environment, members, and meta-organizations

45

zations, many scholars avoid this term in their analyses. And, many scholars who do use the concept of organization define the term narrowly, being manifestly unwilling to use the concept of the organization to signify a major organizational form like the state. Concepts other than organization can, of course, be fruitful and suitable tools of analysis if they are ascribed a precise meaning. However, we believe that the concept of the organization could be used more often, at least for supplementing other concepts. Analysing the EU, the UN, or the WTO as organizations and using knowledge from established theories of organizations provides key insights that are difficult to achieve in other ways. We begin by describing the fundamental characteristics of organizations in general. This description is general and elementary and, we fear, not particularly exciting. The purpose is merely to remind the reader of some important aspects of the way organizations are constructed in modern societies. We use this description later in the chapter when analysing the difference between meta-organizations and other forms of contact or influence between organizations. The elements of organization Not just any group of people can make up an organization. Organization is not the same as a network, class, or society. For people to believe that something is an organization, it must have members, a hierarchy, autonomy, and a constitution. Organizations distinguish between those who belong to the organization and those who do not. Participants in an organization have a different standing than other, external, people. A common, general term for this phenomenon is membership, which is then used for denoting all such participants – employees, owners, citizens, and members of the organization – not just for denoting members of associations. When not indicated otherwise, we use the term in this broad meaning. Such membership is a fundamental element of organizations, and members are usually thought of as people. Members have a

46

Meta-organizations

certain degree of commitment towards the organization, its management, and its rules. The members are those who are subject to the organization’s hierarchy. For an organization, it is of key importance to know who is a member and, consequently, who is not. All organizations have a hierarchy, an authoritative centre, often represented by a special organizational unit called a board, management, government, leadership, or some such term; and the people who comprise these units have the right to issue commands and rules prescribing their members’ actions. This centre can also consist merely of a mechanism for decision-making – a rule for majority vote, for instance. In this sense, organizations are hierarchical. We use the term “management” for this type of unit or mechanism, regardless of its specific character or the type of organization in which it exists. The right to enforce compliance with commands and rules requires organization; such rights do not exist outside organizations. Expressed in another way, only the management of an organization can issue binding commands and rules (directives) (Brunsson and Jacobsson 2000). And, within an organization, management ultimately has a monopoly on setting binding commands and rules. It is only with regard to the members of its own organization that management can formulate directives and commands and expect compliance. Management is also restricted by the fact that not all activities are legitimate targets for directives. Some activities belong to what Barnard (1938) called, in describing firms, the “zone of indifference”: only certain actions, within specific areas, and at certain times, can be regulated by the organization. One aspect of hierarchy is management’s right to obtain information about the activities of organization members, thereby giving management the ability to verify that commands and rules are being adhered to. And management has the principal right to bring sanctions – both rewards and penalties – connected with the degree of compliance. With

Environment, members, and meta-organizations

47

contemporary states as exceptions, management in most organizations has the right to expel members – a right that is balanced by the right of the members to withdraw from the organization, thereby escaping the obligation to be under management control. The rights of management are specified in constitutions containing rules about making rules and issuing commands. Constitutions also regularly contain specific tasks or goals of the organization. The constitution defines who can become a member of the organization and the requirements for continued membership. It details how organizational control should be executed, and includes rules about the division of authority within the organization; management’s mandate to set rules can be delegated within or outside the executive group. Such constitutions serve as restrictions for management, but they also provide a fundamental legitimacy to the commands and rules that are set by the right people in the right way. In practice, constitutions may be called other things: articles of association or treaties. Most organizations decide the terms of part of their constitution by defining themselves as belonging to the legal category of organization; much of the constitution of a joint stock company, for instance, is devised through laws governing this kind of organization. Organizations are also entities with a certain degree of autonomy, with management having a freedom to act. They can own and control some resources. If an entity lacks autonomy or cannot control its resources, it may well be part of another organization, but it would not be seen as an organization in its own right. All organizations have a financial accounting system that specifies ownership and measures flows of resources across organizational boundaries. Membership, hierarchy, constitution, and autonomy define and constitute organizations. An entity lacking any of these aspects would not usually be perceived as an organization – or at least not as a “true” organization. It would be difficult to convince people that we were portraying a state, a firm, or an association, if we were to present them with a group of people

48

Meta-organizations

with no authoritative centre, no autonomy, and no constitution, and if we could not say who is a member and who is not. These factors, which are all aspects of the institution of the Organization in modern culture, can be found in laws governing organizations (Holmblad Brunsson 2002). Without being constitutive, there are a number of other elements that characterize most, but not all, organizations. Many organizations are able to concentrate considerable resources, and these resources can be used to support commands and rules: management can employ positive sanctions by allocating resources to those who best comply with commands and rules or to those who make the strongest contribution to the fulfilment of the organizational task. Furthermore, resources can be viewed as common goods for all organizational members. A member is given access to certain organizational resources, thus creating the impetus either to become or to remain a member of the organization and to be subject to its rules. Together with resource concentration, constitutions give organizations a “life of their own” and a certain stability. Members tend to become replaceable and interchangeable; rules can still apply, even if members are exchanged. Most organizations offer an arena in which people can meet. People interact in accordance with organizational rules in order to achieve organizational purposes, but, by meeting each other on a more or less regular basis, they have the opportunity to interact in other ways and for other purposes. This interaction may even cause the emergence of something of a local organizational culture: common ideas and habits particular to organization members. Actions and distinctions Organizations can be used to facilitate interaction among their members. Members’ actions are often concerted in order to produce organizational actions vis-à-vis the outside world. A high degree of concentration, often achieved via a strong hier-

Environment, members, and meta-organizations

49

archy, makes it plausible to conceive of the organization as a single “actor”. The organization is said to act, to make statements, to make decisions, and may even be thought of as having interests and opinions. This is how states are often described in the literature on international relations or how firms are regularly described in their role as market participants. Organizations not only coordinate interaction, they are also powerful instruments of distinction. They construct identities and classifications. Most fundamentally, they give people identities as members and non-members. Moreover, organizations regularly assign members more precise identities in the form of titles and job descriptions. Accounting systems identify the resources that are possessions of the organization and further classify these resources in various and more detailed ways. People’s identities are regularly used to create status orders – between the various hierarchical levels of the organization, for instance.

DECIDED AND NON-DECIDED ORDERS The creation of an organization constitutes an attempt at creating a specific social order. Organizations are local orders that are expected to differ in at least some respects from a more general cultural order and from each other. An aspect of an organizational order that we want to emphasize here is that it is decided. Organizations are manmade. Decision, the conscious choice of acting in one way rather than another, is an essential aspect of organizations (March and Simon 1958; Luhmann 2000). Organizations are actively created as the result of decisions made by specific people – often by a few or even by one person. And the commands, rules, distinctions, and actions of an organization are expected to be the result of decisions. Decisions have fundamental effects. Decisions dramatize the importance of people, of the decision-makers, and of their power to control. By making decisions, decision-makers present themselves as the causes of subsequent actions and as having free will

50

Meta-organizations

– that they make choices of their own. Being a cause by means of one’s free will is the way to become responsible (Aristotle 1985). Decisions create responsibility. In organizations, it is clear who is responsible, in both the legal sense and the moral sense of the word. Organizations concentrate responsibility, making some people, the decision-makers, highly responsible. Other organization members, who are not supposed to make decisions, but merely to implement the decisions of others, become proportionately less responsible – much less responsible than they would be if they were acting as individuals, outside any organization. Moreover, decisions dramatize uncertainty (Luhmann 2000). Decisions are attempts at creating certainty, at establishing the look of the future. But they also create uncertainty by demonstrating that if the future is chosen by someone, it could, in fact, be otherwise. So, decisions pave the way for protests and complaints, with organizations and their decisions and actions often being contested. Culture and institution Organization can be seen as the antithesis of culture. Certainly, culture creates order in the form of common behaviour patterns and common cultural norms facilitate interaction. Culture provides a number of distinctions. Cultures contain a set of possible identities and generate certain status orders. A common culture is a powerful facilitator of communication and interaction. However, culture can be defined as the order that is not perceived to have been decided upon, for which individuals are not considered to be responsible, and that is taken for granted by those sharing the culture. Organization can also be seen as the opposite of institution. An institution can be defined as a pattern of action using a certain account (Jepperson 1991) that we take for granted. What we decide about is specifically what we do not take for granted. To take something for granted is to avoid making decisions about it. Organizations, as opposed to institutions, can act, but our behaviour in accordance with an institution can be defined as the antithesis of action (ibid.).

Environment, members, and meta-organizations

51

Institution is a broad concept, however, which limits its usefulness. The notion of an institution is typically used to describe cultural orders as well as orders that have been decided upon as the result of organizing. It can be used to describe phenomena within organizations. Many of the rules that states impose upon firms become institutions – rules that firms take for granted and must adhere to as long as they are active within the territory of that state. People working on the lowest rungs of the organizational ladder usually take for granted the decisions made by people on higher levels. Certain elements of an organization’s methods of working can be so well established that many people inside and outside the organization, even management, take them for granted (Selznick 1957, 1996). And the model for what an organization is, which we have just described, is a broadly shared institution, the institution of the Organization. We take for granted that an organization comprises such elements as members, a hierarchy, and autonomy. The fact that organizations sometimes give rise to institutions and that Organization is, in itself, an institution, has created some confusion in the use of these two concepts. However, like culture, the concept of the institution denotes a result rather than attempts and failures. Attempts and failures The concepts of culture and institution signify orders that exist, that have actually succeeded in coming into being, and are less useful for describing attempts and failures. This is not true for the concept of organization. This concept is also used for describing attempts. Students of organizations are interested in how management tries to organize and in the results of that attempt. They have been interested not only in success, but also in failure. Decisions are not necessarily implemented. Because organizations are decided orders, they are projects with the potential for failure. They are attempts to create an order. Organizations are expressions of hope (Brunsson 2006). Many organizational attempts at control and choice fail to lead to what is being desired

52

Meta-organizations

or predicted. In spite of all the instruments accorded management, management often fails to control the actions of its members. Smooth interaction among members can be difficult to achieve, in spite of access to a hierarchy or other organizational elements. Concerted organizational action is not always possible, or it may deviate from what has been decided. Identities and status orders decided within an organization are sometimes overruled by orders that have not been decided, at least not in that particular organization (Scott and Meyer 1994). There may be a considerable difference between what the members of an organizational management team say and decide and how other organization members act (Brunsson 2002). Failure is a common theme in the empirical literature on organizations, whereas the literature oriented towards helping managers in their work has produced an endless series of suggestions for avoiding such failures. Sometimes the difficulties and failures associated with creating an organized order are specifically due to a strong cultural or institutional order that the organization is unable to cope with. It is difficult to make people follow organizational rules that clash sharply with the norms of the members’ culture. It is difficult to break with taken-for-granted patterns of action. Even within individual organizations, a local culture can emerge whereby the members have certain common ideas and norms that are unique to that organization (Martin 1992). Even though it is the dream of many an organizational management team that its way of conceiving things and its rules will be internalized by the members in a cultural order, it can easily turn into a nightmare if the team later tries to make other rules based on other conceptions. Perhaps the tendency towards failure is one reason why many social scientists have paid little interest to organizations. They have been more interested in studying successes rather than failures, results rather than attempts. Because organizations are attempts, and attempts that are not always successful, it is natural to study organizing as a process rather than a result. Many organizational studies consist specifically of studies of processes, attempts to establish a decided order – attempts that often fail, at least in part.

Environment, members, and meta-organizations

53

But organizations not only fail, they often succeed. For better or for worse, they are sometimes able to achieve grand results. They establish orders that become important or even crucial to social life. And orders that are originally organizational sometimes become institutional and cultural. Organizational forms invented in one or more companies may become taken-forgranted recipes for an entire industry (Chandler 1962; Fligstein 1985). Administrative systems invented in Western states spread to other states and sometimes become taken-for-granted forms for states in general (Meyer et al. 1997). Budgeting invented by states long ago became a taken-for-granted practice in companies in the middle part of the 20th century (Miller 2003). The UN decision in 1948 to produce a declaration of human rights may have helped to increase individualism in formerly non-individualistic cultures. In such cases, we can only understand the processes leading to institutions and a cultural order by understanding organizations and organizing. And organizations and organized orders are, of course, important, even when they are not creating institutions. This description of the order of the formal organization should have clarified the type of order that a meta-organization provides among its member organizations. This order differs fundamentally from the order they previously experienced, as described in the next section, for they have turned part of their environment into organization.

ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS Within organizational theory, the discussion about various types of orders has been conducted largely in terms of organizations and their environments. Organizational environments can be defined as orders that are not the organization’s own. Parts of the environment consist of a cultural order. There can, for instance, be strong conceptions and norms for the structures of organizations and how they are to be led, and the individual organization may find it difficult to break with them (Meyer and Rowan 1977). Such conceptions and norms affect an organization’s actions as

54

Meta-organizations

well as its identity. Fundamentally, there are, as mentioned, norms and rules governing the nature of an organization – whose behaviours and statements must be demonstrated in order for us to consider it an organization. There are also more detailed conceptions and norms. For example, there are clear, universally agreedupon conceptions and norms that determine how a university must look; and if an organization does not comply with them, it will not be seen as a university at all or at least not as a “true” or “real” university. Many modern organizational management teams are hoping to be able to influence the conceptions and norms of the members of their organization, but organizations are also victims of their broader cultural environment. Parts of this cultural order are global – almost all organizations of a certain kind anywhere in the world encounter the same conceptions and norms; one can, in fact, speak of world environments and a universal cultural order (Meyer 1994). The environment also consists of other organizations (Perrow 1991). The most significant environments of states contain other states, some threatening and some not. The most relevant environment for labour unions is ill-intentioned employers who are not easily overcome. The environment for companies includes states, labour unions, and other companies. Other organizations represent the same type of order as the focal organization, but they are not included in that organization. Some of the environment’s organizations are those with which the focal organization interacts. There are a number of types of interaction among organizations. They can, for instance, interact on a market as both seller and purchaser. They can enter into agreements with one another; they can attempt to influence each other in various ways; they can check on each other. Other organizations are significant to the focal organization without any interaction taking place between them. Competitors are significant in markets, although they rarely have contact with each other. The media have an effect on the organizations they write about without necessarily being in contact with them. States and a great number of other organizations, such as interest organizations, standardization organizations, and professional

Environment, members, and meta-organizations

55

organizations issue rules for other organizations, even if they do not interact with them (Brunsson and Jacobsson 2000). Lack of control and predictability Seen from the point of view of the individual organization, the environment is often felt to be characterized by greater uncertainty and lack of control than the organization itself (Thompson 1967; Williamson 1975). The environment cannot be decided by the focal organization. Cultural orders are, perhaps, easy to predict, at least in the short term, but the individual organization can hardly affect them to any great degree. Because other organizations are decided orders, they are difficult to predict. Their decisions are, admittedly, contestable, but the chance of another individual organization having an effect on them is limited. Although an organization routinely makes rules for its internal work, it finds it considerably more difficult to control or predict which norms will emerge or which rules will be issued in its environment. Organizations are powerful local systems for creating inner differentiation and status orders in the form of work distribution and positions, for instance, but it is considerably more difficult to influence the organization’s identity and status in the eyes of the environment. Despite intensive PR work, organizations can quickly lose the appreciation of their environment if values or competitors change. The difference between organization and environment can be described in terms of the organizational elements we have presented. Whether or not we can meaningfully speak about an environment with an order other than the organization depends on the organization’s autonomy. Autonomy means detaching oneself from something and this something is what we call environment. There are no members in the environment, which reduces predictability and control. Certainly, an organization’s members can leave the organization, but the organization’s management knows which members it has, and can decide how they will interact internally. It can, for instance, create systems of internal markets in which the organization determines prices and terms of

56

Meta-organizations

delivery. However, organizations cannot be sure that external organizations or individuals will want to collaborate with them and cannot unilaterally determine the conditions for such collaboration. A firm has little control over the conditions in external markets, for instance. In contrast to the organization itself, its environment has no clear boundaries: it is difficult to know what circumstances, people, and organizations in the environment will affect the organization and what relevant part of the environment can be easily changed. Changes in the environment occur rather than being planned. To a great extent, organizations must accept the environment as it is and adapt to it rather than attempt to control it. It is not uncommon for organizations to demand some type of constitution in their environment. Companies and others demand “fixed rules of the game”. But the environment cannot be expected to comply with any specific constitution; and the organization’s influence on various external constitutions is limited. Many popular management books talk about future, uncontrollable, and dramatic changes in people’s values and in market conditions, that the environment is turbulent, and that companies must simply adapt. It is debatable if this picture of a highly uncertain and uncontrollable environment is always realistic. Perhaps modern environments are sometimes more controllable (Galbraith 1967) and more predictable (Ohlsson and Rombach 1998) than the bulk of the literature would have us believe. And it is not certain that organizations are as predictable and controllable as they are often depicted and perceived in practice. In fact, a great deal of the organizational literature during the past 50 years has demonstrated that the degree of predictability and controllability is often considerably less than early organizational researchers presupposed (Brunsson and Olsen 1998). However, the environment is always something other than one’s own organization, something where the prerequisites for control and predictability are different from those within one’s own organization. Creating meta-organizations entails the reduction of environment and an increase in organization – transforming part of what was once the members’ environment into organization. Instead of

Environment, members, and meta-organizations

57

constituting each other’s environment, the organization’s members become members in the same organization. Parts of a possibly troublesome environment are replaced by an organization with more or less troublesome co-members. However, these members are not individuals, but organizations, and the conditions for the new organization’s order are not entirely the same as for the members’ internal order.

INDIVIDUALS OR ORGANIZATIONS AS MEMBERS Organizational environments have been strongly emphasized in the organizational theory of recent decades. Environments have been seen as something that greatly determines how organizations work and evolve. In previous organizational theory, however, greater salience was ascribed to the members and their significance in the workings of the organization. It is symptomatic, for instance, that in their classic book, Organizations, March and Simon (1958) discussed almost exclusively the significance of organizational members to the organization and paid little attention to the influence of the environment. The members were described not simply as fundamental assets to their organizations, but also as providers of constraints – members cannot be made to do anything and they have things to do other than participating in the organization. We refer back to this older tradition when discussing the special characteristics of meta-organizations. It is the character of the members that constitutes the fundamental difference between individual-based organizations and meta-organizations. Our theory, in this respect, is based on three assertions. The first two constitute interpretations of how individuals and organizations are constructed in modern culture. The third assertion is a logical consequence of the first two. We use these assertions as axioms of the theory. The first two assertions refer to differences between the individual and the organization. In order to understand how metaorganizations differ from individual-based organizations, it is

58

Meta-organizations

important to clarify how individuals differ from organizations. It is not self-evident that the differences are particularly large (cf. Meyer, Boli and Thomas 1987; Brunsson 1993; CzarniawskaJoerges 1993). In our culture, organizations and individuals are constructed in a similar way; in fact there are laws in which organizations are characterized as legal persons. Both individuals and organizations are assumed to have a clear identity, to constitute entities with clear boundaries, a certain level of autonomy, a certain stability, and certain characteristics particular to each separate individual and organization. Both individual and organization are seen as hierarchical systems in which the head or head office ultimately coordinates and controls the entity’s actions; the individual is responsible for his or her actions and management is responsible for the organization’s actions. And both individuals and organizations are seen as “actors” – as entities that can make statements and carry out actions. Contemporary sociological literature is rife with references to “actors”, meaning individuals and organizations. There are, however, a number of differences between the individual and the organization that affect how meta-organizations work in comparison with individual-based organizations, and to which we return in several parts of the book. Assertion 1 consists of a list of seven differences between individual and organization (each difference is explicated in greater detail in later chapters when it is used for analysis): • Organizations, but not humans, can be created and designed by individuals or by organizations. • Organizations have a lifespan that is difficult to predict; it is often short (Aldrich 1999, Chapter 4), but it can be extremely long. The mean human life expectancy, on the other hand, is close to the median, and all humans are mortal. • Organizations have memberships; human beings do not. • We cannot meet with an organization, but we can meet with human beings. • Organizations do not have access to a personal sphere, which individuals do.

Environment, members, and meta-organizations

59

• Organizations concentrate resources and have access to more resources than most individuals do. • Organizations offer an organized form of collective action that individuals, by definition, cannot achieve on their own. Assertion 2 points to another difference between organizations and individuals: organizations are more differentiated than individuals. They are generally perceived as more dissimilar than individuals in important respects. Although there is much talk about the uniqueness of each individual, there is, in parallel, strong or stronger ideas regarding similarities between individuals; they are thought to have the same or similar value, rights, duties, basic needs, and constitutions. Under most circumstances, organizations are seen as fundamentally different, having different fundamental forms and being of various sizes; having different purposes, resources, and structures; having different members. Even if there are some tendencies that the general concept of organization is becoming more and more important (Brunsson and SahlinAndersson 2000), organizations are still most often referred to as banks, factories, armies, hospitals, universities – not as organizations. And, even within such groups, the very raison d’être of organizations is based on the idea that they have a special task or a special competence and that they are not like any other organization. Human beings, on the other hand, have the right to exist even if they are perceived as being similar to many other individuals. In other words, organizations have clearer and more differentiated identities than do individuals. Whereas modern individuals tend to claim many abstract identities that are difficult to establish or discover, organizations expose seemingly obvious differences, as almost anyone would easily agree. However, this differentiation does not eliminate the fundamental differences between organizations and individuals stated in our first assertion. Rather, these differences lead to a Assertion 3 that concerns a fundamental difference between meta-organizations and individual-based organizations: in meta-organizations there is, after all, a fundamental similarity between member and organization that does not exist in individual-based organizations. In

60

Meta-organizations

meta-organizations, both member and organization are organizations. Organizations are more likely than individuals to be able to perform similar tasks and strive for similar things than does the organization in which they are members. These three assertions point to fundamental differences between individual-based organizations and meta-organizations; they create a number of special conditions regarding the potential operation and actual operation of meta-organizations. The explication of the assertions and the conditions they give rise to constitute one of the two fundamental themes of the book. But in order to give the reader a general idea of what follows, we briefly name a few here. In later chapters we argue that the differences between organizations and individuals, as described in our first assertion, are significant in several ways. Meta-organizations do not always have to recruit members for example; they can create their own members and design them as they please. When meta-organizations do recruit existing organizations, they get prompt access to ample resources and substantial action capacity, which is seldom the case when one tries to form an individual-based organization. The impossibility of meeting members, and the fact that members have members of their own, make it more complicated to make decisions and to resolve conflicts in meta-organizations. Because it is difficult to predict the lifespan of organizations, any turnover in member organizations is also difficult to predict or control. We present the hypothesis that the greater level of differentiation among organizations compared with individuals has powerful and complex effects. Meta-organizations must consider the identity of their members, and because meta-organizations are generally constructed with one type of member in mind, the number of potential members is greatly limited. This, in turn, means that the organization is highly dependent on specific members. Members are easy to find but difficult to replace. Dependence on specific members favours a monopoly and a low level of member turnover; it also means that any conflict is more likely to be resolved in ways other than by exit. The fundamental similarity within meta-organizations between

Environment, members, and meta-organizations

61

the organization itself and its members (our third assertion) tends to induce competition between the meta-organization and its members. A meta-organization and its member organizations compete for identity, autonomy, and authority. The question of who will decide or act upon what – the organization or its members – is a tricky problem that meta-organizations have to solve. Theorizing meta-organizations The dissimilar conditions under which individual-based organizations and meta-organizations function suggest that theories of individual-based organizations are insufficient for helping us to understand meta-organizations. We need to supplement these theories with a special theory for meta-organizations – a theory that deals specifically with the dissimilarities between the two organizational types. This theory deals with a number of fundamental questions that can be posed about organizations: why are organizations established and survive, how can they be controlled, and how do they change? In the next chapter, we analyse the reasons why meta-organizations are established. What are the purposes of and alternatives to the meta-organization, and what is it that motivates organizations to become members? We view the establishment of a metaorganization as a transformation of environment into organization. The member support is crucial for the organization’s survival. Yet this support is far from secure.

4. Creating and sustaining meta-organizations In this chapter, we discuss the issues behind the creation and maintenance of meta-organizations, referring to the discussion in Chapter 3 about their environments and their members. We first explain the inception of meta-organizations using the concept of the environment. Here, we see meta-organizations as an attempt on the part of organizations to eliminate part of their environment. Once a meta-organization has been proposed or established, it must recruit and retain members; it is dependent on organizations wanting to become members. In the second section of this chapter, we explain the forming and sustaining of meta-organizations by investigating the members, their interests and choices. In the third section of the chapter, we examine membership from the point of view of the meta-organization; we discuss the metaorganization’s problem of retaining its members – a problem that leads to the meta-organization’s strong dependence on its members.

ELIMINATING ENVIRONMENT In the last chapter, we noted that an important part of an organization’s environment consists of other organizations, whether or not it interacts with these other organizations. The environment is often perceived as being more difficult to influence and forecast than one’s own organization. Thus, an organization often has reason to strive for greater control and predictability in its environment. Organizations can, for example, attempt to reduce the 62

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

63

number of organizations they depend upon, or try to reduce their power. A company may attempt, for instance, to profile its products in the hope that it will achieve a monopoly – in the hope that no competitor can limit its scope for action. Organizations often attempt to introduce a little more organization into the environment as well. They try to use the same instruments to order the environment that they use to order the organization internally (Ahrne and Brunsson 2006). In doing so, they hope to increase their influence upon or their ability to predict the behaviour of other organizations in their environment. They can, for instance, interact with other organizations over long periods, achieving the relative stability that usually characterizes organizational members (Håkansson and Johansson 1993). They can also enter into long-term agreements with other organizations in which joint rules for their interaction are stipulated. Such agreements are usually associated with a certain right of information for the parties and with the possibility for sanctions – usually through an authoritative centre being externally engaged as in a court. Even organizations that do not directly interact with each other can attempt to reach agreement over the rules governing their actions. This is the case when, for instance, major technology-intensive companies establish so called ad hoc groups in order to set common agreed-upon technical standards for the industry. All these cases involve the introduction of certain elements of organization, although it does not lead to the high degree of organization that applies within the organization itself. A more radical step is to incorporate part of the environment into one’s own organization – to eliminate the environment, thereby increasing the domain of one’s own organization. This strategy has been discussed primarily in reference to the organizations with which the focal organization interacts. There is, for instance, a literature on mergers and acquisitions, in which the concept of vertical integration describes the incorporation of suppliers and customers into the same organization; horizontal integration, on the other hand, refers to the incorporation of competitors. During previous epochs, states have put a great deal of effort into the conquering of other states or preventing such conquests.

64

Meta-organizations

The creation of meta-organizations is another radical form of organizing. It entails the use of every element of the formal organization. Not only are common rules created, but also members, an authoritative centre, and a constitution. Something highly organized is created from something that was previously less organized or entirely unorganized. The creation of meta-organizations differs from mergers, acquisitions, and conquests; it does not entail the disappearance of any organization. During mergers, acquisitions, and conquests, the number of formal organizations decreases and the size of the remaining organizations increases. In the formation of a metaorganization however, the total number of organizations increases while the size of the original organizations is left unaffected. Previous organizations do not cease to be, but are now included as members of a new meta-organization. The members retain their members, their authoritative centre, their constitution, and their autonomy. They retain their organizational boundaries, but a new boundary is placed around them all. Thus, seen from the point of view of the individual organization, the establishment of a meta-organization does not eliminate the environment through the disappearance of organizations in the environment. Yet in a more abstract sense, part of the environment is eliminated. The relationship with other organizations is now, in principle, organized in the same way as the member organizations are organized. What was once the organization’s environment is now characterized by the same order as the organization itself. And, if we define environment as a world characterized by an order other than the organization, one can describe the establishment of the meta-organization as eliminating environment. Part of what was previously the environment of the individual organization becomes organization. Meta-organizations thus replace an “environmental order” of some kind with an organizational order. One possible reason for establishing a meta-organization is to create a higher degree of order in an “organizational field” (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Bourdieu 1990) – among a number of organizations that are, in various ways, dependent upon one another. Organizations want to

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

65

avoid what they perceive as disorder and increase predictability and control, for themselves, their customers, and other interested parties. Thus, by creating a trade association, companies in a certain industry characterized by perceived disorder can create a higher degree of order. States can form military alliances, agreeing not to fight wars with one another and to help each other in wars with external parties. If a field already has a high degree of order, one might think that the need for a meta-organization is less; yet another type of order may be desired. A field can include a strong cultural order with shared conceptions, norms, and old traditions, for instance – a culture that is challenged by a new meta-organization that offers another type of order. Or the competition among a number of companies can be highly organized, yet disliked by certain companies that choose to replace it with a meta-organization in the form of a cartel, which can provide yet another type of organization. A field can also be strictly controlled by rules that are set by states or other rule-setters and disliked by several organizations. By forming a meta-organization, all or much of this organizing can be placed under one authoritative centre with defined members, thereby offering the opportunity of changing the rules as well as the power relationships in a direction desired by some organizations. Whether or not, and to what degree, organizations that were once part of the environment are more easily influenced and more predictable will vary from case to case. However, the prerequisites for influence change, as do the grounds on which predictions can be made. The world will not necessarily be easier in a metaorganization than in an environment; rather, it will tend to become more complex in many respects. From an environment that is often cumbersome may emerge an organization that is often cumbersome, as shown in Chapters 5 and 6.

INCENTIVES FOR CREATING META-ORGANIZATIONS There are several, more specific motives for establishing

66

Meta-organizations

meta-organizations: changing the conditions of interaction among the members, creating a new actor, or exerting an influence upon or upholding the identity and status of the members. Interaction One incentive for trying to establish a meta-organization is to exert an influence on the interactions among organizations that are to become members of the meta-organization. A common aim among the meta-organizations we have examined in our research has been for members to provide information to each other and thereby increase their total knowledge – through the development of joint statistics and measurements, for instance. An early example of such a meta-organization was the International Institute of Agriculture established in 1905 (Murphy 1994: 48). A presentday example is the OECD (Marcussen 2002). Creating common forms of knowledge and information exchange is particularly important for meta-organizations with members who work with science and research. However, it is also important in many trade associations like the International Egg Commission (IEC) or in the European Parking Association (EPA). The main purpose of some meta-organizations is to help their members in their own operations. The aim of the International Cremation Federation (ICF), for instance, is to work towards changing funeral customs around the world by providing the technical equipment and ethical rules, and by helping to sway public opinion away from burial and towards cremation. A more complex form of interaction is collaboration. The main purpose of creating the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874 was to devise a form of collaboration among members that would enable mail to be delivered among various countries. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), formed in 1865, had a similar purpose in expediting the delivery of telegrams. Nordel, formed in 1963, is an organization for cooperation among the electric transmission system operators in the Nordic countries – a meta-organization with a primary objective of creating the conditions for an efficient and harmonized Nordic electricity market.

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

67

Interaction also involves an organization’s competition. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) was formed in 1948 by airline companies, some of which were in competition with each other. One of IATA’s major early tasks was to regulate this competition with strategies such as joint pricing structures. Competition is key in sport, and sport has evolved through meta-organizations that have spread various sports to many countries. It is meta-organizations that make the necessary rules to enable sporting contests to be arranged and world champions to be appointed – meta-organizations like the Féderation Internationale de Football Associations (FIFA), formed in 1904; International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), formed in 1908; International Basketball Federation (FIBA), formed in 1932; and International Floorball Federation (IFF), formed in 1986. Even if members of meta-organizations were interacting before the meta-organization was formed, the meta-organization changes the conditions of interaction. Many interactions existed among European states before the creation of the EU, in the form of trade, and a large number of minor and major wars. In modern times, there has been a range of rule-makers at the European level such as standardization organizations. There have been various treaties among European states in a number of areas. The establishment of the EU, however, has meant that interaction now takes place in a different way and under different conditions. The EU is often justified, in fact, on the basis that it will prevent wars among the member states. The EU also offers an authoritative centre, the like of which has not existed since the reformation, and that comprises new possibilities for information and sanctions, as well as binding rules. There are also joint resources, a stability (at least planned) and a constitution (even though the organization currently does not call it that). Companies within an industry may wish to make their own rules governing how they are to collaborate and compete instead of following the rules of others (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). The establishment of trade associations is often a reaction to an established, organized order or the threat of one. The purpose of the Swedish Association of Temporary Work Businesses and Staffing

68

Meta-organizations

Services (SPUR), for example, was to avoid state regulation of Sweden’s staffing services industry through the industry’s demonstration that it had its own high-quality rules. Some metaorganizations have been established to replace, compete with, or supplement a previous meta-organization with similar purposes. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which was the predecessor of the EU, was established in 1951 by a number of states because the newly formed Council of Europe was not considered to be sufficiently ambitious. The purpose of FIFA was to replace the British meta-organization, International Board, established 18 years earlier. FIFA itself has been challenged during recent years by G-14, an organization with European elite football clubs as its members and with the purpose of defending the interests of the clubs rather than those of the national football associations. Since 2003, the air travel organization, IATA, is being challenged by European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) – a meta-organization specifically for “low-price carriers”. It is not merely the interaction between the members that can change through the establishment of a meta-organization. Sometimes the purpose of establishing a meta-organization is for collaboration or competition among its members’ members. The EU has the objective of encouraging greater collaboration among the European states, to be sure, but also of increasing collaboration and competition among individuals and organizations of various European nationalities. It is hoped, for example, that students and researchers will collaborate more across national boundaries and that more cross-border competition will occur between companies. A key aim of FIFA is to facilitate competitions among members through international matches, but also to facilitate competitions among football clubs: among the members’ members. Creating a new actor A classic motive for creating organizations is the achievement of concerted action among the members. Organizational actions can thus be created (as mentioned in Chapter 3, organizations are

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

69

expected to perform as actors). Meta-organizations can be formed with concerted action as their purpose, allowing them to do, say, and think. The meta-organization can coordinate military operations against external enemies, as can military alliances such as NATO. A similar, if less dramatic purpose is that of meta-organizations comprising small companies in agriculture or commerce that have joined forces, often calling themselves movements, economic associations, or cooperatives. One of the most important motives for the formation of these organizations is the significant economies of scale that its members can achieve in procuring goods or equipment, thus lowering the prices they have to pay (see D’Aunno and Zuckermann 1987; Swartz 1994). Opinions and pronouncements can also be coordinated. A meta-organization expresses one opinion and speaks with one voice. It argues for the interests of its members, through lobbying or public relations campaigns, as trade associations often do. Labour union associations guard the interests of their member organizations vis-à-vis employer associations. Many organizations that join forces in meta-organizations have the concerted aim of working towards some general interest like nature conservancy and the environment; that aim usually becomes one of the aims of the meta-organization. BirdLife International works towards protecting bird species; Seas at Risk works to protect the marine environment of the North East Atlantic; the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) protects forests; and the International Cremation Federation (ICF) works towards the international acceptance of cremation. Attempts at exerting influence are often aimed at affecting the rules of other organizations like states or major companies. By joining forces, acting in a concerted way, and combining their resources, organizations can muster greater power to change their environment in the desired direction, or at least to prevent their environment from deteriorating. NATO is militarily stronger than most of its member states individually. It is easier for a labour union association to withstand the demands of employers than it is for an individual labour union to do so, because the

70

Meta-organizations

former has more means of force at its disposal. A trade association in which the companies have coordinated their opinions will be a stronger pressure group than will companies appearing individually with what may well be inconsistent messages. When nature preservation societies form an international meta-organization, they have a better chance of influencing international politics.

Identity and status There are individual-based organizations to which practically anyone can become a member. The more people who join an association for nature conservancy, the happier is the management. It is not necessary to know much about the members; their names and addresses are usually enough. A company tries to recruit people with various skills, but the assumption is that there are hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people with the appropriate skills. These notions of membership are based on a conception of individuals as basically similar. In contrast, it is difficult to imagine a meta-organization that would admit just any organization as a member, or even any organization offering a certain skill. Our conceptions of differences among organizations are too strong to allow that to happen (Assertion 2, Chapter 3); anyone considering the formation of a meta-organization must decide the specific type of organization that could become a member. In this way, meta-organizations are closely related to identity. Meta-organizations are often formed in order to create, reinforce, or at least confirm a certain identity among their members, and that objective is accomplished by limiting membership to organizations that are similar in some respect. The meta-organization becomes a standard-based organization (Ahrne et al. 2000). Only states can join the UN. Only Swedish municipalities could become members of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA). Only car-makers can join BIL Sweden (the meta-organization for the car industry in Sweden). Although states, Swedish municipalities, and car-makers differ in a number of respects, it is because of their similarity that they join one of these

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

71

meta-organizations. Their membership in other meta-organizations is based on other similarities. European states are able to become members of both the UN and the EU. A company is able to join not only a national trade association, but also an employers’ organization and an association for local firms. Some meta-organizations offer the possibility for organizations that are not similar enough to other members to become associate members. This strategy allows the meta-organization to engage more organizations, but still preserve the similarity among its main members. Meta-organizations commonly define their membership in a way that makes it conceivable to enrol every member with a specific characteristic: all states in the world, all companies in the industry in a given country, all football associations in Europe, and so on. But it does not accept organizations without the relevant characteristic. The EU, which has had more limited ambitions, originally comprised only six European states. However, the EU has found it difficult to justify why any European state should be refused membership. Although it has added a series of conditions that states must meet in order to become members, it is actually accepting more and more members. Sometimes the founders of meta-organizations define who can be a member by using a well known category such as municipalities or companies in an established industry. It seems “natural” that they should belong to the same meta-organization and perhaps even that there should be a meta-organization for them. New meta-organizations are easily born when new distinctions and categories arise: when the Swedish state decided that there should be only one type of municipality, for example, it was relatively easy to form a meta-organization for them all. The other side of the coin is that when categories become obsolete they threaten the meta-organizations on which they are based: the former meta-organizations for towns and for rural districts were abandoned at the same time. Sometimes, however, founders are interested in building their meta-organization on less well established categories that they want to reinforce. They may even form the meta-organization in

72

Meta-organizations

order to establish and safeguard a new category. By joining the meta-organization, the members can greatly increase the probability that they are seen as belonging to this category. The main purpose of the Swedish Association of Temporary Work Businesses and Staffing Services (SPUR) was to create the category of “bona fide companies in the staffing services industry” and to make that category well known and accepted. And members of SPUR wanted to demonstrate that they were of this type by pointing to their membership. It was through the establishment of SPUR, in fact, that private job centres became accepted and considered legal by the Swedish state. The primary aim of the Swedish Parking Association (SWEPARK) and the European Parking Association (EPA) is to provide each member with an identity as a bona fide parking company. Forming the European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) was a way of reinforcing the category of budget air travel. The Community of European Management Schools and International Companies (CEMS) was an attempt to establish a new category and convince others of its importance – in this case the “best” business schools in Europe. By being accepted into this club, schools would have an easier time convincing students and employers that they actually are the best in their country. Sometimes, meta-organizations are so successful in connecting themselves with a category that the only way for organizations to be seen as belonging is to be accepted as a member of this metaorganization. Becoming a member of the Swedish House of Nobility was the only way for a family to be regarded as a member of Swedish nobility; the membership and the nobility define each other. An identity is often envisaged as a way of providing a certain status within a status order. Bona fide companies have higher status than those that are not. Nobility has high status. The establishment of the CEMS was directly justified by placement in a European status order – attested by the membership requirement of being “the best” school in one’s country. The CEMS is also an example of an attempt by a meta-organization to establish a status order that has not existed previously or has not been particularly

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

73

strong. Prior to the establishment of the CEMS, who would have envisaged ranking the business schools of Europe according to the principle of one school from each country? Collaboration among the members in some meta-organizations may be modest and the commonality may consist more of joint ethical rules and an occasional meeting. Although “collaboration” often occurs as an objective in the constitution, the foremost objective seems to be the organization’s influence on identity and status. One of the first measures undertaken by SPUR was to draw up an ethical code, with which all members would have to comply. Thus, the members obtained an identity both as staffing services companies and as staffing services companies that complied with ethical rules of a high standing. The Swedish Parking Association (SVEPARK) was formed to establish legitimacy in an industry that occupies itself in part with operations that are reminiscent of public duties, exercising control and issuing penalty charges. A great deal of work has been done within SVEPARK to establish and check the compliance with ethical rules for parking attendants. The constant stream of new meta-organizations seems to have provided an upswing for companies and consultants selling ethical systems of rules. It is probably no coincidence; most people can go along with ethical rules, at least in theory. And neither are they controversial in the organization’s environment. They constitute an uncontroversial form of creating the impression of commonality. Theories based upon organizations of organizations being established for material reasons and being basically forms of collaboration (for an overview, see Grandori 1997) provide little guidance for understanding why these meta-organizations are formed. Other meta-organizations have a more extensive system of rules exerting greater influence on its members. The members complying with these rules share a similarity that constitutes an important part of their identity. In this way, meta-organizations can create even more specific identities. The EU has made great and successful efforts to spread democratic values among states in Central and Eastern Europe by making compliance with

74

Meta-organizations

democratic rules an entry requirement and describing democracy as a central part of the identity of the member states of the EU. Meta-organizations are attractive to their members when they have greater credibility than the individual member to make a convincing case for identity and status. Their credibility can be secured in several ways. By accepting an organization as a member, the meta-organization vouches for this organization having the right identity and status. A meta-organization can show that it does not merely have certain rules with which members must comply; it also has systems for information about rule compliance and sanctions. A meta-organization can also make it in the interest of the other members to ensure that every other member complies with the rules: unless everyone behaves, the meta-organization will be seen as unable to enforce its rules, and the identity and status of all its members can be called into question. Additionally, the members save resources through their collective presentation. And it is easier for people in the environment to keep track of one presentation rather than many. Most individual-based organizations play a less significant role in creating an identity for their members than do meta-organizations, because individual-based organizations are not compelled to show the same consideration for dissimilarities among members. There are exceptions, however, that can be compared with the identity creation of meta-organizations. Today the perception of a person’s nationality is largely determined by the state that she or he is a member of. In several countries, one is not considered to have a certain profession if one does not belong to an organization representing such professionals. In the UK, for instance, one cannot practise as a solicitor or barrister if one is not a member of the Bar Association. And companies often try, with varying results, to make staff feel that their employment there is an important part of their identity (Garsten 1994). But these exceptions do not eliminate the fact that, for an individual, there are many organizations that one can join with almost any identity. For organizations that want to join a meta-organization, however, identity is always important.

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

75

Demand from outside It is not only prospective members who have an interest in the formation of a meta-organization. Sometimes demands originate from other organizations that think it would be appropriate to have a meta-organization within a certain sphere because they want to change their environment. They want to eliminate part of their environment, a number of individual organizations, and associate with one organization instead of several. For example, the Swedish House of Nobility was established by royal initiative at the beginning of the 17th century (Åberg 1999). At present, the EU makes a strong direct and indirect contribution to the creation of meta-organizations, which has been a driving force for European companies in various industries to form European trade associations. By establishing the industry’s collective opinion, these trade associations save the EU from having to perform that task, and allow it to negotiate with a few associations rather than thousands of companies. Neither is it unusual for meta-organizations to take the initiative in establishing new meta-organizations that can become members of their own organizations. Several European trade associations are meta-meta-organizations. In order to belong, companies must establish national trade associations within their own country, and it is these associations that are members of the meta-meta-organizations. To gain access to the European trade association, Eurelectric, the two (!) Swedish companies in the industry were first forced to establish their own two-member meta-organization, which could then become a member of the European organization (Jutterström 2004). It is in the interest of the existing meta-organizations (the EU and Eurelectric) to interact with other meta-organizations that propel the establishment of more meta-organizations. One purpose of creating members in this way is to make the meta-organization more comprehensive. In the early 1990s, the Federation of Swedish Industries took the initiative of establishing a trade association for companies in the new IT industry. International meta-organizations such as the International

76

Meta-organizations

Cremation Federation stimulate the establishment of national meta-organizations with the aim of going worldwide. The Swedish Floorball Federation (SFF) has tried to create as many floorball organizations as possible in other countries, partly to raise the status of the sport in Sweden and partly to raise the status and value of participation in the world or European championships. The SFF has been active in helping to start new metaorganizations in the other countries – meta-organizations that have then become members of the international meta-metaorganization. There are other people who are interested in the creation of meta-organizations. For pressure groups representing consumer or environmental interests, for instance, it is easier to interact with one meta-organization than a large number of individual companies (cf. Boström, 2003). If the meta-organization can be induced to make rules applying to all its members, many companies will have been influenced in one stroke. States may encourage meta-organizations because they make state regulation unnecessary. If the rules of a meta-organization reflect society’s values as well as government rules and they are complied with as well, there is no reason to put the effort into legislation. There is an asset in what scholars sometimes call, using a rather misleading expression, “self-regulation”. Sometimes, the metaorganization’s regulation of its members is an asset in itself, irrespective of the content of the rules. Around the turn of the 20th century, many European states encouraged companies to establish national standardization organizations that would make rules for “technical” areas. The states realized that national rules in these areas were needed, but did not have any interest in determining the exact rules. Many purposes Many meta-organizations serve several of the purposes mentioned here, and they are created to satisfy both external demands and demands from prospective members. And once they have been created, meta-organizations often meet the expectation

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

77

that they fulfil more purposes than originally planned. Metaorganizations must take a stance on the question of identity, for instance, even if identity creation is not their primary aim. The expectation that organizations are actors may affect metaorganizations, irrespective of their plans. Once a meta-organization exists, its opinions and its stances on various issues are in demand, and sometimes outsiders even expect concerted action. During recent years, for instance, there has been pressure on the EU to have a foreign policy, to provide opinions about the state of the world far outside of Europe, and to even be prepared to intervene. It seems like many people are placing the same demands on the EU as they are on the USA. The EU has met these demands in various ways, one of which is to appoint what may be considered to be a foreign minister. Nonetheless, it is clear that the EU cannot manage to be an actor to the same degree as can a more individual-based organization like the USA. In other cases, meta-organizations are attempting, with varying degrees of success, to defend themselves against demands to be an actor. They can explicitly make it clear that they only have shared perceptions of certain issues. The Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA), for instance, had long maintained a relatively successful strategy in not having opinions in issues on which the members, for ideological or other reasons, held strongly conflicting positions. If a meta-organization accedes to demands for becoming an actor, it will require a high degree of collaboration within its boundaries. And the need for more collaboration may increase requirements for similarity among the members, thus strengthening their common identity.

RECRUITING MEMBERS Like all organizations, meta-organizations are attempts. It is not certain that the aims underlying the establishment of the organization will be achieved, or to what degree they will be achieved. However, the aims create hopes that are important for acquiring

78

Meta-organizations

and keeping the right members, a prerequisite for establishing and maintaining the organization. Because members of meta-organizations and individual-based organizations differ, we cannot expect the conditions for the formation and survival of meta-organizations to be exactly the same as for individual-based organizations. As per Assertion 1 in Chapter 3, an important difference between meta-organizations and individual-based organizations is the fact that meta-organizations can create their own members. They can create new members that are either individual-based organizations or meta-organizations themselves. In trying to create a meta-organization they are dependent on the existence of organizations wanting to join the new meta-organization. In trying to create an individual-based organization, one must recruit individuals into this organization. When creating members, it is possible to shape them according to preferences, and that applies to members that are metaorganizations as well as to members that are individual-based organizations. When the Federation of Swedish Industries initiated the creation of a new member, a meta-organization for the IT industry, it chose to give it a size and constitution that was similar to those of its other members. When the Swedish Floorball Federation initiated the establishment of overseas federations, it used its own organization as a template. International organizations often initiate the creation of national organizations that are to be members of the international one (Boli and Thomas 1999). BirdLife International, for example, wants to recruit members in as many countries as possible because bird life is truly transnational. Thus, in countries where no national ornithological organizations existed, it has tried to create one. Meta-organizations, however, can rarely be composed of newly created members alone; they must also recruit existing organizations. In contrast to the recruitment of members for individual-based organizations, the prospective members in metaorganizations are usually known. It is already known which municipalities are in Sweden, for example, which states are in Europe, and at least the majority of the companies that are in a

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

79

particular industry. The newspapers do not have situations-vacant columns for organizations; they are not needed. The meta-organizations that we studied typically started at conferences to which all relevant parties were invited; this was how some of the first international meta-organizations were established. The International Telegraph Union (ITU) was founded at a conference in Paris in 1865, and the origins of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) lie in the first international postal congress held in 1874 (Codding 1964; Codding and Rutkowski 1982; Murphy 1994). The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) was established a good 140 years after the ITU, on 1 November 2006 (a few days before this was written), but it was established in a similar way – at a conference in Vienna with representatives of national labour union federations from almost the entire world. The decision to participate For a meta-organization to come into being, the organizations contacted must want to become members. It can be assumed that the membership decision is influenced by the comparisons that prospective members make between the inducements the organization offers them and the contributions they are required to make to the organization (March and Simon 1958, Chapter 4). For some participants in organizations, the inducements may be unrelated to the main purpose and activities of the organization. Many employees have no interest in the products made by the company where they are employed – only in the salary that the company pays as compensation for their contributions towards production (ibid.: 110–25). Such employees have a zone of indifference regarding the main activities of the company (Barnard 1938). When it comes to members of associations, such indifference towards primary activities is rare. It is more common that the members’ inducements, and thus their decisions to participate, are directly linked to the organization’s main purpose and activities. People become members of a voluntary association, and companies become members of a trade association not because they

80

Meta-organizations

are offered side payments, but because, in most cases, they share the purpose and interest of these organizations and because they value their activities and results. In a similar way, most organizations can be expected to become members of a meta-organization because they share the purpose of the organization or because they expect to influence its purpose. They are interested in taking up or changing the interaction between themselves and the meta-organization’s other members; they are interested in influencing their identity or collaborating with other members vis-à-vis non-members. For an organization that defines itself as being in a certain category, it seems appropriate or natural to belong to a meta-organization in this category of organization. People inside and outside the organization expect membership, and a lack of membership may raise questions. And as we have argued previously, membership may even be necessary in order to keep or acquire a certain identity. If there is an organization such as SPUR for bona fide firms in the staffing services industry, lack of membership in such an organization by a staffing services firm may call its legitimacy into question. In order to be the world champion in football or some other sport, the team must be a member of a sport association that, in turn, is a member of an international meta-organization in that sport. The decision to participate is also dependent on the contributions made by the member of the organization. This is seldom a major problem for the members of meta-organizations, at least compared with the members’ situation in individual-based organizations, which relates to Assertion 2 in Chapter 3: organizations generally have access to more resources than individuals do. In the beginning at least, membership in a meta-organization tends to require few resources or activities (van Waarden 1992; Murphy 1994: 85). Member fees are often small or very small compared with the members’ own resources. This holds true even for an organization such as the EU, the resources of which may seem large in absolute figures; its turnover is less than 1.5 per cent of that of its members, part of which is financed in ways other than membership fees. In other meta-organizations, the fees are even

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

81

lower. In the European Parking Association (EPA), for instance, members pay a basic fee of €1500 per annum (2004). Furthermore, membership fees are most frequently adapted to the members’ own resources and size. In the EU, the membership fee is related to the national income, sales taxes, and customs for trade with states outside the EU. In the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), the membership fee is related to the members’ budgets; in the EPA, each member pays, in addition to the basic fee, €8 per 100 000 cars in the country. The net cost of participating in joint decision-making is often low. And the net cost for participating in joint activities is also low, at least when compared with conducting these activities alone. The most serious sacrifice is often the decrease in autonomy that membership may involve. But this decrease is often on a tolerable level (see Chapter 6). Moreover, the costs of membership are not necessarily givens that the members must adapt to, because members of meta-organizations can expect to exert a great deal of influence. The members are relatively few, and no member is hierarchically above any other, a situation that facilitates the decision to participate. Participation may mean that benefits and costs are adapted to the needs of the member or that the member can at least expect to be influential in stopping any suggestions regarding deteriorations. Low costs and good opportunities for exerting influence make membership more attractive – often more attractive than staying outside the meta-organization. For these reasons, we would expect the number of free-riders in meta-organizations to be limited. Organizations are not likely to abstain from membership in a meta-organization, trying to reap the benefits while avoiding the ensuing efforts and membership fees. Although free-riders are common, and may constitute a serious problem in individual-based organizations (Olson, 1971), the problem in meta-organizations may be the opposite (Jordan 1998). Organizations may choose to join a meta-organization as a matter of precaution and because they do not like to be left outside, rather than because of a real interest in the purposes and activities of the organization. Some may even join in order to stop

82

Meta-organizations

the meta-organization from undertaking certain activities. In that case, the organization becomes a member not because of liking what the meta-organization can achieve but because of disliking it! The members of the International Labour Organization ( ILO), for example, have strongly diverging opinions about what are appropriate rules for working life, yet over time the organization has tended to issue more and more rules that increase labour rights (Brännström 2004). It is likely that several members have sought membership in order to try to stop more such rules. This strategy is a result of the expectation that an individual member can exert a strong influence on decisions – at least as long as it prefers negative decisions – an expectation that is often realistic (see Chapter 6). Alternatives The decision to participate in an organization is also dependent on the options (March and Simon 1958). One alternative is to avoid organizational membership altogether and to achieve alone whatever one wants to achieve. In order to understand the differences between individual-based organizations and meta-organizations in this respect, it is important to consider Assertion 3, Chapter 3, regarding the similarity between member and meta-organization. Individuals can seldom achieve on their own the same things they can achieve within an organization; they lack the resources, action capability, and visibility that routinely help organizations to achieve important things. Thus, the alternative to being on their own is often not a realistic alternative for individuals. Gaining access to all the characteristics of the organization is often a major inducement for an individual to join an organization. For organizations considering membership in a meta-organization, the situation is different, because they are already like the organization they are contemplating joining. They are all organizations with organizational characteristics and a capacity for organizational action and status. To achieve whatever they want without joining an organization is a much more realistic alternative for organizations than for individuals. The decision to join

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

83

cannot be explained by a desire to move from a completely unorganized to an organized state, but only by the desire to organize in a new way. When an organization joins a meta-organization, there is, in this sense, a less dramatic change than when an individual joins an organization. What is more, potential and actual members of metaorganizations often have many more resources and much higher action capacity than their meta-organization has, and they sometimes have higher status. Potential members are potent competitors to the organization; such competition may prevent the formation of a meta-organization and an existing meta-organization may be outcompeted by its members. On its own an organization may, for example, affect its environment as strongly or ever more strongly than a metaorganization can. It may be as attractive or more attractive as an interaction partner for others outside a meta-organization, as well as inside. And its status may be high even if it is not a member of a meta-organization. The more evident it is that an organization can do well on its own, the less reason it will have to join a metaorganization or to remain in it. Thus, meta-organizations have a tendency to become organizations for the weak rather than the strong, making it difficult for them to recruit strong organizations into their membership and to keep them. During the 20th century, both the USA and the Soviet Union periodically abstained from membership of the ILO. One reason for the failure of the League of Nations was the fact that the USA never joined it (Archer 2001: 19). The two biggest cities in Sweden, Stockholm and Gothenburg, have threatened several times to leave SALA. In a corresponding way, England, which, without doubt, was the country where football underwent its greatest development, did not become a member of FIFA when it was established in 1904. England joined in 1905, but left FIFA again during World War I, and did not rejoin until 1946 (Sugden and Tomlinson 1998). At the end of the 19th century, it seems to have been more the rule than the exception for the major power, Great Britain, not to be part of international meta-organizations (Murphy 1994: 78–9). The key ice hockey nation, Canada, did not

84

Meta-organizations

join the International Ice Hockey Federation when it was formed in 1908. Canada joined in 1920, but has since left the organization and rejoined it (Howell and Howell 1985: 400). There are also examples of organizations that actively choose to abstain from membership in meta-organizations because the lack of membership gives them a positive identity. Tax havens like Lichtenstein and the Channel Islands benefit from the fact that they are not members of the EU. Sometimes alienation can be transformed into something positive, even if it is not coveted: IKEA with its unconventional methods and low prices was never allowed to be a member of the Swedish Federation of Furniture Retailers, the official reason being that IKEA was breaking the rule of not selling its products at furniture fairs. This reaction gave IKEA an incentive to start designing its own furniture and expand its business into other European countries (Torekull 1998: 57–60). Management consultant firms constitute an example of organizations that have exhibited little interest in being members of meta-organizations, although many attempts have been made to form meta-organizations for this type of firm. The explanation lies in a lack of need for mutual interaction and the existence of options for acquiring identity and status (Alexius 2007). The identity of management consultants is, admittedly, somewhat unclear to many outsiders, and, according to the lists in existence, there are many people calling themselves management consultants. However, the major consultancy firms already have high status, and the success of the individual minor consultancies is dependent upon their intimate contact with certain customers rather than with fame or status. It is difficult to see that a metaorganization could exert any influence on the identity and status of the field. Companies that are not bona fide could be refused admission, but, according to representatives of the management consultancies whom Alexius interviewed, market mechanisms serve to eliminate such companies. The only more or less allembracing meta-organization in Europe for management consultants is to be found in Austria, and the explanation is simple: the Austrian state requires membership in a meta-organization.

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

85

DEPENDENCE ON MEMBERS All organizations are dependent on the decision of someone to become and remain a member, but not all organizations are dependent on exactly who decides to be a member. For the survival and general functioning of individual-based organizations, it is seldom important exactly who becomes a member. With the exception of some key people, it is of little importance exactly who is a member of an association: members can easily be exchanged. Major interest groups are eager to report their membership numbers, but the members’ names are less important to disclose. Contemporary minor interest organizations do not even reveal how many members they have (Papakostas 2004). The situation is similar with employees. As mentioned above, associations, states, and firms need employees with a certain level of competence, but it is less important exactly who they employ among the thousands of people who have this level of competence. In job ads in the situations-vacant column, they look for a type of person, not for a specific person; the situations-vacant column is not identical to the list of missing persons. In the meta-organizations we have investigated, in contrast, it was crucial exactly who was a member. They were dependent upon certain organizations being willing to participate. There are several reasons for this dependence, all related to the strong differentiation among the organizations mentioned in Chapter 3. Because each organization constitutes its own unique combination of resources and competencies, which organizations it interacts with is important for any organization. As birds have a transnational pattern of movement, BirdLife International needs to have ornithological associations in every member country. They cannot be replaced by forming more ornithological associations in the UK or with mycological associations in Estonia. The identity of the meta-organization is dependent upon the identity of its members. Members of a meta-organization constitute their organization in a way that is rare in individual-based organizations. Exactly which states are members of the EU is important for what the union is and for what it can do. An EU in

86

Meta-organizations

which France and the UK were exchanged for Russia and the Ukraine would be a very different organization. Members of a meta-organization are often better known and seem to be more important than the meta-organization itself; in that case, the list of members is important when the organization presents itself. Meta-organizations become dependent on specific members also because they describe themselves as organizations for organizations of a certain category, and because this category tends to contain a limited number of organizations. The number of potential members of meta-organizations can usually be counted in tens or hundreds rather than in the thousands or millions that are the potential members of individual-based organizations. It becomes realistic to recruit most or all organizations of a specific type into the meta-organization, and it is difficult to have any objective other than 100 per cent membership. Anything less could lead to uncomfortable questions and even a reduction in credibility. If all the municipalities in Sweden were not members of SALA, or if people think that all the best business schools in Europe are not members of the CEMS, these meta-organizations would have a lower status. And it is difficult to assert that world champions are appointed in a certain sport if not all country associations or clubs practising that sport are in the meta-organization. The fact that there are several competing meta-organizations in boxing has reduced their credibility when they appoint different world champions. In this way, the meta-organization becomes highly dependent on the decision that each potential member organization makes on whether or not to join. Furthermore, the meta-organization’s dependence on specific members is due to the members’ dependence on each other. The fact that some organizations are members makes it attractive for other organizations to join. Some organizations are more interesting to interact with than others; thus, to recruit more members, the meta-organization needs to secure the membership of the most attractive members. When the main purpose of a meta-organization is to achieve concerted action, for example, organizations want to belong to a meta-organization that has members with many resources and competencies. The membership of such

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

87

strong organizations increases the action capacity of the metaorganization, while preventing competition from potentially strong competitors. A meta-organization with strong members has an easier time attracting members than one in which the strong actors remain outside. The status of a meta-organization is dependent on the status of its members and vice versa: a meta-organization with high-status members acquires high status, which, in turn, increases the status of most of its members. Thus, for the specific member, it is important that the other members have as high a status as possible. And, for meta-organizations with a primary function of securing status, their very existence depends on their ability to recruit and keep the highest-status organizations. In summary, a meta-organization is particularly dependent upon the membership of organizations that are seen to be attractive, because they increase its ability to recruit other members. But attractive organizations are often precisely those with the least reason to join a meta-organization. This situation, along with the more general dependence on specific members, provides an obstacle for creating and sustaining a meta-organization. However, dependence on certain members is not merely the problem of forming a meta-organization. Dependence on certain members also facilitates the creation and sustaining of a metaorganization, although in another way: it helps to create monopolies for meta-organizations, as explained in the next section. The dynamics of membership There is a difference between establishing a meta-organization and recruiting the initial members on the one hand, and recruiting members for an existing meta-organization on the other. An existing meta-organization changes the environment of the organizations that are not yet members. There is a difference between relating to other organizations before and after they have been organized within a meta-organization. Remaining outside an established meta-organization can reduce the possibility of interacting with its members or worsen

88

Meta-organizations

the conditions for interaction. The very identity of the organization can be influenced; not belonging to the meta-organization becomes part of the organizational identity and can raise questions in the surrounding world. Even for a strong organization, it can be difficult to compete with a meta-organization – to make its voice heard vis-à-vis other parts of the environment. And such an organization can, in practice, be forced to comply with rules that have been made by the meta-organization, despite not having been involved in the creation of those rules. That is, in fact, the case with the Norwegian state that did not want to join the EU. It took a long time for the North American associations to join the International Ice Hockey Federation as well, and their initial reluctance has forced them to play in world championships under rules that they do not use themselves – rules for the size of the pitch, for example. The existence of a reasonably extensive meta-organization can thus act as a powerful incentive to become a member, and so the meta-organization becomes even more extensive. This type of dynamic strengthens the meta-organization’s position to the detriment of the prospective members. The decision of an individual organization to become a member or not is strongly dependent on the decisions of other organizations. This dependence creates a threshold effect: the crucial thing is to succeed in recruiting a number of important members at the outset. Success in achieving this goal facilitates continued recruitment. Meta-organizations also benefit from a lack of competition from other meta-organizations. When deciding to join a metaorganization, there are seldom other meta-organizations to choose from. Meta-organizations seem to have a strong tendency to achieve a monopoly, there being only one meta-organization for a certain category of organizations with a particular purpose. Such monopolies are less frequent among individual-based organizations. The reasons can be found in the dynamics of membership. As we have argued, meta-organizations have reason to strive for 100 per cent membership. And once organizations have become members of one organization, they have little reason to

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

89

become members of another with the same category of members and the same purpose. A monopoly for one meta-organization is useful for the members because it increases the likelihood that all the important organizations are actually members. If the important members are spread among several meta-organizations, none of the meta-organizations is attractive. Moreover, it is more efficient to be able to interact with others, to take joint action, or to benefit from the status of others within one organization as opposed to many. This effect is reinforced when there is great variation among organizations. These differences make some organizations more attractive than others to co-members. Members want to belong to an organization with as many attractive members as possible; they have no interest in sharing their attractive members among several organizations. On the other hand, if all members are equally attractive to others, there is comparatively less incentive to strive towards a monopoly. Thus, paradoxically, high differentiation tends to lead to stronger integration than does low differentiation. It is also difficult to make organizations abandon their old meta-organization for a new one. As we argue in Chapter 6, members can expect to exert a considerable influence via their “voice”, making exit less likely. Compared with most individualbased organizations, turnover has been extremely low in the meta-organizations we have studied. In summary, it is difficult to form new meta-organizations intended for the same category of organizations and with the same purpose as an existing meta-organization. It is easier to form a new meta-organization with a different category or purpose. Organizations face few problems by belonging to several metaorganizations, as long as they organize different categories or have different purposes. The establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) among six European states in 1951 could be justified by the fact that it was given a purpose other than that of the Council of Europe, which was formed two years earlier with a membership comprising almost all the European states (Viklund 1997: 24). The Community of European Management

90

Meta-organizations

Schools and International Companies (CEMS) was formed by a small selection of members of a meta-organization for student exchanges, the Partnership in International Management (PIM), and encountered a certain amount of criticism from the other members. The defence was that the CEMS’ tasks would differ from those of PIM’s. When meta-organizations succeed in establishing a monopoly within their kind, it reduces the options to prospective members to two: joining a meta-organization or remaining on one’s own. This situation makes it easier to obtain members. In addition, it creates greater balance between organization and members; the meta-organization is not only dependent on its members, then, its members are, to a certain extent, dependent on the metaorganization. A special case of members being highly dependent on their meta-organization is constituted by members that were created by the meta-organization. This may be true not only when they are created, but also later on. The meta-organization may have introduced constitutions binding the member to the meta-organization in various ways.

FROM ENVIRONMENT TO MEMBER In this chapter, we have argued that the establishment of metaorganizations is a way for organizations to transform part of their environment into organization, to make surrounding organizations into members in a joint meta-organization. By establishing a meta-organization, organizations alter the conditions for interaction with other organizations and the way that their identity and status are determined. The establishment of meta-organizations can be understood as the result of organizations preferring organization over environment. In one way, it is easier to form a meta-organization than to form an individual-based organization, because the prospective members are known and have resources to bring to the organization. In other ways, it is more difficult. There is a dependence on

Creating and sustaining meta-organizations

91

the interest of specific organizations being interested in joining. And it is difficult to form a meta-organization that will compete with existing meta-organizations. As shown in Chapter 2, however, there are many meta-organizations; new ones are constantly being established and many survive for a long time – more than 100 years in some cases. This situation suggests that there is great interest within many organizations to exchange part of their environment for organization, and that the difficulties of executing this in practice are not great. Another issue is how the meta-organizations work once they have come into existence and to what degree they fulfil the members’ wishes. In the next two chapters, we discuss fundamental problems and solutions in meta-organizations. Again we concentrate on areas in which meta-organizations differ from individual-based organizations. In Chapter 5, we discuss the balance between similarity and dissimilarity; and in Chapter 6, we discuss the conflicts and decisions facing meta-organizations.

5. Similarity, dissimilarity, and identity formation The high degree of differentiation among organizations requires that each meta-organization take a stance on the type of organizations that will constitute its members. As mentioned in the last chapter, membership is normally based on the members being similar in some respect. They are all a certain type of state, a firm in a certain industry, a certain type of association. If the aim is to strengthen a sense of shared identity or status, it is necessary for the members to be perceived as similar. Even when the purpose is collaboration, meta-organizations usually aim at collaboration among equals. In this chapter we discuss identity formation in meta-organizations in more detail and we will highlight both how meta-organizations deal with similarities and dissimilarities among their members. When collaboration between organizations concerns their differences rather than their similarities – different competencies or specialities, for instance – it would be unusual for them to choose an association in which to conduct their business. It would be more common for them to establish a joint venture or create a project based on limited-duration contracts that do not give rise to formal organizations. There are exceptions, however. One example is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), in which environmental organizations almost succeeded in gathering the organizations of an entire field – voluntary organizations, companies, and government agencies – into one organization in order to reach agreement on how to conduct forestry. Another example is KRAV, which began as a traditional meta-organization among equals – ecological farmers – but has subsequently admitted 92

Similarity, dissimilarity, and identity formation

93

wholesalers and retail chains as members, creating major dissimilarities within its membership (Boström 2006). In this chapter, however, we deal with the usual case of meta-organizational membership based upon similarity. In spite of this similarity, each member organization retains its autonomy as well as its usual name. It is crucial for organizations to be perceived as unique in at least one respect. If one organization has an identity that is indistinguishable from that of another, it runs the risk of not being needed and of being closed down or merged and devoured by a similar organization. The combination of similarity and dissimilarity is not without its problems, and it is more problematic in some meta-organizations than in others. In the second section of the chapter, we discuss how the members of meta-organizations handle the potential tension that occurs because they are similar to other members, yet at the same time different. To solve this tension between similarity and dissimilarity is essential for their identity formation. We also investigate what happens to the similarities among the members over time. For many meta-organizations, the balancing of similarity and dissimilarity works well; in others, similarity can gain the upper hand; in yet others dissimilarity becomes more apparent.

THE FIRST AND LAST NAMES OF ORGANIZATIONS An individual’s identity consists of both similarities and dissimilarities. We know who we are through knowing people we believe to be like us and people we consider to be unlike us. By pointing out such similarities and dissimilarities, individuals can claim that they are unique. Organizations, too, base their identities on combinations of similarity and dissimilarity. One can comprehend an organization’s way of creating a unique identity as being roughly the same as the identity that people convey by stating their first and last names in a country that uses family names. A person’s last name in that system specifies a similarity with other members of the same family. The

94

Meta-organizations

person’s first name, on the other hand, differentiates one family member from another. The first name is not unique, of course, being shared by many other people, but the combination of a first and last name creates something that, although rarely unique, is unusual. In the case of organizations, we can also speak of first and last names, both of which contribute towards an organization’s identity. When an organization joins a meta-organization, it acquires a last name, but it keeps its old first name. And it is often via the combination of first and last names that an organization becomes unique. The importance of difference Organizations assert their differences by referring to their particular mission, business concept, particular expertise, or history (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000). Firms regularly assert the differences between their goods or services and those of the competition. Sporting competitions are based upon the competing teams or clubs being different. In order to attract supporters and a large crowd, football clubs must profile themselves and clearly demonstrate their dissimilarities. It is necessary for volunteer organizations to be unique as well, in order to attract attention to their issues and to collect money from the public. Political parties must also show that they differ from others if they want to attract more members and elicit more votes. And many municipalities try to attract new residents and companies by profiling themselves and demonstrating their distinctive features. An organization’s first name is often perceived as an expression of its claim to be unique. Organizations do not merely need to be perceived as special by organizations and people around them; it is also important that their own members perceive them as special. For states, the dissimilarity with other states, expressed with national symbols and attributes, is important primarily in relation to its citizenry. Nationalism has long been a way of motivating a citizenry into making efforts and sacrifices for its own, unique nation. But for

Similarity, dissimilarity, and identity formation

95

members of political parties or employees of companies, it is also valuable for the organization to be unique in order that they feel loyalty towards it and stand by it. Often, this identity is expressed through an organizational or corporate culture (Dutton, Dukerich and Harquail 1994: 24–5). A clear profile is crucial for recruiting members into associations and firms. Demonstrating differences is not always easy in a modern world where organizations are subjected to a number of similar demands. Legislators and standardizers subject all organizations to some of the same rules. Developing a profile of one’s own in such a world often turns into a project that occupies the organization’s management and its information department. It tries to devise clear logos, trademarks, and policies that will differentiate it from all the others. Meta-organizations and similarity Despite the importance of difference, organizations are also presented as being similar to other organizations (Seidl 2003; Garsten and Salzer-Mörling 2004). This similarity specifies the type of organization it is and the organizations to which it is related. Organizations belong to a certain organizational form – a state, a firm, or an association – running an operation similar to that of some other such organizations, being located in the same place or country, having the same status, and so on. Firms belong to a certain industry and sport associations exist for a certain sport; they are similar to a raft of other organizations in the same industry or sport. A crucial aspect of all meta-organizations is to offer their members a last name that specifies a similarity with the other members. By belonging to a meta-organization, the organization shows that it is like the other members in some respect. All members of the Swedish Football Association are football clubs and all members of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA) are local authorities. At the same time, the last name specifies dissimilarity with organizations that are not members. Because the similarity to other organizations concerns only a

96

Meta-organizations

certain aspect of what an organization is and does, various aspects of an organization’s operations can have similarities with a wide variety of organizations that differ in many other respects. Thus, organizations can be members of several meta-organizations – can have several last names. In fact, organizations regularly have many last names. A company can be a member of a trade association, an organization for small companies, and a local entrepreneurial association. And because states are highly complex organizations, the Swedish state or some part of the Swedish state can be a member of thousands of meta-organizations (see Chapter 2). In many cases, meta-organizations contribute strongly towards organizations obtaining a certain last name, and towards this last name being reinforced in the eyes of the members and the environment. Prior to the establishment of the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS), the last name of elite business schools in Europe was not well established; nor was it clear which business schools could be assigned this last name. The formation of the Swedish Association of Temporary Work Businesses and Staffing Services (SPUR) was one way of establishing the category of staffing services companies in Sweden, a type of business that, up until then, was non-existent in the country. For SALA, the most important task has been to safeguard the municipality as an organizational form. Despite threats from the state, the organization has succeeded in protecting municipalities as a particular type of organization (Landström 1968; Ramel 1998). The meta-organization formed by Swedish universities and university colleges, the Association of Swedish Higher Education (SUHF), has a similar aim of safeguarding its own organizational form. SUHF is, in turn, a member of the European University Association (EUA), the aim of which is to give “active support and guidance to its members as autonomous associations”. The EUA, in turn, is a member of the International Association of Universities (IAU), which safeguards free universities around the world Meta-organizations reinforce a member organization’s last name in the eyes of the outside world. As discussed in Chapter 4, by accepting the member, the meta-organization also shows that

Similarity, dissimilarity, and identity formation

97

it is not merely the member itself that is taking its last name seriously. The meta-organization acts as a kind of guarantor that the member has the right last name. In this way, the meta-organization can offer the member a legitimacy that it would not otherwise have had if it had attempted single-handedly to assert its last name. It is easier to convince others that a business school really is elite if it belongs to the CEMS than if it does not belong. By means of the meta-organization being an organization, it can also bring credibility to the fact that it is monitoring whether or not the members really are what they purport to be. It can establish rules to govern how a member is to behave, and follows up on those rules, which becomes particularly important when the members’ legitimacy is under threat. Furthermore, a member that has changed its identity can be excluded. Established last name Meta-organizations are not always as significant for determining an organization’s last name. Organizations can sometimes successfully assert a last name without belonging to a metaorganization. In most Western countries, a joint stock company has no difficulty asserting that it is a joint stock company as long as it complies with the laws governing that type of organization. It does not need to belong to a meta-organization for joint stock companies. During the 20th century, the majority of national postal administrations around the world would probably have been regarded as postal administrations, even if they did not belong to the Universal Postal Union (UPU). Many pharmaceutical companies would be regarded as pharmaceutical companies even if they were not members of a trade association for pharmaceutical companies. Even so, membership in a meta-organization can be of significance to the last name of an organization. It can stabilize the last name and make it more credible. Paradoxically, the meta-organization can thus provide the members with greater freedom to shape their operations in their own way without their last names being threatened. During recent years, postal administrations in

98

Meta-organizations

various countries have begun working with things that have not previously been considered postal activities. Membership of the UPU then becomes one way of asserting that they are still postal administrations. Without the UPU, the risk of the last name being called into question would be greater. With a preserved last name, the members can become more mutually dissimilar than they could have become outside a meta-organization. The other side of the coin, of course, is that membership in a meta-organization locks in the last name and counteracts identity change. An innovative postal company may prefer to remain a member of the UPU, as membership facilitates coordination with other postal companies. However, such a membership makes it more difficult to sell itself under another attractive last name such as “a modern logistics company”. Creating the unique Irrespective of the last name that the members of a meta-organization share, they must retain their first names; they must assert their differences. It is the first name that separates the members. It is usually not difficult to maintain a first name; because companies are good at presenting themselves as different, membership in a trade association does not normally threaten this image. Most people see Astra Zeneca as a different company than Pfizer, although both belong to the same national and international trade associations. Belonging to a certain type is just one of the many characteristics of an organization and other characteristics can be described as differing from those of other organizations. These dissimilarities make the organization unique. But an organization can also assert that it is unique by representing a unique combination of similarities. There are many organizations that call themselves Swedish and there are also many states in the world, but there is only one Swedish state. There are many football clubs in the world and there are many associations in Manchester, but there is only one Manchester United FC. In the same way, an organization that wants to demonstrate that

Similarity, dissimilarity, and identity formation

99

it is unlike others by being best in some dimension or another must also show that it is like others: being best requires comparison with a number of near-equals. Being the best football club entails membership in a group of football clubs that are alike in important respects. When the member organizations create a unique identity for themselves by combining two similarities, the meta-organization will come in handy. The dimension upon which the metaorganization is based – the last name – will serve as one similarity. The first name is a reference to the organization’s difference – the way it differs from other members in a dimension upon which the meta-organization is not based. All members of SALA are municipalities in Sweden, but they differ in their location within the country; the first name is the locality and the last name is the municipality: Gothenburg Municipality, for example. The first name shows that the organization is similar to a number of other organizations, namely all those situated in Gothenburg, but specifically for that reason, it is dissimilar to other members of SALA. But, in relation to the local environment the last name denotes a difference from other local organizations. All members of the CEMS claim to be elite business schools, but in each individual country, each member differentiates itself from other business schools by being an elite business school. By means of the elite business schools being similar to each other through their membership of the CEMS, they differ from the other business schools in their own countries. However, it may also be the case that the first and last names are exchanged, so that the last name becomes the first and vice versa, depending on the other members of the meta-organization. Gothenburg, which is a first name in SALA, can be a last name in another meta-organization – for example, a local organization for trade and industry associations and local government in Gothenburg. In that case, Municipality is the first name. When meta-organizations become members of other metaorganizations, something similar happens with their identities. What constitutes the similarity for members of one metaorganization becomes the basis for differences for members of a

100

Meta-organizations

meta-meta-organization. The last name becomes a first name. What unites the members of the Association of Swedish Engineering Industries is the fact that they are engineering companies. But in the Federation of Swedish Industries, where the members differentiate themselves by representing various industries, the common last name of “Engineering Industry” is turned into a first name. And, in the Federation of Swedish Industries, another last name applies – all the members are metaorganizations for “firms”.

SHIFTING RELATIONS BETWEEN SIMILARITY AND DISSIMILARITY Identities may change over time. When an organization becomes a member of a meta-organization it usually keeps its old name, but its identity is still affected. In some cases there is a time of preparation during which the organization that has applied for membership adjusts itself to becoming more similar to those organizations that are already members. This is the case whether organizations aspire to becoming members of BirdLife International or the European Union. But identities may also change for existing members, depending upon how the meta-organization works, which new members it attracts, or what goals it has. Many of the conflicts that exist in meta-organizations are about the extent to which the members should be similar to each other. During the course of time, the balance between similarity and dissimilarity may tip in either direction, towards increasing similarity or towards increasing dissimilarity. Competition and collaboration between members One difference between various meta-organizations is the extent to which their members compete with each other and the extent to which they together compete with other organizations in the environment of the meta-organization. If the members are expected to

Similarity, dissimilarity, and identity formation

101

compete with each other, we can assume that the expectations of customers, sympathizers, or others about the similarity and dissimilarity of members will be stronger. Increasing similarity is contested the more members are expected to compete with each other. In the majority of trade associations, any interest in achieving similarity among the members encompasses only a minor part of their operations, often because of pressure from the environment and suspicions about price agreements and the division of markets (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978, Chapter 7). There is usually a strong pressure for firms within an industry to act independently and to differ from each other. In many countries, legislation prohibits some forms of collaboration among companies within the same industry. In sport, as well, rivalry and the element of competition are key. At the same time, the similarity between members in sports meta-organizations is of a greater magnitude than it is in most trade associations. The activities of sports associations are governed largely by common rules. Otherwise, competitions would not appear to be fair and meaningful. In sport, therefore, there is a great need for similarity, yet strong pressure and expectations on clubs to be different. A sports club’s first name is of major importance for its supporters to be able to identify with it. In the majority of sports associations, the first name has a regional link: with a city or even part of a city. Because of the importance of the regional first names of the clubs, the majority of meta-organizations in sport seem to be able to combine the extensive similarity between clubs with the strong pressure for dissimilarity. However, the regional basis for dissimilarity can be undermined by the professionalization and commercialization of sport. When the best players, particularly in certain sports like football, transfer between clubs, and career paths are created for players, the traditional sense of community no longer exists between the spectators and the players. It is more difficult to preserve the local profile and similarity if none of the players on the team comes from the locality that provides the team with its first name.

102

Meta-organizations

Consequently, a shift has occurred over the past 50 years, with the clubs’ dissimilarities assuming the character of trademarks (King 1997; Morrow 2003). In fact, many of the world’s best known football clubs have been putting more and more effort into the development of their trademarks. Clubs are ably assisted by their supporters and their fan clubs in preserving dissimilarities. Although organizations are expected to compete with each other, if there are also demands for them to be similar to each other – in order to obtain legitimacy for their activities – the similarities will seem less problematic. Among the parking companies that are members of SVEPARK, trademarks probably play a subordinate role for customers parking their cars. Few people park their cars in a particular parking lot merely because it is owned or managed by a certain parking company. In relation to organizations such as municipalities or companies that are landowners, differences between the parking companies may, however, be of greater significance. Yet the relatively lower significance of the trademark renders the disparity between similarity and dissimilarity less problematic. Similarities among members of a meta-organization can be assumed to be less problematic the less they compete with one another. As mentioned, SALA is a meta-organization primarily aimed at safeguarding its members’ shared organizational form. SALA will defend the similarity among its members vis-à-vis the Swedish state. Municipalities are something other than states. At the same time, the municipalities that are members of SALA have clear, regionally grounded differences that are not threatened by the fact that they are all municipalities – if anything, quite the reverse. But municipalities also compete with each other within areas that SALA has chosen not to include within its sphere of interest – in order to attract new residents or industrial establishments, for instance. Yet this competition will hardly threaten the apparent balance between similarity and dissimilarity, as they address different parts of the environment. Identities are presented in different ways in relation to different environments. The member’s common last name is directed at the state, whereas their

Similarity, dissimilarity, and identity formation

103

various first names are directed at potential residents or investors. The same applies to universities and university colleges that are members of SUHF; their last name is directed at the state and their first names are directed at students and staff. Increasing similarity If the members of meta-organizations do not compete with each other, their similarities can sometimes become conspicuously large without eliciting any reaction from the environment. When the purpose of a meta-organization is to merge resources, it is highly probable that the meta-organization becomes predominant, which easily leads to increasing similarity (D’Aunno and Zuckermann 1987). ICA is a meta-organization for independent food stores that was established in Sweden in 1917. Within the ICA, collaboration has come a long way through marketing campaigns and the coordinated purchasing of goods. In today’s ICA, the similarity of members is evident, and has become more and more conspicuous as a joint trademark. A prerequisite for acceptance of increasing similarity among ICA’s member stores is their competition with other food stores in the same locality rather than each other. Within ICA, there is a statutory regional division among the members specifying that they are to work within separate and non-overlapping trading areas (D’Aunno and Zuckermann 1987; Swartz 1994: 168). Thus, there is no great need for the members of ICA to emphasize their first names; the last name of ICA indicates a difference in relation to other stores in the same locality, which is sufficient in the local competition. Meta-organizations for labour unions are further examples of an increasing level of similarity among the members of metaorganizations. In labour union activities, too, there can be largescale benefits (Chaison 2004). The unions do not compete with each other over members; rather, they often enter into agreements over which members they can recruit. Additionally, the differences between the original member organizations have decreased due to a standardization of the employment and working conditions in

104

Meta-organizations

various professions and industries. Among meta-organizations for labour unions, this increasing similarity among their member organizations leads to mergers, resulting in fewer members for the meta-organization. In LO (Swedish Trade Union Confederation), the number of member organizations has slowly declined from 41 in 1908 to 15 in 2007 (cf. Hadenius 1976). Too little similarity? The relationship between similarity and dissimilarity among the members also affects their relationships with the meta-organization. We can formulate a hypothesis that the more similar the members, the stronger the meta-organization and the broader its scope of influence over its members. Meta-organizations with too little similarity among their members tend to be weak and have a narrow scope of influence over them. The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) is an example of a meta-organization where dissimilarity among members creates problems and weakens the meta-organization. IFOAM was established in 1972 by five organizations, including some growing associations and an ecological publisher in the USA. Today IFOAM has more than 750 members from 108 countries. Even if all the members have a common interest in organic growing, they still represent very different activities: research, tuition, trading, and growing, for example. The major dissimilarities among the members were perceived to be a problem that complicated work and made it difficult to take the operation forward. Within the organization, there have been discussions about clarifying the membership criteria and creating an image of the type of organization envisaged as the target group (Emami 2003). In some industries, the dissimilarities are so important that it is difficult to form meta-organizations at all, and those that are formed obtain few members (Alexius 2007, Chapter 4). Alexius argues that the difficulties in forming the meta-organizations she has observed in the field of management consultancy can largely be explained by the great importance that these companies place

Similarity, dissimilarity, and identity formation

105

on being perceived as unique – a stance that makes them uninterested in joining a meta-organization. The enormous size differences among management consultancy firms constitutes another impediment. Wrong similarities Some members of a meta-organization may discover other similarities than those forming the basis of the meta-organization – similarities that are not shared by all members. From the point of view of the meta-organization, these are wrong similarities that create unexpected divisions among groups of members and cause problems. Such similarities can sometimes be made clear, and form the foundation for collaboration among members sharing this similarity. In the UN, there is the Group of 77, which is a loose coalition of member countries from the developing countries (Fasulo 2004: 119). In SALA, there have been special “groups” for both the major cities and the smallest municipalities. In this meta-organization there were also other such unintended similarities among some of the members that threatened the collaboration, for instance similarities among “rich” municipalities on the one hand and “poor” municipalities on the other. This division among the members prevented the organization from taking a stand on issues such as state proposals to equalize tax rates between the rich and the poor municipalities. The “wrong” similarities pose a risk for meta-organizations. If there are groups of members that are similar in some respects, and if these organizations are dissimilar to other groups of members, there is a risk of an incentive to split the existing meta-organization into several smaller ones. Within SALA, there was a certain threat that the major cities or the small municipalities could form their own meta-organizations, which would better enable them to safeguard their interests. In the debate about the EU, there are hopes, or fears, that the states of the EU that collaborate on the single currency could evolve into a special member group that does not share the problems and solutions of the “greater” EU. In the case

106

Meta-organizations

of the G-14, the most successful football clubs have actually formed their own meta-organization. Admittedly, they have not (as yet) left their national associations that are members of FIFA, but that is one possible long-term development. There is a counterbalance to splitting a meta-organization into several smaller meta-organizations: the new organization can become more homogeneous, but also smaller, less resource-rich, less powerful, and at times more costly. Moreover, the members of a smaller meta-organization can exert an influence on fewer other members, and will have fewer with which to collaborate. On the other hand, it can be easier to make decisions if the members are fewer and more similar. And, if it is the most important and most resource-intensive organizations that break loose, then the advantages for them may outweigh the disadvantages.

6. Conflicts and decision-making problems Making decisions is a key activity in all organizations. In many meta-organizations, it is largely the only activity. The important thing in Eurelectric is making decisions about the stance on the production of electricity that the organization will take vis-à-vis the EU. Electrical production is carried out by the member organizations – not by the meta-organization. Fédération Internationale de Football Associations (FIFA) makes rules for the game of football but does not take part in any matches. Decision-making is facilitated if an organization’s members represent reasonably similar interests and values. But although meta-organizations are formed on the assumption that the members have common interests, like all organizations they cannot avoid internal conflicts. In this chapter, we argue that meta-organizations harbour even more sources of conflict yet have more limited capacity to resolve conflict than do organizations comprising individuals. We demonstrate the nature of these limitations and then discuss common ways of handling conflicts in meta-organizations.

SOURCES OF CONFLICT One cause of conflict among the members of meta-organizations is related to Assertion 2 in Chapter 3 – that organizations are more differentiated than individuals. Although a meta-organization is based on some common characteristics of its members, huge differences routinely occur between the members in other 107

108

Meta-organizations

respects (cf. van Waarden 1992: 526). The spectrum of differences is great, making the potential for conflict high among members. Even if all the firms in the Federation of Swedish Industries are industrial manufacturers, they work with different products sold on different markets and requiring different types of expertise from each respective workforce. This situation easily gives rise to differing interests among these member companies. States that are members of, for instance, the OECD, the EU, or the UN differ in their economic basis, on culture, and in organizing the civil service, for instance – so they often represent different interests and values. Members of meta-organizations may vary enormously in the number of members they have and in their access to resources. Germany and Malta are both European states and members of the EU, but Germany has 80 million citizens and a GNP of €1.79 trillion, whereas Malta has 250 000 citizens and a GNP of €2.506 million. There are members of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA) with memberships varying from 3000 to more than a million. Many trade associations have huge member enterprises controlling enormous assets and having several tens of thousands of employees, as well as small firms with only a few employees and assets that do not exceed those of some individuals. Experiences of problems and the perception of solutions vary substantially between large and small organizations, a situation that is likely to create different interests and produce conflict. In our research, we have observed a recurring tension between small and large companies in trade associations, and between small and large cities in SALA, similar to the tensions between small and large states in the EU and the UN (Ahrne and Brunsson 2001). The potential for conflict will be reinforced further if there are members that have joined the meta-organization because they find it awkward to stay outside the organization rather than that they are interested in its programme (see Chapter 4). These members can be expected to have different ideas about what the organization is to do than do the founding members or those who joined it because they wanted to support or even expand its activi-

Conflicts and decision-making problems

109

ties. Even more divergent opinions can be expected from organizations that have joined the meta-organization because they dislike it and want to limit its activities (Jordan 1998). Competition between the meta-organization and its members There are also tensions between the members and the metaorganization itself. In Assertion 3 in Chapter 3, we stated that there are fundamental similarities between members and the organization in meta-organizations. Both the members and the metaorganization are organizations and have the action capacity of organizations. Therefore, there is a potential overlap between what meta-organizations can do and what their members can do. This overlap generates competition between organization and member. It easily generates conflicts between those who think that the meta-organization should carry out certain tasks and those who think that the member organizations should do so. Competition is particularly likely if the meta-organization executes tasks similar to those of its members. The EU performs many tasks that its members have previously performed or are performing; they all pay subsidies to under-developed regions for instance, and they all create and enforce laws. Such a situation suggests high levels of conflict regarding which organization is to do what within that meta-organization. Conflict of that type is less likely in a trade association such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which makes rules for air traffic but does not conduct any air traffic operations. On the other hand, trade associations have their own potential conflicts over who is to formulate opinions to the outside world: the meta-organization or its individual members. At least the more important members may find that many decision-makers are willing to listen to them as much as to the meta-organization, not least when the metaorganization has difficulty formulating a compromise expressing one clear opinion (Jutterström 2004). Conflicts concern not only which organization is to do what. They also concern the extent to which and how members should adapt their own organizational structures, processes,

110

Meta-organizations

and presentations to what seems appropriate from the meta-organization’s point of view. The type of impact that membership should have on the member is a recurring and hot issue in many meta-organizations. As mentioned in the preceding chapter, metaorganizations try to impose or secure some similarities among their members. They are interested in similar names and logos for their members, similar organizational structures, and similar systems of budgets, audits, and other control processes. Such similarities make the meta-organization more visible to others and make it work more smoothly, but from the point of view of the member, they may involve changes that are perceived as awkward or as having negative consequences for the member’s own operations. Efforts to instate such similarities are likely to encounter resistance from some members. And, when members are affected differently, they have different ideas about which similarities will be required and which will not. The EU’s attempts to harmonize legislation among its member states regularly provoke conflicts and resistance from the members expected to make the most changes. Changes in presentation are sometimes more easily agreed upon than are changes in activities. All members of the CEMS use the CEMS label in their presentations to students and employers, but when it was suggested that all schools should use the same language tests for their students, many members refused and the idea was dropped. It is often argued that member states may well make EU directives national law, but that it is less certain that these laws will really be enforced in practice. Competing autonomies and identities Conflicts over the balance between the meta-organization and its members tend to be strong because they concern fundamental aspects of all these organizations. They derive from competition between the autonomy and identity of the meta-organization and the autonomy and identity of its members. As mentioned in Chapter 3, autonomy and identity are constitutive aspects of orga-

Conflicts and decision-making problems

111

nizations. Every organization must claim some degree of autonomy and identity if we are to believe that they are organizations and if we are to find it worthwhile participating in them or dealing with them as organizations. Autonomy implies that the organization has the right to make decisions on its own. A meta-organization threatens a member’s autonomy when its hierarchical centre has the authority to make and enforce decisions for the member organization. Such a situation creates problems for the member in many ways. Its own members or other parties interacting with it cannot be expected to accept easily the fact that the autonomy of the organization they are dealing with has been handed, even in part, to a metaorganization. The employees or customers of a firm are not necessarily impressed by references to decisions made by a trade association; for citizens of a state, rules made by the UN or the EU rather than by the state itself are not necessarily seen as legitimate. Moreover, if people accept the decisions of such metaorganizations on a wide scale, they will have difficulty seeing the relevance of the member firm or state as an organization. They would rather deal with the real organization – in this case the meta-organization. On the other hand, if the meta-organization cannot make decisions that have any impact on its members, its very existence as an organization is threatened. Few people would be interested in interacting with or paying attention to such an entity. In more general terms, the greater the autonomy of the meta-organization, the less the autonomy of the member organization, and vice versa. Members must defend their identity. From the point of view of the meta-organization, similarities in the members’ organizational structures, programmes, and goals not only tend to be useful, they also tend to reinforce the identity of the meta-organization itself. It becomes clear that it is in fact an organization with a strong internal homogeneity, an organization for one special kind of member organization. For the member organizations, the effect is the opposite: not only may requests for strong similarities be awkward to implement, but such similarities will also pose a

112

Meta-organizations

threat to the identities of the member organizations, to their possibility of claiming uniqueness. In the extreme case, strong similarities between the members may ultimately threaten their very existence. If the members are all alike, then why continue as separate organizations? Why not merge into one organization with individuals as its members? Many customers probably find it difficult to see the point of ICA stores being separate companies. If the EU were to succeed in harmonizing most rules within European states, it would be increasingly difficult for members to prove that they were necessary, and that a single European state would not serve the same purpose. In this case there is not even the valid counter-argument that can be used in the world of sport and commerce: the need for competition. In brief, the meta-organization and the member organizations compete with and tend to undermine each other. Conflicts easily arise over who is to do what, who is in charge, and who is to be most visible. The more decisions made by the meta-organization and the more alike the members, the weaker the member organizations. In meta-organizations, there tend to be constitutional conflicts over who will decide what, and proposals involving increased similarities tend to evoke particularly strong conflicts because they threaten both autonomy and identity. These conflicts often become conflicts between the managers of the members and the managers of the meta-organization. This was obvious in the Federation of Swedish Industries when its managers complained that they were sometimes treated as subordinate assistants by the most prominent managers of large enterprises. The conflict between the organization and its members over autonomy and identity is also a classic problem in individualbased organizations. One difference, however, is that individuals that have been subject to major restrictions to their autonomy and identity are still seen as and are entitled to be individuals. Another important difference is that the individual has access to the distinction between the public and the personal. That individuals who act within the framework of an organization express this organization’s opinions and are similar to other

Conflicts and decision-making problems

113

individuals within the same organization (sometimes even by wearing uniforms!) is usually perceived as self-evident and not especially problematic. Outside their organizations, individuals can uphold a personal sphere where they are more able to decide for themselves what to do or be, and where their behaviour can differ from and even be contrary to their behaviour in the organizations to which they belong. At different times, even during the same day, individuals belong to different organizations or have access to their personal sphere. This does not imply that the personal sphere is necessarily more hidden than the organizational spheres; all these spheres may be exposed with equal openness, but together they offer the opportunity for varied and inconsistent behaviour. No similar flexibility exists for organizations. The tolerance of contrary behaviour in different settings is less developed for organizations than for individuals. If a meta-organization decides to take over some decisions from the members, or requires some similarity among the members, this is always valid. The member organization cannot go home and make those decisions itself or be dissimilar during part of the day. In Assertion 1 in Chapter 3, we have expressed this limitation in the statement that organizations have no personal sphere. They cannot publicly claim the right to be a very different actor on different occasions.

DIFFICULTIES SOLVING CONFLICTS There are several specific organizational instruments for solving conflicts. These instruments make it possible to act in a certain way, even when all members necessarily agree on what that certain way should be. Organizations can use hierarchical authority by letting one party decide or by having voting systems by which some specified majority or minority has the right to decide. They can solve conflicts by adjusting their membership – by forcing or allowing disagreeing members to leave the organization. Organizations can also solve conflicts in the same manner that conflicts are solved outside organizations – through persuasion

114

Meta-organizations

and bargaining. However, meta-organizations experience a range of difficulties when using all these methods, difficulties that partly differ from and are stronger than what is generally the case in individual-based organizations. Limitations to hierarchical authority Using hierarchical authority is, perhaps, the most typical way of solving organizational conflicts. A standard approach is to appoint a board or management group to the organization and allow it to make decisions to which other members comply. But the central authority of meta-organizations is comparatively weak, for three reasons: the autonomy conflict, the active involvement required from members, and the meta-organization’s dependence on its member organizations. The strong competition between the meta-organization’s need for autonomy and the same need in its members not only generates conflicts, it also weakens the central authority of the meta-organization, making conflicts difficult to solve using this instrument. Any attempt by the board or management of a meta-organization to decide against the will of some members will evoke the issue of which organization should be fundamental – the meta-organization or the member organizations. The member organization and its members may refer to the fundamental right and need of the member organization to retain its autonomy in important respects. Even if there is a zone of indifference that is previously agreed upon, a central decision that goes against the crucial interests of a member may call that agreement into question. The meta-organization is dependent for many decisions not only on its members’ passive consent but also on their active involvement, which means that the member must engage its own members. A decision about a certain ethical conduct for all member organizations involves practically all of the members’ members. The decisions may also demand that the members are willing to cooperate and to contribute with their own resources, which are generally much larger than those of the meta-organization itself (Assertion 1, Chapter 3). Decisions made by a defence alliance

Conflicts and decision-making problems

115

about military operations can be implemented only if members put their resources and capacity for action at the disposal of the meta-organization. It is particularly difficult to get the members to carry out such endeavours merely by referring to the central authority of the meta-organization. As explained in Chapter 4, the authority of the meta-organization is also undermined by its dependence on its members, especially for the acceptance of central decisions that do not satisfy all members. Members may even threaten to leave the organization – a serious, if not deadly threat for a meta-organization (see below). For the same three reasons, meta-organizations have difficulty using sanctions against members that do not comply with central decisions. Negative sanctions often require a stronger central authority than that provided by a meta-organization. The extreme negative sanction of exclusion is seldom realistic (see below). The larger members of such meta-organizations as the OECD (Noaksson and Jacobsson 2003) and the EU (Aldestam 2004) are able to ignore the rules. Examples are plentiful. In 2003, for instance, the EU decided not to impose sanctions when two of its biggest members, France and Germany, under-balanced their budgets, in spite of the clear rule against under-balancing that had been introduced a few years earlier, dictating sanctions for such behaviour. Positive sanctions – rewards for good behaviour – require less authority, but they do require resources; and because members of most meta-organizations possess many more resources than does the meta-organization itself, it is difficult to mobilize remunerations big enough to be of interest to the members. It is not by chance, then, that inexpensive awards are popular among metaorganizations. The International Egg Commission awards its best members the Golden Egg. The European Parking Association awards the European Parking Award annually to denote outstanding achievements. Other meta-organizations have ways of observing “best practice” among their members. Many individual-based organizations offer their members career paths as incentives, which is a difficult reward for a

116

Meta-organizations

meta-organization to provide. We have seen only one example of such a reward: the granting of full membership to associate members. It is not an uncommon practice, but, unfortunately, it provides no incentive for full members. Exit It follows from our discussion on dependence that metaorganizations experience difficulties in solving conflicts by changing their membership. Because the meta-organization is dependent upon its members, it must avoid losing them. Disagreeing members should not be allowed to withdraw or be withdrawn; solving conflicts by exit (Hirschman 1970) does not work well. Troublesome members cannot be easily exchanged for non-troublesome members. Members are easy to recruit (Chapter 4), but difficult to expel. And members have little incentive to leave the organization voluntarily, as they can rarely be forced to do anything against their will. There is a certain irony in the fact that, whereas most meta-organizations are established on the basis of common interests among the members, the discovery of diverging interests is not likely to change the set of members. The organization is stuck with its members, and the members are stuck with each other, having to deal with their disagreements rather than running away from them. There are few mechanisms for getting rid of members. In individual-based organizations, turnover is routine. Not only do people often leave for other organizations; in firms, people are routinely dismissed with pensions and all people are mortal (Assertion 1, Chapter 3). Members of meta-organizations sometimes “die”, too, but their deaths are harder to predict, and some member organizations exist for a very long time, and there is no institutionalized routine for retiring them. Dissident members would be more willing to leave an organization if they could form a new one based on their ideas. But this solution is difficult to achieve in meta-organizations, because few members are likely to find it attractive to have competing metaorganizations (see Chapter 4).

Conflicts and decision-making problems

117

There is one exception, however: when the new organization is based on categories that are subcategories of the categories of existing meta-organizations. This situation may threaten the monopoly of an existing meta-organization and its members may switch meta-organizations. For instance, a new meta-organization for major municipalities will undermine a meta-organization for municipalities in general, if the leaders of major municipalities think that greater gain will be achieved by moving to this more specialized organization. An organization containing the “best” business schools could split the membership of a more general association of business schools. Furthermore, a decision to form a new meta-organization is not necessarily made in conjunction with a decision to leave the previous meta-organization. As argued in Chapter 4, it is not particularly costly to be a member of a meta-organization, and organizations may want to remain members in order to safeguard their interests, even if they are not particularly interested in – even opponents of – the activities of their former meta-organization. The fact that some members of the Council of Europe decided in 1951 to form a more ambitious meta-organization for integrating European states – the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) – did not entail their leaving the Council of Europe. A number of successful European football clubs were critical of FIFA’s rules and decided to form the G-14 organization in 2000, remaining in their own national associations and maintaining their connection with FIFA. It has often been noted that the rules of well-known metaorganizations such as the UN and the EU lack paragraphs about any procedures for leaving them. That was also the case among most of the meta-organizations we investigated. In fact, turnover in many meta-organizations is extremely low, even non-existent. Although new organizations may join, the old ones remain. Lack of turnover could, of course, be a sign of consensus and harmony, but in many or most cases, we believe, it is a sign of the difficulty, or even impossibility, of using exit as a method of solving conflict.

118

Meta-organizations

Voting Voting as a means of conflict resolution is also problematic in meta-organizations. The right to vote is a fundamental characteristic of associations, and the basic assumption in associations of individuals is that every member has an equal influence: one person, one vote. This rule can be justified with reference to the widely shared notion that individuals are equal and have equal worth. In states and joint-stock companies as well, there are strongly institutionalized rules for voting. For meta-organizations, there is no such generally shared norm. Because there can be great differences among organizations (Assertion 2, Chapter 3), any notion of equality is likely to be contested, especially by the larger and richer members. There is certainly no general agreement that each member should have one vote (cf. Streeck and Schmitter 1985: 13). The differences between members lead to demands for the differentiation of voting power, of the number of representatives, and of influence in general. A common argument is that members that contribute more resources or have more members of their own should have more votes. Because there is no general norm, there are many solutions, and many creative rules for voting in meta-organizations. In the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), there was, until 1973, a rule called “colonial voting” that gave the UK, Italy, Portugal, and France six additional votes at the conferences because they represented their colonies (Codding and Rutkowski 1982: 11). In some of the first meta-organizations with states as members, it was practice to allow the members to choose their financial contribution to the organization, and the influence of each member was in accordance with their contribution (Murphy 1994: 80). As the largest contributor to the World Bank, the USA therefore has the right to appoint the head of that meta-organization. In the Association of Swedish Higher Education (SUHF), each member can have between one to four votes depending on its size. In the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a complicated voting system was created, with three chambers of voting members (Boström 2006). In the G-14

Conflicts and decision-making problems

119

football organization, members have voting rights proportionate to their match results. The lack of an institutionalized voting rule means that all solutions can be contested and that all solutions are unstable; suggestions for adjustments to principles for formal influence are notorious in meta-organizations. And, more importantly for solving conflicts, any principle can be criticized as being unfair, so the legitimacy and authority of decisions made through voting can be challenged, whatever principle is used. The complaints about deficiency of authority and democracy in the OECD, reported by Marcussen (2004), are typical of meta-organizations. Within the EU, the number of votes per country has been continuously under debate, and several changes have been made. It has often been difficult to see any legitimate principles behind the distribution of votes. At the time of writing, France and the UK each have as many votes as Germany, despite their respective populations being approximately 30 per cent less than Germany’s. In 2007 Poland suggested that its unborn citizens should also be counted when the EU decided on Poland’s voting power (Poland argued that there are many Polish people not born because the population of Poland was heavily and unfairly reduced during World War II!). In FIFA, there is ongoing tension between the European members and members from other parts of the world over their share of influence. European members claim that they make the greatest contribution to FIFA by generating almost 80 per cent of the overall financial gain in football (Sugden and Tomlinson 1998: 226), and should therefore be afforded greater influence. Voting as a way of making decisions is further complicated by the fact that the voters are representatives of organizations, and their votes can be questioned by their home organization. Members of meta-organizations often require that any vote cast in the meta-organization must be ratified by someone in the member organization with greater authority than the representative has – by a board or a parliament, for instance. Such ratifications may take considerable time, even years, and the outcome is uncertain. The issues of voting and the number of representatives are

120

Meta-organizations

closely related. There are many solutions and much contestation. The five richest member states in the World Bank have representatives of their own for instance, whereas the other states must share representatives (Spiliopoulou Åkermark 2004). The number of commissioners for each member of the EU is an issue that is as hotly disputed as the number of votes. The number of representatives also poses a practical problem. Given the limited number of members in most meta-organizations, one representative per member is seldom a problem. But if larger organizations are to have the right to send more representatives, decision-making bodies may become too large and unwieldy. The opposite solution – to decrease the representation of smaller members – creates complaints over a lack of democracy. There was much debate in the Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA) (Ramel 1998), when the smallest members lost their representatives and the largest members were allowed more. The number of representatives was reduced by allowing municipalities in each county to appoint representatives jointly, with votes in accordance with the size of each municipality. In this way, small municipalities got a quarter or a third of a representative, but no one directly representing them. Again, discussions and complaints occurred because there is no general norm for how to appoint representatives in meta-organizations. There is yet another aspect of representation that has turned up in our case studies, and complicates the issue of voting and legitimate influence. It is often reported that, even if small organizations have the right of representation at conferences or in general assemblies, their lack of resources may be an obstacle to them even attending. This is especially true of international organizations, especially when various committees have meetings between general conferences. In most meta-organizations that we have studied (e.g., European Parking Association, IFOAM, the Federation of Swedish Industries), members must pay their own expenses. Codding and Rutkowski have noted a problem of representation in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU): some members “can only afford to field a small delegation” (1982: 80).

Conflicts and decision-making problems

121

Persuasion and bargaining When the organizational instruments specifically designed for solving conflicts do not work, there are other more general methods that can be tried. One such method is persuasion – changing the values and norms of at least one of two conflicting parties (March and Simon 1958, Chapter 5). Persuasion does not threaten the autonomy of the persuaded party because it has not been forced to comply, but has decided for itself to embrace new values and norms. In this way, persuasion is a method of conflict solution that suits members of meta-organizations that guard their autonomy. On the other hand, there are substantive obstacles to persuasion in meta-organizations. It is more difficult to persuade organizations than it is to persuade individuals. Organizations are more inflexible and have more inflexible preferences. They are wrought by an inertia connected with the concentration of resources and routines that comprise the structure of the organization and its capacity to act. Additionally, old organizations with long traditions and many resources have a store of good arguments for why they are doing what they are doing. Persuasion is facilitated by meeting with the one you want to persuade. Organizations provide arenas wherein people meet regularly, thus facilitating persuasion. In individual-based organizations, common values and norms often develop over time (Martin 1992). But this mechanism is less reliable in the case of meta-organizations. Because one cannot meet an organization, members cannot meet each other in meta-organizations (Assertion 1, Chapter 3). Representatives can meet, of course, but even if the representative persuades one or more representatives of other member organizations, it will be far from certain that these representatives will succeed in persuading other members of their own organization who were not present at the metaorganization’s discussions. Even if the representatives are top managers of their organizations, they will not always be able to gain acceptance for a decision made in a meta-organization. It may be harder to persuade the people in one’s own organization

122

Meta-organizations

than to persuade negotiators from other member organizations (Due and Madsen 1996: 26; Johansson 1997: 135). Difficulties in gaining acceptance can also be used as an excuse for not implementing meta-organization agreements. Another general method of conflict resolution is bargaining: agreeing without changing the goals of the parties. Each party gets some of its claims satisfied in exchange for giving up other claims. This method may seem better suited to solving inter-group conflict than persuasion (March and Simon, 1958). As previously mentioned, however, it is important for all members of metaorganizations to safeguard their status as sovereign organizations. They cannot often allow themselves to accept decisions that they oppose. The management of a member organization must claim its own authority in relation to its own members. Thus, bargaining is also a problematic conflict resolution strategy for members. Furthermore, bargaining takes time. Negotiations require time, patience, and waiting (Johansson 1997: 136). Even if negotiators are able to agree, there may still be a lingering distrust between the parties if they are not convinced of the necessity or fairness of the outcome, and “in the meantime much of the gain from cooperation has been squandered” (Elster 1989: 70). The legitimacy of the outcome of a bargaining process may always be called into question by members of member organizations who have not been involved in the negotiations. The bargaining process itself is often hidden and its character informal. There is a knowledge gap between the negotiators and the organizations they represent about the process and the motives for reaching agreements. Negotiations may be delayed, or even made impossible, if too much information about them is made public. There is a certain amount of hypocrisy in all negotiations. In meta-organizations, representatives are required to describe their own organization as the winner when presenting the outcome to their members – otherwise the autonomy of the member organization could be called into question. However, this presentation is difficult to combine with the standard presentation during negotiations of having made serious sacrifices in the interest of reaching agreement.

Conflicts and decision-making problems

123

HANDLING CONFLICTS IN META-ORGANIZATIONS Although meta-organizations have problems solving conflicts in standard ways they must handle conflict among their members. Because decision-making is a crucial part of their activities, it is vital to the existence of meta-organizations that decisions be reached. Meta-organizations must strike a balance in their decisionmaking between making demands of their members that are too strong versus making demands that are so weak that the metaorganization is prevented from fulfilling its tasks. This situation tends to lead to constitutions in which consensus is the priority: it is expected that decisions are normally not made if all members do not agree. There may even be formal veto rights for the members. If there is no absolute requirement for consensus, there will often be rules about qualified majorities (cf. Warren 1967; Codding and Rutkowski 1982: 80). There seems, however, to be a strong preference for consensus in meta-organizations, even if it is not a constitutional requirement. This was the case in all the meta-organizations we investigated. By making all its decisions consensually, it is easier for the organization to retain its members, and for the members to preserve their autonomy and identity as organizations. During our interviews, for example, representatives of the Federation of Swedish Industries and the European Parking Association highlighted the importance of consensus-based decisions in avoiding the risk of open conflict dissolving their organization. The principle of consensus contributes to the legitimacy of decisions, as seen by members and others (Seth 2004: 54). As mentioned in Chapter 4, SALA abstained from presenting opinions about issues upon which it was impossible to reach consensus because an opinion backed by a slight majority of the members is not likely to impress outsiders. A requirement for consensus makes decision-making complicated. The same is true of a demand for qualified majorities, which usually results in members that can be regarded as “vetoplayers”, whose agreement is necessary in order to make a decision (Tsebelis 2002: 37). The more veto-players involved in the

124

Meta-organizations

process of decision-making, the more difficult it is to reach a decision. A consensus rule can be weakened if it is interpreted not as unanimous support for a decision, but as the absence of objection. Abstention from voting may be counted as an affirmative rather than a negative vote. Such an interpretation makes it easier to reach decisions, and is common practice in the WTO, for instance (Braithwaite and Drahos 2000: 487, 570; Seth 2004: 55). The consensus rule means that the organization cannot decide on certain issues, and it will find out what those issues are on an ad hoc basis. Alternatively, the organization’s limits can also be planned and can form part of a constitution wherein the members’ zone of indifference is specified. In the EU, for example, one attempt at limiting the meta-organization’s influence over its members is the principle of subsidiarity, according to which decisions should be made at the lowest possible level. By limiting the zone of indifference, more of the member organization’s autonomy is preserved. This approach, along with rules of consensus, facilitates decision-making, but reduces the importance of the meta-organization. We expect attempts at widening the zone of indifference to constitute some of the most contested and problematic processes in meta-organizations. Standards Conflict resolution affects not only the areas in which decisions are made, it also affects how decisions are formulated. When there is uncertainty about the areas of decision-making that fall under the purview of a meta-organization, and when members do not agree, one solution is to formulate decisions, not as binding commands and rules, but as voluntary policies or advice to the members. When it comes to rule-making, this strategy avoids directives – binding rules. Rather, it favours standards – optional rules for each member to follow (in the terms of Brunsson and Jacobsson 2000). Deciding on standards is easier than deciding on directives. Setting standards is a less important, less dramatic decision than

Conflicts and decision-making problems

125

making directives. Directives leave no legitimate choice to the rule followers; because the rule followers must comply, the rulemakers can be described as making the full decision. The choice, and thus the responsibility, lies with the rule-makers and other organization members are responsible only if they break the rules. Standard-setting can be described as “making half a decision”, because part of the decision to act in accordance with the rule is postponed and left to the prospective rule followers. Most of the responsibility rests with the rule followers, because they have the final say. It is easier to agree on standards than on directives. Because standards allow greater freedom to rule followers than directives do, they are more easily accepted by people and organizations who want freedom and who have no problem accepting responsibility: standards are easier than directives to combine with the strong claims for autonomy made by members of meta-organizations. The members’ zone of indifference, therefore, tends to be much wider for standards than for directives. Issuing standards is a common strategy in meta-organizations. Meta-organizations are rife with recommendations, guidelines, policies, benchmarking, rankings, codes of practice, conventions, protocols, white books, and green books, all of which constitute or contain rules that are not mandatory for the members to follow. The number of standards is often much greater than the number of directives. For example, only 36 of all 188 of the OECD’s rules were defined as directives (Marcussen 2004). During its history of almost 90 years, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has produced far more standards than directives, and has been doing so even more during recent years (Brännström 2004). In SALA, standards were the rule; the only decisions being issued as directives concerned the municipalities as employers. In the EU, a great many decisions are formulated as standards, sometimes called soft law. It is, in fact, via research into the EU that the concept of soft law has gained wider interest, even though this concept originates from research into international law. International law is often formulated in meta-organizations as well, the UN being a prime example (Mörth, 2004).

126

Meta-organizations

Organizational constitutions tend to be less restrictive about standards than about directives – about who can set them and by what procedures. For some time, the EU indicated various “pillars” of activities, which differ to the extent that they can be regulated by directives or only by standards. In other cases, standard-setting is not constitutionally regulated at all, yet ubiquitous – probably because of the lack of regulation. Most decision theories assume that persuasion among parties takes place prior to a common decision. When the decision includes standards, the procedure is often the reverse: first a decision is made, and then those concerned are persuaded to comply with the standard. In some of the meta-organizations we studied, this is common procedure. The so-called “open method of coordination” (OMC) practiced by the EU provides a remarkable example of making a decision first and then trying to persuade members to comply with it. OMC is a form of experiential learning among policy-makers and practitioners that includes such methods as peer pressure, learning from best practice, and reassessing current policies against their relative performance (Borrás and Jacobsson 2004; Zeitlin and Pochet 2005). Standards can certainly have a controlling effect. Because the decision to comply with a standard is the member organization’s own decision, it is clear that the organization’s hierarchical authority is involved. The decision cannot be criticized for having been made elsewhere. Members of the member organization who feel that their organization’s decisions are more legitimate than those of the meta-organization will be more inclined to comply with rules presented by the meta-organization as standards rather than directives. In such situations, standards are more effective than directives. Rules are important tools for coordination. If people or organizations have a strong need for coordination with others, they require and are inclined to accept rules that facilitate that coordination. Technical systems such as the internet follow many rules that must be accepted by everyone wanting to use the system. The need for coordination is often exploited by rule-makers; it is easier to make others follow a rule if everyone agrees that the rule

Conflicts and decision-making problems

127

is needed and that it is unacceptable to proceed without it. And these rules could well be standards; enforcement is guaranteed by the need for coordination. Thus, it is easier in meta-organizations to agree upon rules and to enforce them if there is a common need for coordination. By creating or reinforcing such a need, metaorganizations make standards work; the creation of a common international market and the arranging of world sports championships are good examples. Rules also create differentiation and status orders. People and organizations are frequently evaluated based on if or how well they follow a certain rule. When creating propaganda for their rules, rule-makers exploit the interest shown by people and organizations in attaining a certain status for themselves, which is obvious in various forms of ranking, as well as in other cases. It is also common in meta-organizations in which those striving for rule enforcement can point to the members’ different degrees of compliance – a concept referred to in some EU literature as “naming and shaming” (Héritier 2003). If a member’s status is affected by its degree of compliance, it will have an incentive to comply. Public information about the behaviour of members is necessary for this incentive to work, but directives or sanctions are not needed. Using standards and exploiting the effects of rules on coordination and status orders are typical strategies used by rule-makers with little or no organizational authority or with access to few other instruments for organizing. Thus, it is the relative weakness of meta-organizations that forces their managements to use these strategies. Because the strategies are often effective however, meta-organization rules are often complied with. Ambiguity and implementation It is easier to agree on standards than on directives because the implementation of standards becomes a member decision. The same effect can be achieved by allowing the contents of decisions to be ambiguous, so that it is not quite clear what an implementation would constitute. Ambiguous decisions can be of even less

128

Meta-organizations

challenge to members’ autonomy than standards are. If decisions are ambiguous enough, various members can interpret them as consistent with their own goals, values, and norms. The possibility of having varying degrees of implementation can be used as a way of handling conflicts, whatever the form and content of the decision. Disagreeing members may refrain from implementing decisions, which gives them less reason to argue and complain. There may be a great deal of scope for decoupling and hypocrisy during the implementation phase, as is illustrated by the uncertainty over the extent to which EU rules are really implemented and followed (Richardson 1996). It cannot be taken for granted that a meta-organization will, in practice, have the resources or the legitimacy to obtain information about exactly what is going on inside the member organizations. Most individual-based organizations have better access to information. And, as described above, even if deviations from decisions are well known in meta-organizations, it is still difficult to find a way to sanction them. Standard-setting, ambiguous decisions, and uncertain implementation all facilitate decision-making, allowing the metaorganization to function more smoothly. The effect of decisions on members’ behaviour is more uncertain. But for some members and some outside parties, decisions are more important than implementation. For example, the important thing may be to demonstrate that the meta-organization exists and is active, and making decisions is a way of giving that impression. Even if it is revealed that members do not comply with decisions, the reaction will often be to make a new and forceful decision. If a member breaches the ethical code, the meta-organization may react by deciding once again that the code is to be complied with. Summits and expertise In many individual-based organizations, decisions can be made at any time, which is both a strength and a weakness. It paves the way for quick decisions, but also for the postponement of decisions, because it is known that indecision can quickly be turned into decision.

Conflicts and decision-making problems

129

Typical of large associations and of meta-organizations, is the fact that the member representatives cannot meet on a daily basis to make major decisions. They meet intermittently, often once a year at summits or congresses, creating deadlines for many issues and strong pressure to make decisions when the opportunity arises. The pressure increases as the time between decisionmaking opportunities increases. Time constraints can also obstruct any notions to reopen issues that have already been decided upon (Thedvall 2006). Limitations to opportunities for decision-making can compensate somewhat for the problems of reaching decisions created by consensus rules. The window for making decisions is often further reduced by the tendency for veto-players to wait until the last minute to declare their final position. Many summits seem to have the kind of rhythm reported by Codding and Rutkowski when describing the general World Administrative Radio Conference in Geneva in the autumn of 1979: After a contentious beginning, which involved a one-week standoff over the chairmanship of the conference, a compromise candidate was accepted. This delayed the beginning of the conference four days and helped produce an atmosphere of lethargy that lasted several weeks. Ultimately, the pace of the conference picked up and significant work was accomplished. (Codding and Rutkowski 1982: 51)

Agreement and decision-making may be further enhanced by strong secretariats that resolutely pursue a certain policy and can convince the members that a given policy is correct. Many metaorganizations have no employees, others have a few, and yet others have large secretariats with, in extreme cases, thousands of employees. The secretariat can be expected, in its own interests, to strive towards the organization’s ability to make decisions, which, in turn, contributes towards the importance of the secretariat’s role. The secretariat of the EU, known as the Commission, has the express task of considering the meta-organization’s best interests and not benefitting some members more than others. Secretariat authority will increase if a secretariat can refer to some form of expertise. If members can be persuaded that there

130

Meta-organizations

are experts in key areas who understand more than the members themselves do, the experts will be able to conduct investigations that will, in practice, lead to significant choices (see Barnett and Finnemore 2004). If the members’ representatives are experts in the same area, the level of agreement can be great. The managements of the member organizations may have little to set against such expertise. Here, just as in many other cases in modern society, the authority that expertise provides is a powerful competitor to, or even a substitute for, hierarchical authority. Expertise in the service of the meta-organization strengthens the meta-organization’s authority and undermines the members’. This situation was common even in the meta-organizations established at the end of the 19th century. Professional experts appeared neutral and objective, which provided them with great authority (Murphy 1994: 113). In the ITU, it has been common to delegate business to special committees of experts. Resistance to this practice was provided by the Secretary General (Codding and Rutkowski 1982: 179). In modern times, the OECD constitutes a clear example of experts obtaining an exceptionally strong role (Marcussen 2002, 2004; Noaksson and Jacobsson 2003). New members and old It seems that the easiest time for meta-organizations to set and enforce clear directives is during their start-up. Rules governing membership are not standards but directives, and are often perceived as being particularly legitimate and binding. In the 1990s, when the ILO wanted to ensure that some of its rules were actually followed by all its members, it declared, in retrospect, that these directives were rules constituting membership – rules to which each member had already committed itself through joining (Brännström 2004). Meta-organizations also seem to be strong when recruiting new members – at least if these new members are not crucial for the organization. The directives, the information requirements, and the available sanctions (non-admittance) were strikingly harsher for the ten applicants to the EU accepted in 2004 than they were

Conflicts and decision-making problems

131

for existing EU members. According to WTO rules, if a state that is already a member of this organization does not accept the granting of membership to a new member, it will have the right to declare that the agreements of the WTO will not apply between itself and the new member state (Seth 2004: 58). It is easier to break membership rules after having been a member for some time than it is to break membership rules upon entering the organization. The demands placed on new members of the EU can be compared with the treatment of an existing member in 2003. That year, the Kingdom of Sweden found it appropriate to arrange a national referendum about joining the “third stage” of the EU currency order; a set of rules that Sweden had promised to comply with when entering the EU! Moreover, the majority of Sweden’s voters voted to continue breaching these rules, yet Sweden is still a member of the EU, and has not been sanctioned in any way.

7. The dynamics of meta-organizations The issue of change is central to organization theory. Organizations are expected to be able to change in order to adjust to a changing environment. But the conditions for change are different in meta-organizations than in individual-based organizations. Many of the characteristics particular to meta-organizations that we have discussed in previous chapters seem, in fact, to be obstacles to change. Yet meta-organizations run a high risk of greater change – a risk of being dissolved. Their dissolution may be the answer to success as well as failure. In this chapter we discuss change in meta-organizations, arguing that many metaorganizations can best be understoood as being in a transitional phase between a weak organization with strong members and a strong organization with weak members.

SURVIVAL OR DISSOLUTION Organizational change benefits from an ample supply of ideas about change. The conflicts among members that we described in Chapter 6 are a source for ideas about the ways in which the organization’s tasks and ways of working should be changed. As the meta-organization’s forms tend to be weakly institutionalized and called into question, there are usually many ideas about new ways of organizing – about the distribution of influence among members, for example; about requirements for similarity; and about the distribution of influence and work between the members and the meta-organization. 132

The dynamics of meta-organizations

133

Ideas about change are one thing; the capacity to implement them is another. The conditions for actually achieving change in meta-organizations differ from those in individual-based organizations and are less favourable. The meta-organization’s very existence is dependent upon an agreement among its members regarding its tasks. This contract is often the result of a fragile compromise. New negotiations among the members are necessary in order for changes in activities to be conducted, and any attempt to reach new compromises is complicated because of the weak procedures regarding decision-making in meta-organizations that we have already noted. The proposal or discovery of a change introduces the risk of a constitutional crisis. The relatively weak central authority of a meta-organization makes it more difficult for the centre to initiate, terminate, discover, or control changes in its members’ activities, and this applies even to areas in which the members have agreed to act in a certain way. Major organizational changes can sometimes be induced by the departure of oppositional members, who then set up a new organization along their own lines. But as explained in Chapter 6, this route is a difficult way out for meta-organizations. Few members have any interest in having competing meta-organizations, and because members are dependent on each other, there is little incentive to go as far as expelling members. Change can also be initiated or facilitated when members leave an organization for reasons other than disliking it. In individualbased organizations, a member’s leaving can be routine. But the risk of a member leaving is small in meta-organizations, and member turnover is seldom a source of change. On the other hand, the meta-organization sometimes expands with new members, which can, in principle, bring new demands and new ideas. The impact is counteracted, however, by the fact that well established meta-organizations can place strong demands on new members to adapt to the organization’s existing policies and activities.

134

Meta-organizations

Ambiguous criteria for success Conditions for change are also affected by the fact that metaorganizations tend to have weak or ambiguous criteria for success. Without clear criteria for success and failure, it is more difficult to mobilize agreement on the need and direction of change. For individual-based organizations, the criteria for success are usually clear. The criteria for companies are profit, market share, sales, cash flow, or growth. For associations, size of membership is a common measurement of success, as is influence. For sports clubs in particular, success is the ability to win various victories and medals, and political parties compete to win the most votes. The success of states is measured by GNP or growth, and sometimes by the evolution of democracy and human rights. It is more difficult to say which criteria for success should apply to metaorganizations, and neither is there much talk of meta-organizations being successful or unsuccessful. Few meta-organizations have competitors to use for comparison, so it is difficult to rank them. FIFA cannot become world champions in football. As meta-organizations are associations, a conceivable criterion for their success is the size of their membership. In contrast to the majority of individual-based organizations, however, there is, as discussed in Chapter 4, a limit to a meta-organization’s potential membership growth. Another criterion for success could be penetration ratio: the proportion of potential members that has actually joined. A meta-organization with few members can be considered successful, but not if it has a large pool of potential members that have not agreed to join. Alexius (2007) reports on national metaorganizations for consultancies with 25 members (of around 4000 possible members). But in this respect, it is easier to see when a meta-organization has failed than when it has succeeded. Neither is the potential membership always obvious. How could the success of the EU be assessed? Although the UN and the Council of Europe have more members, one could hardly compare the three in order to choose the most successful. And how would one determine how large a proportion of the

The dynamics of meta-organizations

135

potential membership has joined the EU? Should Russia be counted? And what about Monaco, Lichtenstein, and Switzerland? We could say that the objective of the EU is peace among its member states. But how could we know if the EU has contributed to peace over the last 60 years? It is likely that there would not have been a war among the countries involved, even if the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) had not been formed. Different perceptions of the nature of success are common reasons for conflict in meta-organizations as well as strong obstacles to change. Dissolution The more difficulty an organization has in implementing change, the greater the risk that it will encounter much greater change in the form of dissolution. Lack of reform can trigger revolution. When members make demands for changes that cannot be realized, the organization runs the risk of no one feeling that it is worth preserving. The survival of meta-organizations is threatened by the difficulty they have in implementing change. A meta-organization can be dissolved in two ways, both of which lead back to the individual-based organization type. Members can choose to leave the organization, stop cooperating, or cooperate in some other way than via a meta-organization. Alternatively, members can decide to merge with one another in a new individual-based organization. We suggest that such dissolutions are more likely to occur the greater the similarity between the meta-organization and its members. The more alike they become, the greater the chance that they are able to perform the same tasks; thus the greater the level of competition between them (cf. Assertion 3, Chapter 3). If a meta-organization is capable of assuming some of the core activities of its members or if the members can adopt the core activities of their meta-organization, the level of competition between the two may, in extreme cases, cause the meta-organization to lose its members or transform itself into an individual-based organization. The fact that ICA started opening stores of its own can be

136

Meta-organizations

seen as both a reason for and a result of its evolution from an association of retail companies into something more like a business combine with subsidiaries. There are exceptions, however. A merger into one individualbased organization is not possible when there are demands for competition. An association of sports clubs will not gladly merge into one individual-based organization; it is not as exciting to have competitions within the same club as it is to have competitions among clubs. Laws intended to preserve market competition prevent the companies of a trade association from merging into one company. Planned competition is usually arranged among organizations or among individuals from different organizations; and formal organizations are normally used for collaboration rather than for competition. Meta-organizations are often suspected of restricting competition, but there is usually less suspicion directed at them than at individual-based organizations; the monopoly of a meta-organization such as a trade association is much more easily tolerated than is the monopoly of a firm. Marked similarities between a meta-organization and its members may lead not only to the dissolution of one of the parties, but also to other important changes, albeit less dramatic. Similarities may mean that the boundaries between the members and their organization become unclear, controversial, and unstable. Relations between the EU and its members have often been highly controversial. Although there are still huge differences between the EU and its members, there are also many similarities. Both the EU and its members are involved in redistributing resources, for instance, and both have similar structures, including parliaments and constitutional courts. We suggest that if similarity increases between the EU and its members, the very existence of either could be called into question. If the EU has much the same expertise and structure and performs many of the same tasks as its members, it could be argued that it should become an individual-based organization, probably in the form of a state. Alternatively, it could be argued that the EU is serving no necessary function, or at least does not need to continue pursuing its activities in spheres in which it closely resembles its

The dynamics of meta-organizations

137

members. It is not by chance that the EU’s relationships with its members are now under intensive discussion following a long period during which it has expanded its activities, and that many debaters are claiming that this meta-organization is beginning to resemble a state. Anyone wanting to destabilize a meta-organization would be well advised to aim at increasing the similarities between the organization and its members. The same advice could be given to the opposing sides: to those who want to dissolve the metaorganization into its constituent members and to those who want to dissolve the members and turn the meta-organization into one based on individuals. The Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA) has remained relatively stable. The similarities between the organization and its members are slight: municipalities represent a type of public sector organization, whereas their meta-organization is a private association; the municipalities deal with local services, whereas the meta-organization conducts lobbying campaigns and investigations and provides advice. The very point of the association is that its competence differs from that of its members. Even so, the instability that has nonetheless occurred in the association has its roots in similarity. The organization has been challenged by members possessing expertise similar to its own. As we have seen, the biggest cities, with their own expertise in lobbying and conducting complex investigations, are the very ones that have repeatedly threatened to leave the organization and pursue these activities on their own. A similar problem arose in the Federation of Swedish Industries when the major corporations started their own lobbying, thereby sidestepping the association. In the end, such behaviour may leave these key members with little reason to remain within the organization. If they do quit, others will have less reason to stay, and the meta-organization may dissolve.

TRANSITIONAL FORMS An important change that may occur in meta-organizations is a

138

Meta-organizations

transition from a weak to a strong central organization or the reverse. All meta-organizations must deal with the division of labour: how much should the meta-organization do and how much should the members do? For how many of the members’ activities should the meta-organization make decisions: how large will the members’ zone of indifference be? They must also consider, in the event of conflict, what right the individual member will have to diverge from the meta-organization’s line: how strong will the meta-organization’s authority be? Over time – and many changes in meta-organizations take a long time – there may be shifts in the balance between an organization and its members, leaving the organization with more, or perhaps less, authority over its members. Even a meta-organization that has little such authority at the outset may later enhance its authority if it becomes less dependent on specific members or if the members become more dependent on the organization. The result is not determined solely by the outcome of internal power struggles and political processes. A meta-organization that succeeds in obtaining sources of income above its members’ fees, for example, will become less dependent on its members. International sports associations that are able to arrange highly profitable world championships will become more independent than other sports associations. Meta-organizations with access to external contacts that are crucial for their members will become more powerful than those without such contacts. European trade associations are becoming powerful due to their formal right to participate in certain parts of the decision-making process within the EU (Jutterström 2004). If the authority of the meta-organization becomes strong at the expense of its members, the members of the meta-organization’s members become more dependent on the meta-organization than on their own organization. The meta-organization will then begin to look like an individual-based organization in which the real members are the individuals in the member organizations. Those who seek to strengthen the meta-organization at the expense of its members, then, can strengthen the direct ties between the members’ members and the meta-organization. These individuals

The dynamics of meta-organizations

139

can turn to the meta-organization directly in various matters and the meta-organization’s management can turn directly to the individuals. In this case, it would not be a huge leap to abolish the meta-organization’s members and form a joint individual-based organization. When more authority of the member organizations is transferred to the meta-organization, latent tensions in the member organization may increase and lead to demands for decentralization or autonomy of parts of the member organization. One example of such a process is the observation that the EU strengthens the regions in its member countries (Keating 2001: 154). In Belgium this process has gone so far that it threatens to split the country. For a region that wants to achieve an increased independence, it may be a better alternative to be a direct member of the EU than a part of one of the EU’s members. At any time, some meta-organizations have strong central authority and some have weak authority. Some have strong elements of individual-based organizations and some are unmistakably pure meta-organizations. In every case, we can count on today’s situation constituting a compromise between forces working towards an individual-based organization and forces working in the opposite direction. In many cases, the organization has achieved a balance among the interests that can be expected to be reasonably stable solutions. In other cases, one can interpret today’s situation as a stage in an evolutionary process, either towards an individual-based organization or towards dissolution into the constituent members. A state characterized as a federation contains elements of both meta-organizations and individual-based organizations. However, it is not uncommon that such a state represents a phase of long evolution from having been an out-and-out meta-organization to becoming more of an individual-based organization. The USA of today has many more elements of an individual-based organization than did the union that was created in 1781. An initial, critical step along the way occurred as far back as 1787–89 with the transition from a “confederation” to a “federation”. Among other things, a house of representatives representing the individuals was

140

Meta-organizations

introduced alongside the senate, which represented the member states. Another important step was taken in 1861–62, when it turned out that the members of the union were given the decision power to leave the union (a course of events that was originally called a war between the states, but that now, in the language of the victors, is characteristically called the American “Civil War”). In Germany, the trend has been similar, from a loose association of states in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to clear, individual-based organizations such as those that evolved between 1933 and 1945 and in East Germany during the German Democratic Republic (DDR) epoch (Pollack 1990). The creation and later expansion of the German Federal Republic (BRD) entailed a certain regression in the direction of (but far from all the way to becoming) a meta-organization, a trend that has also characterized Spain to a certain degree during recent decades. A unitary state like Sweden, which is currently seen entirely as an individual-based organization, also has an equivocal history. In pre-modern times corporate bodies such as families, guilds, parishes and estates were seen as the members of the state rather than individuals. The idea of individual membersip was more and more strengthened from the 18th century until the present time (Melkersson 1997). Individual-based organizational characteristics have gradually evolved in the EU as well. The members’ members have received direct membership in the union: they can be parties in cases heard by the Court of Justice of the European Communities; since 1979 they directly elect a type of parliament with certain limited powers; and, since 1992, they are called citizens of the EU. Much of the political discussion about the EU constitution (usually called a treaty) has long dealt with the question of whether the organization should evolve in the direction of an individual-based organization (often called a federation) or whether it should remain a clear meta-organization. These transitions represent additional ambiguity when it comes to judging the success or failure of meta-organizations. If a metaorganization is dissolved because its members decide to look after their own interests or because they decide to collaborate in some

The dynamics of meta-organizations

141

other way, many people will undoubtedly see that as a failure for the meta-organization. But what about the other form of dissolution: members joining forces to form a new individual-based organization? Such a move would provide the former meta-organization with an enhanced capacity for action and effectiveness. If capacity for action is used as the criterion, a successful metaorganization would be one that fails in that it ceases to be a metaorganization, and is gradually transformed into an individualbased organization. The USA has, then, shown itself to be a successful meta-organization, whereas the EU has not (as yet). At the same time, this type of success is taking place at the expense of the members who do not necessarily think that it really is a success.

8. Meta-organizations and individualbased organizations The fundamental difference between meta-organizations and individual-based organizations is often overlooked because analysts take for granted that organizational members are always individuals. Thus, it is common in studies of meta-organizations to regard their employees as their members (see, for instance, Barnett and Finnemore 2002). But having employees does not distinguish meta-organizations from other types of organizations. A metaorganization is a special kind of organization with special problems and solutions because its members are organizations. In this chapter, we summarize the differences that we have noted in previous chapters between meta-organizations and individual-based organization. We list some of the hypotheses that we have presented and remind the reader of the relationships between these hypotheses and the assertions that we made in Chapter 3. 1. Assertion 1 was that there is a series of fundamental differences between individuals and organizations: a) One such difference relates to the fact that organizations have their own capacity for action and access to their own resources and their own members. We have hypothesized that this difference creates special conditions for metaorganizations in several ways: – The members of a meta-organization can supply it with a great capacity for action and access to resources right from the start. – A few members are often enough to enable a meta142

Meta-organizations and individual-based organizations

b)

c)

d)

e)

143

organization to be effective and to gain influence and attention. – The recruitment of members is facilitated by the fact that organizations find membership to be relatively cheap relative to their own resources. – Meta-organizations become strongly dependent on their members in order to obtain resources, and many members have more resources than the meta-organization, making it difficult to exclude members. – Because it is the member organizations that account for the capacity for action, it is the members rather than the meta-organization that can be successful. – The fact that the members have members and managers of their own weakens the authority of the meta-organization because the managers of the member organizations must be able to make their own decisions. Organizations, in contrast to individuals, can create and shape organizations, making it possible for them to create their own members: – This situation facilitates membership growth in the meta-organization. – When meta-organizations create their own members, they can design them to be more like the other members, facilitating both control and decision-making. Organizations do not age or die in the same way individuals do, and their life spans are more difficult to predict. Some organizations last for a very long time: – The fact that the members of meta-organizations do not leave the organization because of old age reduces member turnover. The meta-organization is stuck with its old members, which increases its dependence on them and reduces its ability to change. It is not possible to meet with an organization: – Therefore, members of meta-organizations are difficult to persuade. This difficulty in persuading hampers conflict resolution in meta-organizations. Organizations have no personal sphere:

144

Meta-organizations

– An organization’s identity and sovereignty is threatened by its membership in the meta-organization. Conflicts can easily arise over the role and responsibilities of the members and the organization. 2. Assertion 2 was that organizations are more differentiated than individuals. This assertion has led to several hypotheses: a) The fact that organizations have more varied identities than individuals affects member recruitment and the relationship between the organization and its members: – Potential members are predetermined and their numbers are limited, a fact that facilitates the establishment of meta-organizations. On the other hand, it becomes more difficult to replace members if they leave the organization. – Because there are few potential members to choose from, and because members cannot easily be exchanged, the meta-organization is dependent on each member’s decision to join and stay. This reduces the authority of the meta-organization and makes it difficult to solve conflicts by exit. – There tends to be few members in meta-organizations. – The small number of potential members in a metaorganization can easily lead to a monopoly situation. – The meta-organization’s identity and status is dependent on the identity and status of its members. Metaorganizations become particularly dependent on some of its members, increasing the difficulties of solving conflicts. b) Power and resource access differences among organizations are considerably larger than the corresponding differences among individuals, which influences how metaorganizations work: – This difference leads to the equality of members being called into question by large and powerful members. – It generates uncertainty in the appropriate forms of decision-making and voting rights. Issues regarding the importance of votes are a common source of conflict and negotiation.

Meta-organizations and individual-based organizations

145

– Dissimilarities in access to resources can mean that some members find it difficult to play a full part in meta-organization activities. 3. Assertion 3 was that there is a fundamental similarity between a meta-organization and its members: they are all organizations. Meta-organizations and member organizations can do similar things. We have argued that this situation creates competition between the meta-organization and its member organizations over autonomy, authority, and identity, which has further effects: – It leads to uncertainty and conflict over the roles, responsibilities, and decision-making power of the meta-organization or the member organizations. – Meta-organizations attempt to solve conflicts over these roles by reducing and specifying the sphere within which they will make decisions. – The recruitment of members into meta-organizations is hampered because at least some prospective members already have the capacity to be doing what the metaorganization will be doing. – Meta-organizations have problems reaching decisions by methods other than consensus; in order to maintain their authority, the member organizations cannot easily be steamrollered or voted out. – It is common in meta-organizations for rules to be formulated as standards, making it possible for a member organization and its managers and members to decide if they wish to comply with a rule. – If the meta-organization assumes almost all authority at the expense of its members, the members may become superfluous, and the meta-organization dissolved and transformed into an individual-based organization. – Meta-organizations provide their members with double identities, by giving them a last name to add to their first name.

146

Meta-organizations

UNDERESTIMATED ORGANIZATIONS? Individual-based organizations, especially firms and states in their foreign-policy role, are generally perceived as being unified actors. As noted in Chapter 3, they are described, and regularly describe themselves, as possessing independence and autonomy; as having clear boundaries; and as being robustly coordinated by a powerful management. The actions, influence, and effects of these organizations are routinely dramatized. Their managers and others describe them as making a significant impact on their environment through their choices and actions, which, in turn, are controlled by strong managers. Meta-organizations find it more difficult to present themselves in this way. They have a difficult time convincing us that they are as important as their own member organizations, or even that they have a separate and distinct identity apart from these organizations. Meta-organizations are often perceived not as actors in their own right, but rather as arenas for the actions of their member organizations. In this respect, they can be compared with individual-based organizations such as hospitals and universities, which tend to function as arenas for professions rather than as actors (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000). They are also similar to the way in which states are often perceived in the context of internal policy: as arenas for different political interests rather than as unified actors. Meta-organizations such as the EU have been described as “boring” (Meyer 2001). On the international stage, the USA seems to be a more exciting actor. And the Swedish Association of Engineering Companies obviously seems more boring than some of its members, like Ericsson and Volvo. Even the new meta-organization, G-14, which organizes top football clubs, captures less interest from football fans than do members such as Real Madrid, Juventus, and Olympique de Marseille. Perhaps this inability to arouse excitement is one reason why meta-organizations have been of limited interest to students of organizations. However, as organizational research over the last half-century has shown, the importance of individual-based organizations and

Meta-organizations and individual-based organizations

147

their managers tends to be exaggerated: organizations tend to be less unified, less manageable, and more dependent on their environment than they proclaim themselves to be (Brunsson and Olsen 1998). And meta-organizations, for their part, may be stronger than they seem. Meta-organizations are certainly characterized by the difficulties they encounter in solving conflicts among members, by competition between the organization and its members, and by a relatively weak central authority. Meta-organizations have several strong aspects as well, however. As we have proposed, it is relatively easy to create a meta-organization in a new field or with a new purpose and to recruit members for it. A meta-organization can rapidly attain an essential position. When meta-organizations exploit their ability to create members of their own, they can actively minimize member differences and similarities between themselves and the members, thereby reducing the likelihood of conflict and making it easier to agree. Meta-organizations are not likely to have a free-rider problem. Once created, meta-organizations are more likely than individualbased organizations to keep their members and to achieve and maintain a monopoly status. Meta-organizations find it difficult to agree on directives, but are better at setting standards. It can take time to enforce standards, to change the members’ operations, or to increase the similarity between them, but many meta-organizations enjoy a long life. We also believe that meta-organizations have received little attention in theories of organizations and society because there is a lack of institutions and unifying concepts for meta-organizations and because meta-organizations call themselves and see themselves as many different types of organizations – perhaps not even as organizations at all. And, because there has been no unifying concept to describe meta-organizations, it has been difficult to summarize what characterizes them and differentiates them from other forms of organizing. In the world of practice, for instance, a large number of concepts are used to describe the collaboration between organizations: networks, alliances, projects, joint ventures, and partnerships, for instance. Researchers often use the

148

Meta-organizations

same concepts without clarifying their exact sense or their theoretical underpinnings (e.g., Grandori 1997; Barringer and Harrison 2000). In many cases, meta-organizations can be concealing themselves behind these designations. Generally speaking, it seems to be difficult for organizational researchers to see collaboration among organizations as a form of organizing.

9. Organized globalization In our analysis of meta-organizations, we have relied primarily on two basic arguments – one related to membership and the other to the issue of organizational environments. In the previous chapter, we summarized our conclusions on membership. In this chapter we further expand our arguments about meta-organizations and organizational environments. Meta-organizations transform environment into organization, creating a new order among their members. In striving to decrease environment even more, many meta-organizations expand their membership around the world. In this chapter we argue that metaorganizations have played a significant role in the process of globalization. And to understand the process of globalization, it is necessary to understand the workings of meta-organizations in comparison with other globalizing forms and forces.

GLOBALIZATION THROUGH META-ORGANIZATIONS During the past 20 years, the term “globalization” has been increasingly used in the social sciences to denote the intensification of social interaction and sensemaking that unites distant localities far beyond the boundaries of states, which were previously seen as closed social spaces (cf. Giddens 1990: 64). More and more people and organizations are moving over great distances and across the boundaries of states, interacting and communicating with others in distant places. People now tend to perceive distant phenomena as being in proximity. During the 19th century people were able to imagine 149

150

Meta-organizations

individuals and societies across the world as being genuinely dissimilar. But now they seem to be more alike, and their differences appear to be minor variations (Robertson 1992; Meyer 1994; Beck 2000). There are global identities: the same categories are used around the world – individuals, states, organizations, firms, and business schools are everywhere. There are global status orders as well: for the past 100 years, we have had world champions in a range of sports and Nobel Prizes in science; we now have the Guinness Book of Records, lists of best practice companies in the telecom industry, and a list of the states that have the greatest breaches in human rights. Many of these categories and distinctions encompass most of the planet; others include more limited regions such as Europe. In either case, one can speak of globalization in the sense that the significance of state territory is decreasing; there is a certain deterritorialisation and a changed organization of social space (Scholte 2000). We see globalization primarily as the result of two types of processes that influence each other but are nevertheless dissimilar, and thus need to be analytically separated. One of these consists of the dissemination of certain cultural elements, such as primarily Western ideas about individuals and states. As John Meyer and his colleagues have convincingly shown (see, for instance, Thomas et al. 1987; Drori, Meyer and Hwang 2006), this is a crucial process for creating global order. Such cultural elements sometimes become global institutions. The other type of process key to globalization is organization. By organizing, people attempt to create global interaction, global identities, and global status systems. At a guess, organization constitutes the most important factor of all behind globalization, both historically and in today’s society. Global organizing partly takes place through formal organizations. Although there is no global state, there are both global firms and global associations. Transnational firms organize across national boundaries and their numbers have increased sharply during the past 50 years (Ietto-Gillies 2005). They create many global similarities like shops and products that look the same all over the world. They create interaction over great distances

Organized globalization

151

within their own organization and between themselves and their subcontractors that can often be found on many continents. A small number of associations with individuals as members also contribute to globalization. Some of these, such as the Red Cross, were established in the middle of the 19th century, whereas others, such as Amnesty International, were established during the second half of the 20th century. Such associations influence members and others all over the world. By far the majority of international associations are meta-organizations, however. Our theory of meta-organizations can help to answer some questions about the course of events and driving forces behind globalization. It has been argued that globalization as such is a main source for the increasing prevalence of formal organizations around the world, in that it creates a safe environment for modern forms of organizing (Meyer, Drori and Hwang 2006: 26). But we see meta-organizations more as causes of globalization than as effects. Meta-organizations with members from many countries have been crucial for facilitating and stimulating increased interaction and communication on a global scale, and they constitute a significant part of the increasing organization of world society. As mentioned in Chapter 2, new global meta-organizations are constantly being founded, and their total number is considerable. National meta-organizations are establishing international metameta-organizations and vice versa. One global meta-organization or another is managing almost every aspect of life. One important purpose of meta-organizations has been to create opportunities for communication and interaction over the large geographical distances that separate its members. Meta-organizations have been of crucial importance in setting rules to enable new technical and administrative solutions that have affected global communication and interaction patterns such as international postal services (Universal Postal Union; iUPU), railway traffic (Union Internationale des Chemins de Fer; UIC), shipping (International Maritime Organization; IMO), and air travel (International Air Transport Association; IATA). Meta-organizations such as the OECD collect information that is spread globally. In addition, meta-organizations directly strengthen increased contact and

152

Meta-organizations

interaction between people and organizations around the world. They arrange meetings with participants from many nations that require international communications and transportation; the EU’s importance for the European aviation industry is probably significant. Meta-organizations have developed global identities. Organizations such as the Community of European Management Schools and International Companies (CEMS) have defined certain schools as “business schools”, irrespective of their original identity. The UN has contributed greatly towards defining a modern state and its duties (Meyer et al. 1997). Such definitions strengthen the impression that the same types of organizations are to be found around the world. Meta-organizations are active in setting rules for their members as well as for non-members, thus contributing to global similarities among individuals and organizations. In this way, individuals and organizations all over the world are even faced with similar problems. Organizations like the OECD and the IMF are keen to highlight similar problems in the economies of states – problems that are to be solved by using the rules governing economic policy that these same organizations create. Meta-organizations were of crucial importance in creating some of the earliest global status orders within sport. But modern meta-organizations like the EU and the OECD are also attempting to exert an influence on the status of their members or others through peer reviews and rankings, to indicate which organizations are best at economic policy or whatever. And global metaorganizations in many areas try to maintain or enhance the status of all their members in the eyes of the environment. This applies, for instance, to many trade associations. Standardization and meta-organizations Our theory of meta-organizations should have explicated some of the fundamental differences between these organizations and individual-based organizations. However, not all global organizing takes place within the realms of formal organizations. Rather,

Organized globalization

153

people and organizations use some elements of organization only (Ahrne and Brunsson 2006). An important type of such organizing is international standardization. Many meta-organizations are involved in standardization. Yet, in many ways, standardization is a different form of organizing than meta-organizations. As mentioned in Chapter 6, standards are rules, albeit rules made without the aid of hierarchical authority, which implies that standards can be set outside organizations. An organization cannot set binding rules for those who are not members of the organization, but it can set standards for non-members. In the modern world there is an abundance of standardizers and standards – persons or organizations that set standards for other persons or organizations (Brunsson and Jacobsson 2000). Just as meta-organizations cover virtually all of life’s areas, almost any area of life has its standardizers and its standards. Standards enable interaction over great distances. There are standards directed at firms and commercial life, without which much existing international trade and global commercial activities would be impossible. There are, for example, standards for what things should be called and standards for the technical design of commercial products and their parts. Standards ensure that goods, services, people, and organizations will be similar around the world. They create shared identities. By complying with the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO’s) quality standards, a company can demonstrate its quality consciousness. By complying with Amnesty International’s standards for the treatment of people, states can demonstrate their humanitarianism. By setting a standard and measuring how well individuals or organizations are complying with that standard, a status order can be determined. Standards can be used for global rankings. The ranking of university colleges entails the specification of the university colleges that best comply with the majority of rules that the ranker – a newspaper or a magazine, for instance – considers to be relevant to the arrangement and operation of a university college. World Rights Watch ranks states in accordance with their treatment of individuals within their borders.

154

Meta-organizations

Many meta-organizations act as standardizers, by virtue of the fact that they make rules, not only for their members, but also for outsiders. International standardization organizations such as the ISO or the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) are meta-organizations. During recent years, through the global compact initiative, the UN has been involved in setting standards for companies. The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) produces global standards for what shall be considered organic production and processing. In this way, meta-organizations are of significance, not merely to their own members, but to others as well. When meta-organizations act as standardizers of outsiders, they do not differ much from other standardizers. When we compare such standardization with how meta-organizations set rules for their own members, however, we find some important differences, which have to do with the fact that meta-organizations, just like states, firms, and individual-based associations, are full formal organizations. The potential spread of internal rules in meta-organization is more limited than the spread of standards outside organizations; within meta-organizations, rules are exclusive to members, whereas general standards are available to everyone. Also within meta-organizations, as within other organizations, there are limits to the number of rules, and members usually demand rules to be consistent with each other; there are also constitutive rules about who can make rules and how they shall be made. Those who set standards for outsiders do not meet such limitations, and as a group they are able to produce many more rules, even conflicting and competing rules. When meta-organizations set rules for their own members, they have access to every element of the organization. Meta-organizations can, at least in principle, make binding rules – directives – for their members. And even when they limit themselves to setting standards for their members, they have a better chance of achieving compliance than do standardizers outside organizations. The standards for the members of the meta-organization are reinforced by all the other characteristics of an organization: that representatives of the members meet regularly, allowing them the

Organized globalization

155

opportunity to influence each other; that they can keep themselves informed about the rule compliance of others; that they can, at least in principle, apply sanctions; and not least, that they are able to wield the threat of binding rules if their standards are not complied with voluntarily. Organizing as attempt On the other hand, meta-organizations share another characteristic with other forms of organizing: they are all attempts – attempts that do not always succeed or fully succeed. They are decided orders, and they seldom lead to institutions; on the contrary, they are often strongly called into question. Probably, people take global organizing for granted even less than they take local organizing for granted. But organizing is crucial for global order, even if it is not institutionalized. As we described in Chapter 3, the concepts of culture and institution describe results rather than attempts. If one merely describes globalization using those concepts, one sees only results. Studying results is, of course, important, but to look merely at the results is to obtain a narrow image of globalization. There is a risk of taking globalization and its formulation for granted by not seeing that today’s order is the result of certain organizing attempts succeeding while others have failed. The reasons for attempts succeeding or failing can certainly be complex. We believe that it is important to study all attempts at globalization, even when they are not particularly successful. The process of globalization can be affected and swayed through organizing and through people attempting to create alternative orders.

GLOBALIZATION OF META-ORGANIZATIONS In order for meta-organizations to have even stronger globalization effects, they must be globalized themselves. Once a metaorganization has defined itself as international, there are strong driving forces for its continued globalization. The Universal

156

Meta-organizations

Postal Union (UPU) had 21 members when the organization was formed in 1874 and today it has 190 members. The UN had 51 members when it was formed in 1945 and 191 in 2004. Metaorganizations in sport belong to the most global of all metaorganizations, with the greatest coverage. Globalization has been a significant trend in organized competitive sport of the 20th century: the possibility of becoming (or appointing) world champions or breaking world records has been an enormous driving force in the rapid growth of sport. And, of course, the status of a world champion is greater, the greater the proportion of the world that plays that sport. Being world champion in cricket, baseball, or floorball does not have the same clout as being world champion in football. It is not self-evident, however, that all meta-organizations are striving towards entirely global expansion. It is difficult to envisage the EU as a potentially global organization, for example, because the EU defines itself as European, even though it is not entirely clear where Europe’s borders really lie. However, if we take one of the EU’s most important objectives – promoting peace – there is no reason why it would not be in the interest of the EU to attempt to rid itself of its environment outside the borders of Europe, in order to increase the chances of peace. Member categorization in meta-organizations has been changed in the past. The globalization of the EU could also be envisaged as happening via a meta-meta-organization by means of the establishment of a new meta-organization with several regional metaorganizations as members. If the EU can be seen as a peace project, then NATO is, by contrast, primarily a defence alliance, and it is even more difficult to envisage a meta-organization with such an aim evolving into an entirely global entity. A defence alliance between states can attain worldwide coverage only if it makes enemies that are not states. The global expansion of meta-organizations can occur in various ways. The special ability of meta-organizations to contribute to globalization lies in their capacity to tie together and recruit existing organizations that had previously been separate. When forming a meta-organization, one needs not start from the beginning.

Organized globalization

157

Meta-organizations often emerge as global through more and more national organizations applying to join existing metaorganizations, as was the case with the UPU, the UN, or the EU. In many such cases, it is a requirement that those wishing to become members are altered and adapted to the membership requirements of the meta-organization. This can be a relatively time-consuming process. It is likely that the increase in the number of members will occur more slowly, the more questions the metaorganization has on its agenda and the greater the demands for similarity, as it will then be more difficult for the prospective members to fit in and meet membership requirements. For many meta-organizations, expansion occurs in several stages, including the forming of meta-meta-organizations. First national meta-organizations are formed and then they join a global meta-meta-organization, or the other way round. Metameta-organizations seem to occur primarily when there are several organizations in the same country. In some meta-organizations, global expansion is achieved in even more stages. The Association of Swedish Higher Education (SUHF), for example, is a member of the European University Association (EUA), which, in turn, is a member of the International Association of Universities (IAU). In FIFA, there are six regional meta-organizations for different parts of the world (AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC, UEFA – see List of Abbreviations and Acronyms). A different example is the European Parking Association (EPA), which, as yet, has had no worldwide meta-meta-organization to join; instead a recurring arrangement called the World Parking Symposium has been organized with, among others, the Canadian Parking Association. States are less likely to form meta-meta-organizations, probably because of the limited number of states; there are few enough to find room within one meta-organization without great difficulty. There are, however, exceptions, one being the EU’s membership in the WTO. The expansion of a meta-organization can be accelerated if it creates new organizations that, from the start, meet the requirements for becoming a member of a certain meta-organization.

158

Meta-organizations

This is the process that we have described in Assertion 1, Chapter 3 as the ability of meta-organizations to create their own members. Sometimes an existing meta-organization can also contribute economic resources to new members, as was done in BirdLife International and the International Cremation Federation (ICF). It is difficult to imagine a meta-organization consisting only of members that it has created and formed itself, however. If one wants to establish a new global organization from scratch, it is probably handier to form an individual-based organization. Amnesty International is a well known example of such a global organization; its members are individuals, the national sections are subordinate to the administration in London, and all regional and local departments have a common identity (Power 2001). Another similar example is Greenpeace. Amnesty and Greenpeace were not formed from existing organizations. Their aim from the outset was to become global, and it was never intended that the new national sections would be independent. This type of global individual-based association will be most easily formed in new areas in which there have been no corresponding local organizations established, making it difficult to form meta-organizations. When activities have already been organized in various local organizations, the establishment of metaorganizations is more likely. Uniting the local and the global A disparity between the local and the global has been noted in many discussions about globalization. There can be tension between a local cultural homogeneity and a global cultural heterogeneity (Appadurai 1996). Robertson (1992: 173) uses the expression “glocalize”, which originates from discussions on the marketing of global products and how they are adapted to local conditions. The meta-organization is a form of organization with a great capacity to handle this tension and these shifts between local and global. The dynamic between similarity and dissimilarity and the

Organized globalization

159

dual identities that are typical characteristics of their members provide meta-organizations with a useful flexibility. Organizations that are members of global meta-organizations are neither unilaterally global nor unilaterally local; rather, they have the capacity to unite the local and the global. In the case of some meta-organizations, the global and the universal are concealed; the meta-organization is relatively unknown and the membership in it is not emphasized in everyday use. This makes it easier for members to retain the image of a local organization with great autonomy. The globalization process is not as clear, as demonstrated in such relatively unknown metaorganizations as political internationals and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). If better known and understood, both could be seen as threats to their members’ independence. When the relationship to the global meta-organization is known, the local member is rarely perceived as “colonized”, because its membership is voluntary. Rather, it looks as if the local obtains the opportunity to be part of the global. A globalization process that occurs via meta-organizations runs a lesser risk of encountering negative reactions and resistance from the local environment than globalization through transnational companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, or IKEA, each of which internationalizes under its trademark. During nationalistic campaigns, like the Russian government’s against foreign associations in 2007, we assume that a national organization – although with membership in an international meta-organization – is somewhat safer than a national department of an individualbased international association. Globalization through metaorganizations is more similar to the globalization of firms that occurs in the form of relatively anonymous business groups like Unilever and Nestlé, which hide behind a large number of trademarks that were originally local. It is striking that international meta-organizations are much more legitimate than earlier attempts of using more individual-based forms of formal organizations for global organizing. The legitimacy of empires and colonial orders was undermined during the 20th century, while the number of international meta-organizations

160

Meta-organizations

skyrocketed. The Austrian-Hungarian Empire has disappeared, providing room for a number of states now being or aspiring to becoming members of the EU. The British Empire has been succeeded by a meta-organization called the Commonwealth of Nations. At the end of the century, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) meta-organization was substituted for the Soviet Union, which, although originally planned as a metaorganization, never worked as one. Legitimacy and trust In other contexts, global meta-organizations contribute positively to the members’ legitimacy on their home turf, where internationalization is considered to be a positive trait. By belonging to a global meta-organization, an organization can then show that it has an acknowledged identity or at least demonstrate that it is a legitimate fellow player at home. The legitimacy of a national association for sociology researchers that did not belong to the International Sociological Association (ISA), for instance, would be called into question. Via membership in a meta-organization, organizations can compare themselves with organizations in other countries and try to make a convincing case that they belong with the best. CEMS is a good example, as is the International Cremation Federation (ICF). The operations of the ICF exist in order to exert an influence on and counteract deeply rooted cultural values and customs regarding people’s relationship with death and burial practices. This basically cultural process is organized by linking it to a joint meta-organization that can provide the methods and principles for new burial customs and new practice. If ICF members are called into question and meet resistance, it is helpful for them to be able to reference their membership in a meta-organization with members in many countries. The promotion of the practice of cremation would probably be more difficult if it did not take place through a national organization. Legitimacy and trust is also enhanced by membership in a meta-organization when a member is acting in a global arena. In descriptions of globalization, it is often emphasized that tradi-

Organized globalization

161

tional cultural contexts of meaning and identities are being undermined and are losing value. Social relations lose their traditional framing in local society and become disembedded when they are extended across indefinite spans of time-space (Giddens 1990: 21). This in turn creates a problem of trust. Trust is in demand in the new global social relations when interaction is not based on common cultural norms and does not take place between actors that are firmly established in the same everyday environment and lack secure references to each other. The shared identity of a meta-organization – its last name – offers a solution to this predicament. Through the metaorganization’s striving towards similarity and shared status among its members, it provides a foundation for creating trust in interaction that is characterized by disembeddedness. And this creation of trust becomes especially important when metaorganizations obtain members from new regions or countries. Meta-organizations can bring about a re-embedding (cf. Giddens 1990: 79) by constituting a new context for interaction between organizations that lack a local connection. Furthermore, trust is created among the members of the same meta-organization, as they have a number of shared rules with which they must comply. These rules facilitate contact among member organizations, and they can also turn to the meta-organization in the event of intermember conflict. Lack of attention Multinational firms and global individual-based associations have received a great deal of attention as important actors in globalization. With the exception of some large, well known metaorganizations such as the UN and the WTO, on the other hand, the vast majority of the global meta-organizations’ activities seem to be conducted on the quiet. We believe that this is due in part to the “soft” image of meta-organizations that we described previously. Moreover, meta-organizations have not previously been seen as a particular form of organizing. And meta-organizations must share attention with their members, which are usually more visible and

162

Meta-organizations

stronger. Nevertheless, large parts of the members’ operations would be impossible to carry out if they were not members of a meta-organization.

GOVERNANCE AND NETWORKS In traditional social theory, a fundamental assumption has been that social interaction occurs within specific societies or social systems. Demarcated societies and cultures are created, it has been imagined, by the territorial boundaries of states (Weber 1968). States have been justified by the need to create an order among people living in geographical proximity (De Swaan 1988; Tilly 1990). The state is still an organizational form that requires a territorial delimitation, whereas much social interaction has long since crossed such territorial boundaries. For many political scientists and students of organization, the observation of globalization has created confusion and it is envisaged that the analysis of globalization requires entirely new concepts. A striking example is the idea of governance, which has aroused a great deal of interest in the wake of the discussion about globalization. The concept of governance is based partly on the insight that it is no longer possible in a globalized world to take the states’ traditional powers and possibilities of governing for granted. In order to understand decision-making and governance processes that extend among and throughout states, more organizations must be included and the governance process itself becomes more complex. Although the concept of governance is entirely reasonable, many people using the concept seem to get lost in the description of this new state of affairs. There is talk of boundaries in flux and of difficult-to-grasp processes that include a large number of public and private actors (Djelic and Sahlin-Andersson 2006). We cannot escape the thought that the concept of governance appears to be elusive because it is described in unnecessarily vague terms. Organizational elements such as membership and hierarchy are still significant, even though the positions of states

Organized globalization

163

have changed. The fact that rules are voluntary and decisionmaking is complicated does not necessarily mean that the interaction is disorganized or that everything is in flux. Networks and meta-organizations In attempts to describe governance and globalization, there seems to be an almost unanimous “focus on the role of networks” (Kjaer 2004: 3). The use of the network concept received a good push forwards from Manuel Castells’ book about the information age as a network community (Castells 1996). Meta-organizations are often assumed to be a type of network. But the differences between networks and meta-organizations are large and significant. To compare interactions among organizations that occur via networks with those that occur within meta-organizations, we must specify what the network concept stands for. Among those who specialize in research into networks, there is a certain amount of resignation, however. Some of these researchers have talked about the prevalence of a linguistic chaos and the notion that networks have become a metaphor used to describe far too many phenomena (Thompson 2003: 2; cf. Borgatti and Foster 2003). With a precise definition, a network among organizations is a repeated exchange based upon the organizations supplementing each other and having different specialisations (Powell 1990; Podolny and Page 1998: 59; Barringer and Harrison 2000; Borgatti and Foster 2003). We do not deny that such networks constitute one form of globalization when they have a global scope, but they should not be confused with meta-organizations. There are some similarities between networks and metaorganizations, which could be one reason for people confusing them. Because they are based upon existing organizations, both networks and meta-organizations are relatively easy to establish and can rapidly acquire considerable resources. Neither networks nor meta-organizations need to have many participants from the outset, and they can continue to exist in that manner. Common to networks and meta-organizations is also the fact that their primary

164

Meta-organizations

characteristic is their ability to link and, to a certain degree, to unite operations in organizations that cannot be merged or completely combined. This is where the similarities end, however. In most other respects, networks can be described as the opposite of metaorganizations. Most networks are based on differences, and the participants complement each other through the differences, providing opportunities for exchanges that bring shared advantages. The collaboration itself is based on trust and reciprocity – on the assumption that those included in the network give, and that they receive in return. In most meta-organizations, on the other hand, the members take similarities as their starting point and there are efforts to clarify and manifest these similarities in making decisions about common rules. Networks among organizations are embedded in a set of other social relationships (Thompson 2003: 144), and their boundaries are blurred. They are composed and described through the participants’ relationships with other participants and not in relation to the network as a whole (Borgatti and Foster 2003). Participation is not centrally regulated; rather, one participates to the extent that one associates with some other participant. If one stops associating with other participants, one will no longer be part of the network. A network has fluid boundaries. It is impossible to interact with a network. To contact a network is to become part of it. Networks exist in order to span boundaries, not to maintain them. A network has no identity of its own. Meta-organizations, on the other hand, create boundaries between themselves and the world around them. They make decisions about who is a member and who is not. Instead of being embedded, meta-organizations strive to create autonomy and distinctions. There is a lack of legitimate authority in networks (Podolny and Page 1998). In a network, unlike in a meta-organization, there is no authoritative centre with the mandate to officiate over the participants, to demand information from them, or to issue sanctions. The control that occurs in a network exists in each individual relationship between any two organizations within the

Organized globalization

165

network. A network makes no decisions. Neither does it have a constitution that regulates who participates or the relationships among its participants. A network cannot own resources. Unlike an organization, a network is not an actor. It cannot express itself, present its ideas or actions, or make decisions. This means that the network cannot be hypocritical either: do one thing and say another. Neither does the network have any responsibility; there is no management to hold responsible for what its participants do. It is the participants who are fully responsible for their own actions. It is difficult to protest against a network. In contrast to organization, the term “network” describes a result rather than an attempt, an existing order rather than a decided order. Individual organizations can attempt to join networks and wish for others to join, but the network per se cannot make any such attempts. Thus, a network cannot fail. In this way, networks can appear to be more effective and flexible than meta-organizations. Ineffective and unwieldy networks never appear as networks. The networks that are noticed are those that have succeeded in some way. It can happen, of course, that a network evolves into a metaorganization. As we have described, it is common for organizations that form a meta-organization to have had previous contact with each other, perhaps even forming something that could be called a network. And the organizations in a network may set up temporary and partial organizations for various purposes – to organize a campaign or a conference, for instance. It is important, nevertheless, not to confuse such projects with the network itself. And the leap from network to meta-organization is a significant one. The differences between meta-organizations and networks show that it is important to investigate whether or not something is one or the other in order to understand how it works and evolves. The fact that some meta-organizations describe themselves as networks must not lead us to believe that they really are. In a similar way, we believe that it is important to notice the nature of other collaborations between organizations, if one is to understand them. It is not the names used in practice – such as partnerships, alliances, or projects – that are important.

166

Meta-organizations

On the contrary, it is necessary to clarify the extent to which they contain elements of organization and what these elements are.

A STRIPED ORDER? There are certain similarities between states, on the one hand, and meta-organizations and standardizers, on the other. They all attempt to create an organized order among many individuals and organizations. In addition, meta-organizations are similar to states in that both are complete, formal organizations. However, states are territorially delimited and they can, in principle, organize and regulate almost any imaginable human activity within their territory. States are jacks-of-all-trades (Weber 1968; Lindblom 1977). Outside its territory, however, a state’s capacity for action is generally highly restricted. In contrast, global meta-organizations span the boundaries of states. However, some of the meta-organizations with states as members, are, like states, based on territory. Regional organizations like the EU, Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are clear examples. Such organizations could evolve into jacks-of-alltrades almost in the same league as states. Most meta-organizations, however, are delimited by functional boundaries. They acquire a narrow agenda. This is the strategy of meta-organizations such as BirdLife International or the International Cremation Federation – meta-organizations with organizations other than states as members. But it is also the strategy of organizations with state membership, like the World Trade Organization (WTO) or International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI). All these meta-organizations are organized along a different principle than states. They are global, but attend to only one aspect of life, like birds, trade, auditing or death. This latter type of meta-organization creates corridors of order that can reach across the world within narrowly delimited spheres. By linking operations in a large number of places in joint organizations, boundaries are drawn against the influence of the

Organized globalization

167

geographically closest environment. Meta-organizations set up supra-territorial corridors with a distance between them and their closest environment, while simultaneously reducing the distance between similar operations that are further separated. Metaorganizations contribute to transforming the world from a chequered to more of a striped order, from a grid of states to corridors of meta-organizations. One can speak of a changed geography of power, whereby the influence of states on their territory is being weakened and broken up. The existence of organizations like the EU and the UN means that many questions are settled within a meta-organization rather than within an individual state – an issue that is often discussed under the rubric of various levels of power. Functional meta-organizations undermine states in another way. Firms and associations, but also a state’s own agencies, obtain a source of authority that competes with that of the state. They contribute to the state’s decreasing control over its territory and stand as examples of what has been described as the continuing process of the “denationalization of territory” (Sassen 1996: 30). When parts of the apparatus of the state are engaged in a metaorganization’s work, enclaves are formed within the administration that become more strongly linked to the meta-organization they are collaborating with than to the rest of the national administration. Such enclaves challenge the traditional democratic order of a state (Vifell 2006). Yet the boundaries of states remain, and often decide the form of the international meta-organization – something that regularly occurs even in meta-organizations that do not have states as members. It is a standard structure among meta-organizations to have one member from each country. This structure was used in almost all meta-organizations that we studied, including somewhat surprising examples such as CEMS – in which “the best business schools” included only one per country. This countrybased structure means that meta-organizations are simultaneously exceeding as well as conserving old boundaries. The change that meta-organizations bring about rests on strong continuity.

168

Meta-organizations

Meta-organizations and global democracy Globalization entails a challenge for ideas about democracy. Conceptions of democracy are closely tied to a belief in orders that have been decided upon. It must be possible to exert an influence on the future with the aid of decisions. It is difficult, therefore, to combine networks, institutions, and culture with democracy. Networks cannot make decisions, and institutions and cultures are not orders that are decided upon. If global evolution is primarily linked to such phenomena, there will be little scope for democracy. The opportunities for democracy are greater if, as we argue, a major part of globalization is organized so that orders have been decided upon. Traditional conceptions of democracy are also linked to the occurrence of full formal organizations, however. In democratic states, top politicians are responsible for what the state does and the results it achieves. The citizens of such states can remove and appoint politicians by holding general elections and can thus exert an influence on the decisions. Nothing exactly equivalent can be arranged on the global level in the absence of a world state. Standardization outside organizations is difficult to reconcile with this model of democracy. Admittedly, it is an organized order, but an order without a fully formal organization. Standardizers have little responsibility; as their standards are voluntary, it is those complying with the standards rather than the standardizer that will be held responsible for actions and results. There is no way to remove a standardizer; nor would it be a good idea to do so, for others would easily appear. Transnational firms and meta-organizations, on the other hand, are complete organizations. Both concentrate responsibility, and in doing so attract protests and resistance movements. Transnationals are often exposed to that type of protest. Although they are deemed responsible for the effects of their products and production processes, their administrations cannot be removed through general elections. Rather, the decisive democratic act on the global level is the decision to buy on markets; transnational firms or whole countries are threatened by or meet with consumer

Organized globalization

169

resistance, or even with boycotts that affect their actions. Here, democracy is highly linked to markets; it is not, as traditionally, linked to organizations only. Meta-organizations can be held responsible as well, and therefore they easily attract protests and demonstrations – to the extent that organizations such as the WTO have even encountered problems conducting their meetings. In contrast, because standardizers are perceived as bearing little responsibility, they experience a striking lack of protest, in spite of the significant effect of their standards on world trade. The WTO is difficult to boycott, however; and although global trade associations can acquire responsibility and attract protest, their typical monopoly status makes them difficult to boycott as well. And many metaorganizations can hide behind their relative anonymity. There is a certain democratic potential in meta-organizations. They make decisions, they concentrate responsibility, and they are dependent upon legitimacy. They are targets for pressure. They can be called upon to provide openness and the possibility of transparency. Some of their members, such as states and associations, themselves contain democratic elements, and a certain influence can be obtained via the members. And, perhaps this book will contribute towards a decrease in the anonymity of metaorganizations and an increase in knowledge about them. It is more difficult to imagine how meta-organizations could be fully democratic and be similar to democratic states or democratic individual-based associations. Traditional conceptions of democracy are not merely linked to organization – they are also linked to individual-based organizations. As we mentioned in Chapter 6, many individual-based organizations have strongly institutionalized rules about voting: one person, one vote. In meta-organizations, it is difficult to define a democratic order. Is it more democratic that each member has a vote, or that each member’s votes be proportionate to its own number of members? Or, should the number of votes be based on other factors, such as contributions to the meta-organization? These issues become even more complicated in meta-meta-organizations. Demands for greater democracy in meta-organizations

170

Meta-organizations

normally entail demands for a more individual-based organization. As mentioned in Chapter 7, the individual-based organization can be achieved in two ways – either through the meta-organization’s dissolution into its component individual organizations or through a merger into a single individual-based organization, as reflected in the suggestions of many globalization critics. One such suggestion is to return to a world with stronger self-determination for the individual democratic state and less collaboration within and dependence upon international meta-organizations. Another suggestion has been to introduce something closer to a world state, with, for instance, a global right to levy taxes. The demands can also be less extreme. In an organization like the EU, such softer demands for more of an individual-based organization bring suggestions that the collaboration must encompass a smaller area than it does today or, alternatively, that the directly elected Parliament must have increasingly greater powers at the expense of the Commission and the Council of Ministers. Both demands for less of a meta-organization and more of a meta-organization can be justified using democratic arguments. It is less clear if these solutions are always those that the majority basically prefer.

THE STUDY OF META-ORGANIZATIONS In this book we have presented a general theory for metaorganizations. The theory is intended as a beginning rather than an end; it does not provide the final answers, but we hope that it will stimulate others to increase our collective knowledge about this important phenomenon. A great deal of empirical knowledge already exists about the functioning of some highly visible metaorganizations such as the UN or EU; that knowledge could be used for developing more general theories, which, in turn, could further improve our understanding of these vital organizations. There are many questions to ask. We have emphasized similarities among meta-organizations. There are strikingly similar

Organized globalization

171

mechanisms for establishing and managing meta-organizations and all meta-organizations encounter similar problems in dealing with their members. A next step should be to investigate differences among meta-organizations. Do they differ in how they work depending on their type of members: states, firms, or associations? Does the functioning of meta-meta-organizations differ in any important way from the functioning of other meta-organizations? Do different purposes of various meta-organizations generate different problems and solutions? Is there a significant difference, for example, between meta-organizations that strive mainly to facilitate interaction among their members versus those that try to change people and organizations outside themselves? Another intriguing area of research is the dynamics of metaorganizations. What factors are most important in explaining why some meta-organizations are relatively stable while others go through significant changes in the distribution of tasks and power between organization and members? How and why does a metaorganization turn into one individual-based organization, whereas others close down, leaving the members unorganized? How do meta-organizations handle situations when some members want it to be stronger while others want it to be weaker? Another field for investigation is the way members are affected by their membership in meta-organizations. How does membership in a meta-organization affect the identity of an organization in the long run? How similar can the members of a metaorganization become before their own members lose interest in them? How much authority can they lose and still be considered autonomous organizations? There are many question marks surrounding the future of the increasing number of global meta-organizations as well. Most of these organizations are relatively new, and it is uncertain how they will change. Will they start competing with each other? Will they all remain as narrow corridors, or will they start to collaborate? Will their diffusion be hampered if they occupy themselves with more tasks? How will they be able to make decisions if there are more and more members with greater differences? Will there be mergers of meta-organizations, or will more levels of

172

Meta-organizations

meta- and meta-meta-organizations develop? Will a strong institution develop that standardizes and stabilizes the forms of meta-organizations? How will such an institution affect their democratic potential? The last 50 years has demonstrated that individual-based organizations provide a complex, intriguing, and challenging field for study. Meta-organizations offer an area for research that promises to be equally fascinating.

References Åberg, Alf (1999) Riddarhuset. Stockholm: Byggförlaget. Ahrne, Göran (1994) Social Organizations. Interaction, inside, outside and between organizations. London: Sage. Ahrne, Göran and Nils Brunsson (2001) Metaorganisationer – identitet och auktoritet. Score Research Report 2001:6. Ahrne, Göran and Nils Brunsson (2006) “Organizing the World” in Marie-Laure Djelic and Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson (eds) Transnational Governance. Institutional dynamics of regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ahrne, Göran, Nils Brunsson and Christina Garsten (2000) “Standardizing through organization” in Nils Brunsson and Bengt Jacobsson (eds) A World of Standards. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aldestam, Mona (2004) “Soft Law and the State Aid Policy Area” in Ulrika Mörth (ed.) Soft Law in Governance and Regulation. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Aldrich, Howard (1999) Organizations Evolving. London: Sage. Alexius, Susanna (2007) Regelmotståndarna. Stockholm: EFI. Appadurai, Arjun (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Archer, Clive (2001) International Organizations. 3rd Edition. London: Routledge. Aristotle (1985) The Nichomachean Ethics. Indianapolis: Hackett. Bäärnhielm, Mauritz (2002) “The Swedish House of Nobility as a Legal History Arena”, Rättshistoriska Studier. Tjugoandra bandet (Volume 22). Stockholm: Rönnels Antikvariat. 173

174

References

Barnard, Chester (1938) The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Barnett, Michael and Martha Finnemore (2004) Rules for the World. International organizations in global politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Barringer, Bruce, R. and Jeffrey S. Harrison (2000) “Walking a tightrope: creating value through interorganizational relationships”, Journal of Management, 26 (3): 367–403. Beck, Ulrich (2000) What is Globalization? Cambridge: Polity Press. Blau, Peter, M. and W. Richard Scott (1966) Formal Organizations. A comparative approach. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Boli, John and G. Thomas (eds) (1999) Constructing World Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Borgatti, Stephen, P. and Pacey C. Foster (2003) “The network paradigm in organizational research: a review and typology”, Journal of Management, 29 (6): 991–1013. Borrás, Susana and Kerstin Jacobsson (2004) “The open method of coordination and the new governance patterns in the EU”, Journal of European Public Policy, 11 (2), 185–208. Boström, Magnus (2003) “How state-dependent is a non-statedriven rule-making project? The case of forest certification in Sweden”, Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, 5 (2): 165–80. Boström, Magnus (2006) “Regulatory credibility and authority through inclusiveness: standardization organizations in cases of eco-labelling”, Organization, 13 (3): 345–67. Bourdieu, Pierre (1990) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Braithwaite, John and Peter Drahos (2000) Global Business Regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brännström, Leila (2004) “Reglering i en metaorganisation – Fallet ILO” in Göran Ahrne and Nils Brunsson (eds) Regelexplosionen. Stockholm: EFI. Brunsson, Nils (1993) “Organizational individuality and rationality as reform content” in Nils Brunsson and Johan P. Olsen (eds) The Reforming Organization. London: Routledge.

References

175

Brunsson, Nils (2002) The Organization of Hypocrisy. Talk, decision and actions in organizations. 2nd Edition. Oslo: Copenhagen Business School Press. Abstrakt. Brunsson, Nils (2006) Mechanisms of Hope. Maintaining the dream of the rational organization. Malmö: Copenhagen Business School Press. Liber. Brunsson, Nils and Bengt Jacobsson (eds) (2000) A World of Standards. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brunsson, Nils and Johan P. Olsen (1998) “Organization Theory: Thirty Years of Dismantling, and then…?” in Nils Brunsson and Johan P. Olsen (eds) Organizing Organizations. Oslo: Fagbokforlaget. Brunsson, Nils and Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson (2000) “Constructing organizations: the example of public sector reform”, Organization Studies, 21 (4): 721–46. Burgess, Michael (1993) “Federalism and Federation: A Reappraisal” in Michael Burgess and Alain-G. Gagnon (eds) Comparative Federalism and Federation. Competing traditions and future directions. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Burgess, Michael and Alain-G. Gagnon (1993) “Introduction: Building on Traditions and Transitions” in Michael Burgess and Alain-G. Gagnon (eds) Comparative Federalism and Federation. Competing traditions and future directions. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Castells, Manuel (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. The information age: economy, society and culture. Volume I. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Chaison, Gary (2004) “Union mergers in the US and abroad”, Journal of Labor Research, XXV (1): 97–115. Chandler, Alfred (1962) Strategy and Structure. Chapters in the history of the industrial enterprise. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Codding, George A. (1964) The Universal Postal Union. Coordinator of the international mails. New York: New York University Press. Codding, George A. and Anthony M. Rutkowski (1982) The International Telecommunication Union in a Changing World. Dedham, MA: Artech House Inc.

176

References

Czarniawska-Joerges, Barbara (1993) The Three-dimensional Organization: A Constructionist View. Lund: Studentlitteratur. D’Aunno, Thomas A. and Howard S. Zuckermann (1987) “A lifecycle model of organizational federations: the case of hospitals”, The Academy of Management Review, 12 (3): 534–45. De Swaan, Abram (1988) In Care of the State: Health Care, Education, and Welfare in Europe and the USA in the Modern Era. Cambridge: Polity. Di Maggio, Paul, J. and Walter Powell (1983) “The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields”, American Sociological Review, 48 (2): 147–60. Djelic, Marie-Laure and Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson (2006) “Introduction: A World of Governance: The Rise of Transnational Regulation” in Marie-Laure Djelic and Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson (eds) Transnational Governance. Institutional dynamics of regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drori, Gili S., John W. Meyer and Hokyu Hwang (eds) (2006) Globalization and Organization. World society and organizational change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Due, Jesper and Jörgen Steen Madsen (1996) Forligsmagerne. De kollektive forhandlingers sociologi. Copenhagen: Jurist- og Ökonomforbundets forlag. Dutton, Jane E., Janet Dukerich and Celia V. Harquail (1994) “Organizational images and member identification”, Adminstrative Science Quarterly, 39 (2): 239–63. Elster, Jon (1989) “Wage bargaining and social norms”, Acta Sociologica, 32 (2): 113–36. Emami, Abbas (2003) “IFOAM. International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements”. Working Paper. Fasulo, Linda (2004) An Insider’s Guide to the UN. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Fligstein, Neil (1985) “The spread of the multidivisional form among large firms, 1919–1979”, American Sociological Review, 50 (3): 377–91. Forsyth, Murray (1996) “The Political Theory of Federalism: The

References

177

Relevance of Classical Appproaches” in Joachim Jens Hesse and Vincent Wright (eds) Federalizing Europe? The costs, benefits, and preconditions of federal political systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Galbraith, John Kenneth (1967) The New Industrial State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Garsten, Christina (1994) The Apple World: Core and Periphery in a Transnational Organizational Culture. Stockholm: Almkvist & Wiksell International. Garsten, Christina and Miriam Salzer-Mörling (2004) “Inledning: Jakten på identiteter’, Nordiske Organisasjonsstudier, 6 (2): 3–12. Giddens, Anthony (1990) Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Grandori, Anna (1997) “An organizational assessment of interfirm coordination modes”, Organization Studies, 18 (6): 897–925. Hadenius, Axel (1976) Facklig organisationsutveckling. En studie av Landsorganisationen i Sverige. Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren. Håkansson, Håkan and Jan Johansson (1993) “The Network as a Governance Structure: Interfirm Cooperation Beyond Markets and Hierarchies” in G. Grahber (ed.) The Embedded Firm.The socio-economics of industrial networks. London: Routledge. Handy, Charles (1992) “Balancing corporate power: a new federalist paper”, Harvard Business Review, November–December: 59–72. Héritier, Adrienne (2003) “New Modes of Governance in Europe – Increasing Political Efficiency and Policy Effectiveness” in Tanja Boerzel and Rachel A. Cichowski (eds) State of the European Union. Volume 6. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hirschman, Albert (1970) Exit, Voice and Loyalty. Responses to decline in firms, organizations and states. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hix, Simon (1998) “The study of the European Union II: the ‘new governance’ agenda and its rival”, Journal of European Public Policy, 5 (1): 38–65.

178

References

Holmblad Brunsson, Karin (2002) Organisationer. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Howell, Maxwell L. and Reet A. Howell (1985) History of Sport in Canada. Revised Edition. Champaign, Illinois: Stipes Publishing Company. Ietto-Gillies, Grazia (2005) Transnational Corporations and International Production. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Jepperson, R. (1991) “Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism” in Walter Powell and Paul Di Maggio (eds) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Johansson, Roine (1997) Organisationer emellan. Om förhandlingar, makt och handlingsutrymme. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Jordan, Grant (1998) “What Drives Associability at the European Level? The Limits of Utilitarian Explanations” in Justin Greenwood and Mark Aspinwall (eds) Collective Action in the European Union. London: Routledge. Jutterström, Mats (2004) Att påverka beslut – Företag i EUs regelsättande. Stockholm: EFI. Keating, Michael (2001) Plurinational Democracy. Stateless nations in a post-sovereignty era. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keohane, Robert O. (1993) “The Analysis of International Regimes. Towards a European–American research programme” in Volker Ritterberger and Peter Mayer (eds) Regime Theory and International Relations. Oxford: Clarendon Press. King, Anthony (1997) “New directors, customers and fans: the transformation of English football in the 1990s”, Sociology of Sport Journal, 14 (3): 224–40. Kjaer, Anne Mette (2004) Governance. Cambridge: Polity Press. Knoke, David (1986) “Associations and interest groups”, Annual Review of Sociology, 12: 1–21. Landström, Sten-Sture (1968) “Kommunförbunden”, in Gunnar Wallin et al. (eds) Kommunerna i förvandling. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.

References

179

Lindblom, Charles (1977) Politics and Markets. New York: Basic Books. Löfving, Carl (2007) Vid nordliga leden. Västsverige för tusen år sedan. Gothenburg: Folkuniversitetets Akademiska Press. Luhmann, Niklas (2000) Organisation und Entscheidung. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. March, James and Herbert Simon (1958) Organizations. New York: Wiley. Marcussen, Martin (2002) OECD og idéspillet. Game over? Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Marcussen, Martin (2004) “OECD Governance through Soft Law” in Ulrika Mörth (ed.) Soft Law in Governance and Regulation. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Martin, Joanne (1992) Cultures in Organizations: Three Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. Melkersson, Martin (1997) Staten, ordningen och friheten. En studie av den styrande elitens syn på statens roll mellan stormaktstiden och 1800-talet. Acta Universitatis Uppsaliensis. Meyer, John (1994) “Rationalized Environments” in Richard Scott and John Meyer (eds) Institutional Environments and Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Meyer, John (2001) “The European Union and the Globalization of Culture” in S.S. Andersen (ed.) Institutional Approaches to the European Union. Oslo: Arena. Meyer, John and Brian Rowan (1977) “Institutionalized organizations: formal structure as myth and ceremony”, American Journal of Sociology, 83 (2): 340–63. Meyer, John, John Boli and George M. Thomas (1987) “Ontology and Rationalization in the Western Cultural Account” in George M. Thomas, John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez and John Boli (eds) Institutional Structure. Constituting state, society, and the individual. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Meyer, John, Gili S. Drori and Hokyu Hwang (2006) “World Society and the Proliferation of Formal Organization” in Gili S. Drori, John W. Meyer and Hokyu Hwang (eds)

180

References

Globalization and Organization. World society and organizational change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Meyer, John W., John Boli, George M. Thomas and Francisco Ramirez (1997) “World Society and the Nation-State” The American Journal of Sociology, 103 (1): 144–81. Miller, Peter (2003) “Governing the Enterprise: the hidden face of accounting” in Theodore M. Porter and Dorothy Ross (eds) The Cambridge History of Social Science. Volume 7: The modern social sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrow, Stephen (2003) The People’s Game? Football, finance and society. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Mörth, Ulrika (ed.) (2004) Soft Law in Governance and Regulation. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Murphy, Craig N. (1994) International Organization and Industrial Change. Global governance since 1850. Cambridge: Polity Press. Nicolaida, Kalypso and Robert Howse (2001) The Federalist Vision. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Noaksson, Niklas and Kerstin Jacobsson (2003) The Production of Ideas and Expert Knowledge in OECD. The case of the OECD jobs strategy in contrast to the EU employment strategy. Research Report 2003: 7. Ohlsson, Östen and Björn Rombach (1998) Res pyramiderna. Om frihetsskapande hierarkier och tillplattningens slaveri. Stockholm: Svenska förlaget. Oliver, Christine (1990) “Determinants of interorganizational relationships: integration and future directions”, Academy of Management Review, 15 (2), 241–65. Olson, Mancur (1971) The Logic of Collective Action. Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Papakostas, Apostolis (2004) “Civilsamhällets rationaliseringar’, Arkiv för studier i arbetarrörelsens historia, 91: 19–45. Perrow, Charles (1991) “A society of organizations”, Theory and Society, 20 (6): 725–62.

References

181

Petersson, Olof (2004) Federalism. Stockholm: SNS Förlag. Pfeffer, Jeffrey and Gerald R. Salancik (1978) The External Control of Organizations. A resource dependence perspective. New York: Harper and Row. Podolny, Joel M. and Karen L. Page (1998) “Network forms of organization”, Annual Review of Sociology, 24: 57–76. Polanyi, Karl (1968) Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies. Essays by Karl Polanyi. G. Dalton (ed.). Boston: Beacon Press. Pollack, Detlef (1990) “Das Ende einer Organisationsgesellschaft – Systemtheoretische Überlegungen zum gesellschaftlichen Umbruch in der DDR”, Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 19 (4): 292–307. Powell, Walter (1990) “Neither markets nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization’, Research in Organizational Behaviour, 12: 295–336. Power, Jonathan (2001) Like Water on Stone. The story of Amnesty International. London: Allen Lane. Provan, Keith G. (1983) “The Federation as an interorganizational linkage network”, The Academy of Management Review, 8 (1): 79–89. Ramel, Claes (1998) The Swedish Association of Local Authorities – Representative of Civil Society, a Corporatist Organization or a Welfare State Actor? An Investigation in Historical Sociology. Stockholm University: Department of Sociology. Richardson, Jeremy (1996) “Eroding EU Policies: Implementation Gaps, Cheating and Resteering” in Jeremy Richardson (ed.) European Union. Power and Policy-making. London: Routledge. Riksdagens revisorer (1995/96) Förslag till Riksdagen 1995/96: RR 12. Stockholm: Riksdagen. Robertson, Roland (1992) Globalization. Social theory and global culture. London: Sage. Sassen, Saskia (1996) Losing Control? Sovereignty in an age of globalization. New York: Columbia University Press. Scholte, Jan Aart (2000) Globalization. New York: Palgrave. Scott, Richard and John W. Meyer (eds) (1994) Institutional Environments and Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

182

References

Seidl, David (2003) “Organizational Identity in Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems” in Tore Bakken and Tor Hernes (eds) Autopoietic Organization Theory. Drawing on Niklas Luhmanns’s social systems perspective. Copenhagen Business School Press. Oslo: Abstrakt. Selznick, Philip (1957) Leadership in Administration. New York: Harper and Row. Selznick, Philip (1996) “Institutionalism ‘Old’ and ‘New’ ’’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 41 (2): 270–77. Seth, Torsten (2004) WTO och den internationella handelsordningen. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Simon, Herbert A. (1991) “Organizations and markets”, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5 (2): 25–44. Sjöstrand, Sven-Erik (1985) Samhällsorganisation. Lund: Doxa. Spiliopoulou Åkermark, S. (2004) “Soft Law and International Financial Institutions – Issues of Hard and Soft Law from a Lawyer’s Perspective” in Ulrika Mörth (ed.) Soft Law in Governance and Regulation. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Streeck, Wolfgang and Philippe C. Schmitter (1985) “Community, market, state – and associations? The prospective contribution of interest governance to social order” in Wolfgang Streeck and Philippe C. Schmitter (eds) Private Interest Government. Beyond market and state. Sage series in Neo-Corporatism. London: Sage Publications. Sugden, John and Alan Tomlinson (1998) FIFA and the Contest for World Football. Who rules the people’s game? Cambridge: Polity Press. Swartz, Erik (1994) Ledning och organisering av federationer. Stockholm: Nerenius & Santérus förlag. Tamm Hallström, Kristina (2004) Organizing International Standardization. ISO and the IASC in quest of authority. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Tharp, Paul A. (1971) Regional International Organizations. Structures and functions. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Thedvall, Renita (2006) Eurocrats at Work. Negotiating trans-

References

183

parency in postnational employment policy. Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology 58. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Thomas, George, M., John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez and John Boli (eds) (1987) Institutional Structure. Constituting state, society, and the individual. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Thompson, Grahame F. (2003) Between Hierarchies and Markets. The logic and limits of network forms of organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thompson, James (1967) Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw Hill. Tilly, Charles (1990) Coercion, Capital and European States. AD 990–1990. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Torekull, Bertil (1998) Historien om IKEA. Ingvar Kamprad berättar. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand. Tsebelis, George (2002) Veto Players. How political institutions work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. van Waarden, Frans (1992) “Emergence and development of business interest associations. An example from the Netherlands”, Organization Studies, 13 (4): 521–62. Vifell, Åsa (2006) Enklaver i staten. Internationalisering, demokrati och den svenska statsförvaltningen. Stockholm Studies in Politics 113. Stockholm University: Department of Political Science. Viklund, Daniel (1997) Att Förstå EU. Sverige och Europa. Fjärde upplagan. Stockholm: Norstedts. Warren, Mark E. (2001) Democracy and Association. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Warren, Roland L. (1967) “The interorganizational field as a focus of investigation’, Adminstrative Science Quarterly, 12 (3): 396–419. Weber, Max (1968) Economy and Society. G. Roth and C. Wittich (eds). Berkeley: University of California Press. Williamson, Oliver E. (1975) Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. New York: Free Press. Yearbook of International Organizations. Guide to global and

184

References

civil society networks (2003) Edition 40. 2003/2004. Edited by Union of International Associations, Volumes 1–5. Munich: K.G. Saur. Zeitlin, Jonathan and Philippe Pochet (2005) (eds) The Open Method of Coordination in Action. The European employment and social inclusion strategies. Brussels: PIE-Peter Lang SA.

Index Amnesty International 3, 151, 158 association 10–11, 47, 79, 85, 92, 95 Association of ICA-retailers (ICA) 39, 103, 135 Association of Swedish Higher Education (SUHF) 42, 96, 103, 118, 157 attempt 49, 51–2, 54, 56, 62–3, 155 authority 47, 61, 113, 119, 126–7, 133, 138–9, 143–5, 164 autonomy 3, 13, 45–8, 55, 58, 61, 93, 110–12, 122, 139, 159 award 115 bargaining 114, 121–2 Birdlife International 24–5, 69, 78, 85, 100 boundary 64, 167 bureaucracy 6, 44 collaboration 40, 56, 66, 68, 73, 77, 136, 147–8, 170 Community of European Management Schools and International Companies (CEMS) 27–8, 72, 86, 90, 99, 110, 152 competition 61, 65, 67–8, 101–3, 109, 112, 136 confederation 9, 13–14, 140 conference 25, 41, 79, 165

conflict 37, 60, 77, 100, 107–10, 112, 117–18, 121–4, 128, 135, 138, 143–5, 147, 161 congress 26, 31, 35, 37, 129 consensus 13, 37, 39, 117, 123–4, 129, 145 culture 2, 50–51, 54, 58 decision-making 25, 37, 46, 81, 107, 120, 123–4, 128–9, 133, 143–5 democracy 74, 119–20, 134, 168–9 dependence 60, 62, 85–8, 91, 114–16, 143, 170 equal 3, 11, 92 equality 118, 144 ethical code 31, 73, 128 rules 32, 66, 73 European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) 42, 68, 72 European Parking Association (EPA) 17, 30–31, 66, 72, 81, 115, 120, 123, 157 European Union (EU) 44, 68, 74, 81, 86, 108, 110–11, 115, 124–5, 130–31, 135, 138–9, 140–41, 146, 156, 166 exit 60, 89, 116–17, 144, expertise 129–30, 136–7 failure 51–2, 83, 132, 134, 141 185

186

Index

Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) 15, 39, 67–8, 83, 106, 107, 117, 119, 157 Federation of Swedish Industries 32–5, 75, 78, 100, 112, 120, 123, 137 federalism 12–13 field see organizational field firm 10–11, 56, 95, 111 Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) 41, 69, 92, 118 free-rider 81, 147 G-14 42, 68, 106, 117–18 globalization 1, 3–4, 15, 28, 149–51, 155–63, 165, 167–71 governance 3, 4, 14, 162–3 hierarchy 45, 48, 51–2, 163 identity 3, 6–7, 55, 58, 60–61, 66, 70, 72–4, 77, 80, 84–5, 88, 90, 92–5, 97–100, 110–12, 123, 143–6, 152, 160–61, 164, 171 IGO 21 IKEA 3, 84, 159 INGO 21–2 institution 6, 8, 10, 17, 44, 48, 50–53, 155, 168, 172 International Air Transport Association (IATA) 40, 67–8, 109, 151 International Cremation Federation (ICF) 25–6, 66, 158, 160, 166 International Egg Commission (IEC) 40–41, 66, 115 International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement (IFOAM) 26–7, 41, 81, 104, 120 International Labour Organization

(ILO) 39, 82–3, 125, 130 international organization 13, 15 International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 15, 38, 66, 79, 118, 120, 130 joint venture 92 KRAV 41, 92 labour union 3, 18, 41, 53–4, 69, 79, 103–4, legitimacy 10, 47, 73, 80, 97, 102, 119, 123, 159, 160, 169 monopoly 46, 60, 63, 88–90, 117, 136, 144, 147, 169 negotiations 31, 121, 133 NGO 21, 24–5 network 6, 45, 163–5 norm 54–5, 118, 120 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 40, 66, 115, 119, 130, 152 organizational field 64–5 persuade 143 persuasion 121, 126 power 4, 10–11, 13, 34, 49, 63, 69, 145, 167 project 92, 147, 166 regime 6, 44 sanctions 46, 48, 63, 67, 74, 115, 127, 130, 155, 164 similarity 11, 33, 59–60, 70–71, 73, 77, 82, 93, 95, 99–105, 113, 132, 135–7, 145, 148, 157–8, 161

Index

size 59, 64, 78, 81, 105, 118, 120, 134 standards 124–8, 130, 145, 147, 153–5, 168–9 states 3, 10–14, 21, 44, 47, 49, 51, 53–4, 63, 65, 67–71, 73–4, 76, 78, 85–6, 89–90, 94, 96, 98, 108, 112, 117–18, 140, 146, 149–50, 154, 156–7, 162–3, 166–9, 171 status 55, 70, 72–4, 76, 83, 87 success 51, 88, 132, 134–5, 141 Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA) 35–8, 70, 77, 85–6, 95–6, 99, 102, 108, 120, 137 Swedish Association of Management Consultants (SAMC) 40 Swedish Association of Temporary Work Businesses and Staffing Services (SPUR) 31–2, 67–8, 72–3, 80, 96 Swedish Floorball Federation (SFF) 28–30, 76, 78 Swedish Parking Association (SVEPARK) 17, 30–31, 72–3, 102

187

trade association 34, 65, 70–71, 75, 79, 96–7, 136 trade union see labour union trust 160–61, 164 umbrella organizations 9 Universal Postal Union (UPU) 15, 39, 66, 79, 97–8, 151, 155–6 United Nations (UN) 3, 44, 53, 70–71, 111, 117, 125, 152, 154, 156 veto 123, 129 votes 120, 144 voting 24–5, 27, 113, 118–19, 124, 144 World Trade Organization (WTO) 41–2, 44, 124, 131, 157, 166, 169 Yearbook of International Organizations 16, 18–19, 21 zone of indifference 46, 79, 114, 124–5, 138