Collective action among organizations is increasing and needs to take new adaptive forms. Literature has recently started to investigate these flexible organizational devices, ranging from formal meta-organization—organizations which members are themselves organizations (Ahrne and Brunsson 2008, Berkowitz and Dumez 2015)— to more partial or transitory inter-organizational forms such as permanent cooperations, partnerships, projects and so on (Gulati et al. 2012, Jones and Lichtenstein 2008). The degree of partiality (Ahrne and Brunsson 2010) often varies. When collective action among organizations develops, it integrates more or less of several elements among hierarchy, membership, rules, monitoring and sanctions.

Meta-organizations cover international government organizations such as WTO and non-governmental such as Star Alliance, FIFA, CEMS, etc. Transitory organizations describe energy megaprojects, inter-organizational collaborations, and world sports events coordination. Reasons to set these up are numerous, from the need for collective CSR, to standardization, governance of transnational projects, collaboration between consumer associations, etc. We welcome case studies with strong theoretical implications, covering the empirical diversity: organization among firms, among stakeholders such as NGO, governments, municipalities, temporary organizations, social movements, standardization, etc.

We want to investigate these manageable types of cooperation. Our current understanding of collective action involving organizations is limited by the lack of a strong theorizing to conceptualize rationale, dynamics and processes of collective action organizing. Especially, the creation process of meta-organizations and other forms is not well known: from the decision process (creating an organization of organizations) to the choice of an organizational form (partial or complete, formal or informal, profit or non-profit, transitory or permanent…), or of membership (businesses, universities, governments, associations, civil society…). The dynamics of these organizational forms (stability, life and death) and their efficiency are also key topics that papers submitted to the call could address.

We welcome you to join us in Paris in June 2016 !

More information and submission process on Euram website

Deadline for submission: 12th of January 2016 (2 pm Belgian time)

References

Ahrne, G., N. Brunsson. 2005. "Organizations and meta-organizations".Scandinavian Journal of Management, 21(4), pp. 429–449.

Ahrne, G., N. Brunsson. 2008. Meta-organizations. Cheltenham, Glos, UK; Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar Publishing.

Ahrne, G., N. Brunsson. 2010. "Organization outside organizations: the significance of partial organization". Organization 18(1) 83–104.

Ahrne, G., N. Brunsson. 2010. "L’organisation en dehors des organisations ou l'organisation incomplète", Le Libellio d’AEGIS, 6(1), pp. 1-20

Berkowitz, H., H. Dumez. 2015. "La dynamique des dispositifs d’action collective entre firmes: le cas des méta-organisations dans le secteur pétrolier". Année Sociologique. 65(2).

Gulati, R., P. Puranam, M. Tushman. 2012. "Meta-organization design: Rethinking design in interorganizational and community contexts". Strategic Management Journal 33(6) 571–586.

Jones, C., B. B. Lichtenstein. 2008. Temporary inter-organizational projects: how temporal and social embeddedness enhance coordination and manage uncertainty. Oxf. Handb. Inter-Organ. Relat. 231–255.