Organization Outside Organizations

"The book explores how various social settings are partially organized even when they do not form part of a formal organization. It also shows how evenformal organizations may be only partially organized. Professors Göran Ahrne and Nils Brunsson first established the concept of partial organization in 2011 and in doing so opened up a ground-breaking new field of organizational analysis. An academic community has since developed around the concept, and Ahrne and Brunsson have edited this collection to reflect the current state of inquiry in this burgeoning subject and to set an agenda for future research. Its chapters explain how organization is a salient feature in many social settings, including markets, interfirm networks, social movements, criminal gangs, internet communication and family life. Organization theory is much more relevant for the understanding of social processes than previously assumed. This book provides a new understanding of many social phenomena and opens up new fields for organizational analysis"-- "Organization Unbound Goran Ahrne and Nils Brunsson How can an airplane land on another continent? How can we know that exotic fruits at the grocery shop have been produced in a relatively fair way? How is it that we can learn about some universities being better than others - even universities on the other side of the globe? How are we able to know which scientists are among the most outstanding in the world? In order to answer such questions, one must realize that all these phenomena rely on organization. Contemporary everyday life is rife with organization. Working life contains much organization, but consumers also encounter various forms of organization in shops and restaurants. Leisure activities such as sports or tourism involve a substantial degree of organization, as does the Internet. One can even speak of 'hyper organization' as a characteristic of the contemporary world: 'Faced with any problematic situations, the modern impulse is to create more organizational structures.' (Bromley & Meyer, 2015: 4)"--