Meta-Organizational Design: Rethinking Design in Inter-Organizational and Community Contexts
Ranjay Gulati, Phanish Puranam, Michael L. Tushman · Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) · 2012
This paper provides conceptual foundations for analyzing organizations comprising multiple legally autonomous entities, which we call meta-organizations. We assess the antecedents of the emergence of such collectives and the design choices they entail. The paper identifies key parameters on which such meta-organizations' designs differ from each other. It also presents a taxonomy that elucidates how such forms of collective action vary and the constraints they must address to be successful. We conclude with implications for research on meta-organizational design.