Meta-Organizations: A Clarification and a Way Forward

Abstract

In this introduction, we reemphasize some key parts of meta-organization theory and their implications for understanding meta-organizations and meta-organizing processes. We clarify what meta-organizations are and what they are not and then analyze their key purposes and activities. We then present the papers of the special issue and discuss venues for future research. Although many key contributions have been made to meta-organization theory and research, there are many more things to investigate before we know as much about meta-organizations as we know about individual-based organizations.

Keywords

• meta-organization
• meta-organizing
• partial organization
• organization theory