Meta-organization as partial organization: An integrated framework of organizationality and decisionality

Meta-organizations often lack the monitoring and sanctioning power associated with the organization of individuals, and thus they can be considered to be partially organized. Little research investigates the extent to which meta-organizations, in general, and clusters in particular, are organized. The current meta-organization literature thus perpetuates an implicit assumption that all meta-organizations are equally incomplete. We challenge this assumption and theorize variations in meta-organizations' organizational structures. To do so, we transpose the partial organization concept and specify at the meta-organization level: 1) degrees of structural organizationality, as measured by the selective combination of membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanctioning, and 2) degrees of what we call decisionality, that is, the extent to which each organizational component is itself the object of decisions. By combining structural organizationality and decisionality, we identify four main meta-organizing dynamic profiles: thin partial meta-organization, thin meta-organizing, thick partial metaorganizing, and thick meta-organizing. We contribute to current efforts to advance metaorganization theory and provide an analytical tool to investigate this phenomenon while providing a better understanding of clusters as social actors.