An ontology of meta-organization: Variations in attributes, functions and profiles

Meta-organizations are everywhere. They attend to several important matters like lobbying, pooling resources, negotiating prices, regulating members, diffusing global standards, or tackling social and environmental problems. Yet we still understand relatively little about the theoretical commonalities and differences among the many forms that meta-organizations can take, from trade associations to food cooperatives, standard organizations and multi-stakeholder initiatives. In this paper, we identify a) seven common MO attributes, e.g. organization-based, partial organization, inter-organizational space, membership granularity; b) four MO logics, that of membership, influence, goal-setting and rule-setting; c) four great functions of meta-organizing, i.e. services provision, boundary work, representation and governance work; and d) three perimeters of action, i.e. scope, specificity and sector level of mandates. We then offer not just one single closed-ended categorization of MO, but provide several open-ended variations of meta-organization and meta-organizing based on membership type and segmentation, perimeters and functions. In particular, we propose four main profiles: advocacy, transformative, regulatory-intermediation and field-entrepreneur MO. Finally, we propose a holistic and integrative analytical framework including metrics and indicators of impact, which outlines a multifaceted ontology of meta-organization and meta-organizing.