Communities, Organizing and Organizations: A Review and an Institutional Logics Perspective

Abstract

Almost a decade ago, community was conceptualized as a distinctive institutional logic, providing social and cultural resources to its members, influencing organizations, and determining community-organization relationships. However, some more recent studies challenge this view, stating that the community logic does not exist, or exposing that it is not even followed by community groups themselves. Acknowledging the implications of this theoretical puzzle for organization theorists, we review 172 papers published in highly ranked organization and management journals during the past 30 years and summarize insights on four types of communities for which discussion has flourished: communities of place, of practice, of users, and of firms. Next, we conduct pattern matching to explore whether these four types adhere to the community logic. Our findings reveal the existence of a unique community logic, which is consistent across different types of communities and forms the basis for a comparative research agenda. Furthermore, we show that multiple logics compete for influence and primacy against the community logic and create instances of institutional complexity. In doing so, we specify the unique principles and categorical elements coming from the community logic and those coming from conflicting institutional logics and draw implications for communities and community-organization relationships. The paper ends by emphasizing the benefits of applying the institutional logics lens to communities and points to future research avenues.