Complex Social Organization: Multiple Organizing Modes, Structural Incongruence, and Mechanisms of Integration

Abstract

This article conceptualizes and analyses a type of complex social organization consisting of heterogeneous organizing modes and social relationships, combining, for instance, relationships making up markets and hierarchies as well as various types of informal networks. Each mode is constituted and regulated on the basis of a system of social rules making up a particular normative order and operates in terms of its own particular rationality or social logic. When modes are combined or integrated into multi‐institutional complexes or organizations, the resultant structure entails zones of incongruence and tension at the junctures or interfaces of the different organizing modes and social relationships. The article identifies a number of such incongruent organizing modes that are common in complex social organizations or inter‐ institutional complexes. It goes on to identify several of the institutional strategies and arrangements including rituals, non‐task‐oriented discourses, and mediating roles that actors develop and institutionalize in dealing effectively with incongruences and potential conflicts in complex, heterogeneous organizations. The article suggests that problems of structural incongruence ‐ and the tensions and conflicts that arise in connection with it as well as responses to these ‐ are major features of complex organizational and inter‐institutional arrangements. Moreover, it suggests that social order ‐ the shaping of congruent, meaningful experiences ‐ in these complex organizations as in most social life builds on non‐rational foundations such as rituals and non‐instrumental discourses. These contribute to maintaining social order and to providing a stable context, even for rational decision‐making and action.