On the fruitfulness of the concept of partial organization: A rejoinder to Apelt et al.

Abstract

This short paper responds to Apelt et al.’s (2017) comments on Ahrne et al.'s (2016) proposal of extending the concept of organization to any decided social orders and thereby putting organization studies at the centre of the social sciences. We highlight some misunderstandings about the aims of this proposal and discuss Apelt et al.’s own proposal of re-focusing organization studies on formal organizations based on Niklas Luhmann's systems theory.