Structural Dynamics within and between Organizations

Abstract

I am grateful to many colleagues for their comments on previous versions of this manuscript. Special thanks to Eric Abrahamson, R. Kabaliswaran, Michael Rosen, and the reviewers and editors of ASQ for helpful discussions along the way. The development of this paper was supported in part by a grant from the Tenneco Fund Program at the Graduate School of Business Administration, New York University. Theories of structure have artificially segregated various streams of research on intraorganizational and interorganizational relations. This paper recasts the concept of structure as an instantaneous correspondence between an infrastructure, a sociostructure, and a superstructurethree manifestations of collective life joined through a dynamic juxtaposition of technological solutions, political exchanges, and social interpretations in and around organizations. These levels are shown to describe reflexive yet partially autonomous realmswhose progressive interrelatedness is governed by processes of convergence and divergence, thereby supporting both stability and change in social relationships within organizations, populations, and communities. Ultimately, it is argued, structuring can be understood as a dialectical unfolding of relations between embedded social actors that translates individual action into societal consequences.