THE SOCIAL INVENTION OF COLLECTIVE ACTORS - ON THE RISE OF THE ORGANIZATION

Since the middle of the 19th century, the formal organization has been constructed as a legitimate collective actor in and of itself. How di d it rise to sit alongside the nation-state as one of the principal fo rms of collective action in modem society? The authors argue that the scientific epistemology of the Enlightenment provided a model in which the social world, like the natural world, was to be understood throug h the classification of forms and the enumeration of particular instan tiations. Individuals deliberately created the modern organization by asserting a universal form through the symbolization of isomorphism an d by enumerating individual identities through the symbolization of cu ltural identity. Neoinstitutional theory documents the first process, whereas organizational theory documents the second. The authors argue that these two theories highlight different aspects of a single proces s: the social invention of the organization as collective actor.