ABSTRACT
In English, the word ‘organisation’ can refer to the act of organising, to the state of being organised or to an organised system. Each meaning emphasises activity: process and practices. Organisations are bounded networks of people – distinguished as members from non-members – following coordinated procedures: doing things together in interrelated and institutionalised ways. These procedures are specified explicitly or tacitly, formal or informally, in bodies of organisational common knowledge: organisationally specific symbolic universes, which may be subject to revision or confirmation and are transmitted to members through processes of organisational socialisation. Organisations are also networks of identifications – individually and collectively – which influence strongly who does what within those procedures, and how. These identifications – positions, offices, functions, jobs – are specified informally and formally by and in organisational common knowledge, as are the procedures for allocating or recruiting individuals to them.
