Abstract
The August 2018 issue of Administration & Society features five articles offering a wide spectrum of perspectives on the nature of organizations in society. Ranging from the connection between social networks and organizational commitment, to the influence of the private interests of internal members on the behavior of nonprofits, to several perspectives on the place of nonprofit organizations in society, the articles offer valuable contributions to theorizing about organizations, the primary building blocks of societies.
One of the earliest articles offering broad, exploratory theorizing on organizations published in Administration & Society was Herbert Kaufman’s “The Natural History of Organizations” (1975). Kaufman proposed to use an evolutionary orientation to investigate “why human institutions ostensibly created and controlled by people seem to be governed by a momentum of their own” (p. 131). Kaufman wondered whether scholars could examine organizations through an evolutionary lens even though organizations do not, generally speaking, produce offspring, at least not in the biological reproductive sense. Yet he also pointed out that the birth rate of organizations was high, and he considered ways to think about organizational mortality and survival.
The study of organizations had already traveled a long road before Kaufman’s evolutionary musings, and theorizing about what goes on inside organizations and how they act in their broader environment has come a long way since. Because administration is only possible through organizations, investigating the complex dynamics of administration in society requires the ongoing study of organizations. Administration & Society will continue to be an important outlet for publication of scholarship, and especially theorizing, about organizations in their many, and especially public, forms.