institutionalization is the Quakers. The Society of Friends has been around since the mid-1600s and currently has over 300,000 members who participate in a religious
organization which avoids centralization, hierarchy and official positions of status (Leach 2005). However, Quakers have not traditionally been an evangelical group. Although some variation does exist, they do not typically proselytize or actively attempt to convert new members. The theories of legitimacy and institutionalization that I am using here assume a desire for growth as fundamental. This makes them a less than perfect
corollary. While the Quakers may provide a compelling example of an organization with similar characteristics to that which I propose to study, the lack of a desire for rapid organizational growth and ideology dissemination makes them somewhat problematic.
Religious scholars concerned with organizations have identified the location of authority, organization of labor, system of governance, the role of professionals, and ideology as the most common dimensions of religious organizations and thus, the components subject to the most isomorphic pressures (Benson and Dorsett 1971;
Demerath et al. 1998; Harris 1998; Sider and Unruh 2004). These components line up with structure, process and ideology definition of an organization described above. Any serious examination of institutionalization and legitimacy must necessarily begin with these components in mind. I discuss each of these in depth in chapters below.
examination of organizations which resist institutionalization and seek and obtain
legitimacy is a necessary component of organizational and institutional scholarship which is currently missing. In chapter 2 I describe the unique social and historical conditions which produced the religious environment and particular cases which are the focus of this study. I identify the important characteristics which impacted the eventual structure, processes and ideology of the organizations examined. In chapter 3 I provide an overview of the methods used for data collection and analysis and I argue that the extended case method is a useful methodological approach for studying organizations which fall outside of the mainstream and thus challenge current conceptions of organizational development. Heretofore, this method has been underutilized by
institutional and organizational scholars. I also describe in detail the characteristics of the congregations included in this study.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 take up the structure, processes and ideology of the resistant religious organization. Specifically I argue that resistant organizations create a fluid organizational structure by adopting a shifting base of authority, a labor of the willing, and context specific governance. Additionally, organizational procedures are kept dynamic by employing a system of unregulated discretion which relies on trained professionals as little as possible. Finally, I examine the successes and failings of the holistic ideology created by the organizations in this study as they attempt to resist the institutionalization of an organizational culture.
Chapter 7 concludes by integrating the empirical findings of the dissertation into the beginning of a more general theory of organizational resistance. Specifically, I offer the metaphor of the gyroscope to describe the resistant organization as opposed to the
imagery of the iron cage offered by Weber and Powell and DiMaggio. Additionally, I discuss how resistant organizations are able to be successful not in spite of their avoidance of taken for granted routines and procedures, but because of them.
1.6.2 Conclusion
In this chapter I have argued that we can gain a better understanding of the organizational landscape by maintaining a distinction between institutionalization and legitimacy. In particular, this conceptual clarity makes the existence of organizations which are lowly institutionalized and highly legitimate a theoretical possibility. I have sketched a general outline of what processes and structures researchers of resistant organizations might expect to find based on the insights of both old and new institutional scholars. In the chapters below, I will use organizations which actively, consciously resist the supposedly inevitable movement toward institutionalization in order to delineate this concept of organizational resistance further. The findings will be
applicable to the sociology of religion and organizational studies in particular as well as to the discipline of sociology in general by providing a general framework by which we can understand organizations and social objects which avoid institutionalization.
Weber (2002 [1930]) recognized the ability of religion to serve as a foundation or organizing framework for other institutions. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, he details how the development of Protestantism, specifically Calvinism, had an elective affinity with capitalism by providing a general ethic or ethos which helped support and sustain the development of the economic system. He documents how bureaucratic, rational, religious structures with a focus on personal salvation helped fuel
the rise of capitalism. It would be foolish to suggest that in modern society so marked by religious pluralism and institutionalization, especially in the global West, that a shift in religious structure and belief systems could foretell or cause an economic shift on par with the development of modern capitalism. No, religion as an institution simply doesn’t have the authority it once did. It is not inconceivable, however, that a new religious group, able to obtain legitimacy by assuming a different organizational form and belief system might contribute to ushering in a corresponding shift in other institutions, or at the very least be reflective of changes that have already or are currently occurring. Of
course, the truth probably lies somewhere in between these two options. It will be the ultimate task of this dissertation to give some indication of how pervasive these organizations are, how they work, and what their ramification is across institutions.
CHAPTER II
HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF THE EMERGING CHURCH