Organizational boundary definition and the micropolitics of organization-constituency relationships and organizational autonomy

Organizational boundaries have most often been studied for their role in regulating organization-environment exchanges and, in this way, promoting or impeding organizational survival. In contrast, scant attention has been paid to the first-order problem of how and why organizational boundaries are defined and redefined as they are, and with what specific consequences for organization-environment relationships and organizations themselves. Using data from participant-observation, interviews, and organizational documents, I examine how and why one community-based HIV/AIDS service organization in New York City defined and redefined its boundaries with various constituent groups in the environment, and how different boundary definitions played out in different amounts or kinds of organizational autonomy. I find that the relationship between organizational boundary definition processes and products and organizational autonomy turns on shared purposes. That is, I find a positive causal relationship between organizational boundary definitions and organizational autonomy when the distinctions these definitions draw also invoke a more fundamental similarity between the organization and the constituency in question. More specifically, I find this to be the case when the similarity pertains to organizational mission. Thus, I conclude that organization-constituency power relationships rest not only on material resources but also on symbolic and social ones.