Modern society is facing several so-called “grand challenges”, i.e., fundamental societal problems such as climate change, species extinction, biodiversity loss, and environmental pollution (George et al., 2016). Recent research has repeatedly pointed out that international organizations play a crucial role when it comes to tackling grand challenges (Berkowitz et al., 2020; Andersen & Sarma, 2012; Chaudhury et al. 2016). The international organizations in question constitute almost always so-called “meta-organizations”, i.e., organizations that have other organizations as their members (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2008). Meta-organization theory asserts that such meta-organizations are fundamentally different from organizations that have individuals as their members, and that this specificity needs to be taken seriously. Meta-organization theory emerged in Scandinavian sociology and has become well-established in international organization studies (Bres et al. 2018; Coulombel & Berkowitz 2025). Meta-organizations are autonomous actors, which have autonomous actors as their members. As such they feature a unique complexity of layered, intermeshing social orders and processes that other organizations do not have. Meta-organizations consequently have special governance structures and often compete with their member organizations for autonomy and power. 

Despite their importance for tackling grand challenges, we only have limited knowledge of how meta-organizations can successfully contribute to sustainability transitions. Indeed, there is a myriad of research on how international organizations tackle societal challenges. However, these works usually build on theories that are grounded in the assumption that members of organizations are individuals (Ahrne et al. 2016). As a consequence, we still know relatively little about the specific meta-organizational conditions that enable certain meta-organizations to successfully tackle issues such as the Ozone Hole, while others fail. 

Against this backdrop, the project will answer several calls for researching meta-organizations in the context of grand challenges (e.g., Berkowitz, 2018). The specific project focuses on the issue of ocean governance. Oceans are particularly relevant in terms of grand challenges, because they are subject to multiple and combined threats of ongoing pollution, global warming, and unsustainable fishing and whaling practices. Accordingly, marine ecosystems are at risk of collapse in the course of potential species extinctions and biodiversity losses (Springer et al. 2003). Meta-organizations such as the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) play a crucial part in tackling these challenges. For instance, the IWC has been eminent in preventing whale species extinctions in the past decades thereby saving marine ecosystems from collapse. Informed by (meta-)organization theory, the project will conduct research on meta-organizations involved in ocean governance and investigate cases of success and failure to derive insights on organizational conditions for successfully tackling grand challenges.

Grothe-Hammer, M., & Rachlitz, K. (2025). Multi-organizational couplings of societal domains: a typology of meta-organizations in a functionally differentiated society. Theory and Society.

Berkowitz, H., & Grothe-Hammer, M. (2022). From a clash of social orders to a loss of decidability in meta-organizations tackling grand challenges: The case of Japan leaving the International Whaling Commission. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 79, 115-138. Open Access.