Authority, Organization, and Societal Context in Multinational Churches
Author(s)
Nelson, Reed E.
Abstract
While most research on authority in organizations has been limited to rational-legal bureaucracies, a study reviews Max Weber’s 3 pure types of legitimate authority – rational-legal, traditional, and charismatic – and explores the relationship between authority type, organizational form, societal environment, and organizational outcomes for 3 multinational churches. The study compares and contrasts the Christian Congregations, the Assemblies of God, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS or Mormon) in the US and Brazil, with each denomination typifying a different Weberian type of authority but coexisting in the same social and institutional environment. Implications of these cases for both Weberian and institutional theory are then developed. Neither Weberian nor institutional theory has articulated specific predictions about the comparative performance of diverse authority systems across nations.
