THE MESO PARADIGM - A FRAMEWORK FOR THE INTEGRATION OF MICRO AND MACRO ORGANIZATIONAL-BEHAVIOR

One-third of the articles that appeared in the Academy of Management Journal and Administrative Science Quarterly from 1988 through 1993 dealt with both micro and macro variables. Further, the number increased from 15 in 1988 to 28 in 1993. While there is an increasing interest in research that incorporates both micro and macro variables in the same theoretical formulation or research design, there is no coherent framework to guide, codify, accumulate, and integrate such research. In this paper we offer the meso paradigm to serve these functions. We define and describe what we mean by a meso paradigm. We provide a critique of the micro and macro paradigms. We show how the limitations of these paradigms inherently lead to misspecified theories of organizational behavior under identifying independent and dependent variables. We describe how micro and macro theory and research can be extended to include variables from other levels of analysis and thus be incorporated into the meso paradigm. We describe some exemplars of meso theory and research, and we advance a number of propositions concerning meso concepts and cross-level linkages between micro and macro phenomena. We describe how these propositions can enhance scholarly thinking about organizations. We conclude by suggesting an agenda for future meso research and the development of meso organizational theory.