Authority, Organization, and Societal Context in Multinational Churches

Abstract

Thanks are due to Thomas Burger, Cindy Lindsay, Monty Lynn, William McKinley, William McCusker, Charles Stubbart, Charles Vance, Rys Williams, and the reviewers for their helpful comments. While most research on authority in organizations has been limited to rational-legal bureaucracies, this paper reviews Weber's three 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 three multinational churches. The paper 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 U.S. and Brazil, 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, and propositions are advanced that might be used in future research.'